Understanding the dynamics of cultural transfer requires the analysis of specific cases, seemingly minute and isolated, but highly representative of an era and a cultural atmosphere. My study does not intend to focus on the general reception of Fenelon’s Les aventures de Telemaque in the Romanian space, but on the translation realized and printed in Buda in 1818 by Petru Maior, one of the most important figures on the cultural scene of those years, and a leading exponent of the so-called Transylvanian School. What makes the interest in this translation even more acute is not only the authority of its author, but also the fact that the translation was not based on the French original, but on a hitherto unidentified Italian intermediary. In the present study I propose a hypothesis for the identification of this Italian source, thus solving a small philological ‘mystery.’ Such an operation, carried out on the basis of linguistic-lexical criteria, is not only of interest in the research of the source, but is also extremely useful for the understanding of the nature of the cultural and linguistic transfer operated by the Transylvanian philologist.
Transfer culturale e intermediazione linguistica: Il caso del "Telemaco" di Petru Maior
Federico Donatiello
2025
Abstract
Understanding the dynamics of cultural transfer requires the analysis of specific cases, seemingly minute and isolated, but highly representative of an era and a cultural atmosphere. My study does not intend to focus on the general reception of Fenelon’s Les aventures de Telemaque in the Romanian space, but on the translation realized and printed in Buda in 1818 by Petru Maior, one of the most important figures on the cultural scene of those years, and a leading exponent of the so-called Transylvanian School. What makes the interest in this translation even more acute is not only the authority of its author, but also the fact that the translation was not based on the French original, but on a hitherto unidentified Italian intermediary. In the present study I propose a hypothesis for the identification of this Italian source, thus solving a small philological ‘mystery.’ Such an operation, carried out on the basis of linguistic-lexical criteria, is not only of interest in the research of the source, but is also extremely useful for the understanding of the nature of the cultural and linguistic transfer operated by the Transylvanian philologist.
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