"Make it new": When Luigi Meneghello transplanted “silly” Yeats

Abstract

The essay explores how Meneghello translated some of Yeats’s poems into the dialect of Vicenza. Yeats’s compositions became a source of sustenance for the poet from Malo, offering profound insights into various aspects of life and art. Meneghello’s fascination with Yeats led him to undertake the translations of his works into the Vicentine dialect, resulting in the collection Trapianti, consisting of seventeen compositions by Yeats, and showcasing Meneghello’s skill in capturing the essence and rhythmic tension of the originals while infusing them with new life and meaning.