Carlo Emilio Gadda and the Siglo de Oro: Translation as “open work”

This article examines Carlo Emilio Gadda's translations of two Spanish texts from the Siglo de Oro. In the first section, by situating Gadda's translations in the context of the “rediscovery” of the Baroque in Italy, his work is presented as the result not only of his literary preferences and long acquaintance with Baroque literature, but also as the product of an activity that fully engages with its contemporary cultural system. In the second section, the goal is to read Gadda's translations through the lens of Umberto Eco's “open work”, a notion that stemmed in part from the same context of rediscovery of the Baroque in the 1950s.