This book investigates the intricate connections between retranslation and the profound socio-cultural changes that have shaped Western cultures over the past two centuries. The collected essays address issues such as literary reception, the renewal of literary canons, readers’ expectations and tastes, the transformation of aesthetic values and linguistic standards, the changing status of translators and the position of translated texts in the target polysystems.

Drawing on diverse approaches and methodologies, the volume examines publishing history, literary reception, canon formation and the role of texts and paratexts. It offers an original perspective on the methods, purposes and motivations behind retranslation, underlining the historical dimension of a practice that has always been linked to the transformations of the target cultures and their ways of approaching foreignness.

Alessandro Amenta is Associate Professor of Polish Language and Translation at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. His research interests include translation and retranslation studies, literary onomastics, Polish speculative fiction, interwar and post-1989 literature, gender and queer studies in Central and Eastern Europe.

Natascia Barrale is Associate Professor of German Literature at the University of Palermo. Her main research interests are twentieth-century German literature and translation studies, with particular reference to the Italian reception of German literature, the censorship of translation and the relationship between translation and ideology.

Chiara Sinatra is Associate Professor of Spanish Language and Translation at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. Her main research interests concern critical discourse analysis, the pragmatic implications of translation and retranslation, self-translation and the relationship between translation and identity.