Some time ago I came across a tiny collection of poems called Chungu tamu by Theobald Mvungi. The author was born in Mwanga province (Kilimanjaro) probably in the Fifties, as he graduated from the University of Dar es Salaam in 1975 and gained his M.Ed. degree in Nigeria (Ibadan) in 1978. He published his first collection of poems, Raha karaha, in 1982 and his third one, Mashairiya Chekacheka, in 1995. All Mwangi`s poems deal with social problems, but only those of the second collection are formally innovative. Five of the twenty poems of this collection tell a story and I am going to investigate three of them. It is striking and quite unusual in Swahili poetry to present the narration itself as another story. However, it is not the first time that it occurs in modern Swahili poetry. In fact, for instance Kezilahabi´s poem Hadithiya kitoto (from the collection Kichomi, 1974) opens with the scene of the narrator - the grandfather - sitting close to a fire with his grandchildren who want to be told a story, while roasting birds and potatoes. The last two strophes contain grandfather´s comment, i.e. a moral message. Thus the narrative act itself is represented, as it often happens in prose fiction. But whereas in Kezilahabi it only opens or frames the main story, in Mvungi the narrator´s interferences are intermingled with the main story to such an extent that in fact two parallel stories are narrated. I will call them the frame story and the main story.

The paper discusses articulations of personality and communication structures in the lyric: who is speaking in a poem? What is the status of the person who speaks, or the one who is spoken about? Is it the author himself who is speaking, or is it someone else – an autonomous being, completely different and detached from the subject developed in the text? Who is addressed in and by a poem? It is made clear that conventional concepts of Stimmung (mood), Erlebnis (experience), and lyrisches Ich (the ›lyric I‹) should be set aside and the nature of lyric communication should be redetermined. For this purpose, a precise examination of the specific use of personal pronouns in poems is necessary, especially of the pronouns ›I‹, ›you‹ and ›we‹. The indistinct ›lyric I‹ should be substituted by the term ›articulated I‹. The poetic text as a whole is being structured by a superordinate entity, the Textsubjekt (›textual subject‹). Every speaking entity in a poem has a counterpart being addressed by it. Analyzing communication structures in poetry thus means first of all looking for an addressee who is constituted by the text. Only in a second step should we figure out if the address refers to the intended reader.

O poeta milanês Giuseppe Parini (1729-1799), embora ocupe um papel de destaque na história da literatura italiana no século XVIII, não é estudado no Brasil, inclusive dentro do ambiente acadêmico voltado aos estudos da italianística. Seu poema narrativo Il Giorno é considerado uma das mais importantes obras do Settecento italiano, apresentando uma dura crítica à nobreza do século XVIII por meio de uma sátira que busca se opor à poesia árcade sentimental em voga na época. O poema de Parini serviu de inspiração para grandes autores da literatura italiana estudados atualmente inclusive no Brasil, como Giacomo Leopardi, Alessandro Manzoni e Ugo Foscolo. Original, clássico e, ao mesmo tempo, atual, Il Giorno é uma obra que merece ser incluída nos estudos de literatura da academia brasileira e, portanto, necessita de uma versão comentada e anotada em língua portuguesa. Entendemos que sua ausência nos estudos dos italianistas brasileiros deva-se sobretudo à dificuldade de compreensão do poema, repleto de latinismos e figuras de linguagem e som, e julgamos que apresentar uma tradução comentada de ao menos uma parte Il Giorno é uma forma de incentivar o contato de professores, pesquisadores e estudantes com esse grande autor e, dessa forma, torná-lo conhecido em nosso meio acadêmico. Portanto, apresentamos uma tradução comentada de Il Mattino, primeira parte da obra. Trata-se de uma tradução estrangeirizante, que preserva os arcaísmos e rebuscamentos do poema italiano, fundamentais em sua constituição como obra satírica ao se contrapor ao assunto narrado na obra: o dia a dia superficial e irrelevante de um jovem membro da aristocracia italiana do século XVIII. / Although the Milanese poet Giuseppe Parini (1729-1799) plays a prominent role in the history of Italian literature of the eighteenth century, he is not studied in Brazil, not even within the academic community focused on Italian studies. His narrative poem Il Giorno is considered one of the most important works of the Italian Settecento: it presents a harsh criticism to the nobility of the eighteenth century by means of a satire that seeks to oppose itself to the sentimental Arctic poetry, very much in vogue at the time. Parinis poem was an inspiration for great Italian writers that are studied nowadays, in Brazil as well as abroad, such as Leopardi, Manzoni and Ugo Foscolo. Original, classic and modern at the same time, Il Giorno deserves to be included in the literature studies of the Brazilian academic community, and, therefore, needs an annotated version in Brazilian Portuguese. We understand that its absence in the field of Italian studies in Brazil is dewed mainly to the difficulty of its comprehension, full of Latinisms and stylistic literary devices, and we believe that an annotated translation of at least one part of Il Giorno is a way to encourage teachers, researchers and students to get in touch with this great writer and, thereby, make him known in our academic community. Therefore, we present an annotated translation of Il Mattino, the first part of Il Giorno. It is a foreignization translation, with all the archaisms and refinements of the Italian poem, considering that those archaisms and refinements, when countering the subject narrated in the work the superficial and irrelevant day-to-day of a young member of the Italian aristocracy of the eighteenth century , are fundamental to the formation of the poem as a satiric work.

O poeta milanês Giuseppe Parini (1729-1799), embora ocupe um papel de destaque na história da literatura italiana no século XVIII, não é estudado no Brasil, inclusive dentro do ambiente acadêmico voltado aos estudos da italianística. Seu poema narrativo Il Giorno é considerado uma das mais importantes obras do Settecento italiano, apresentando uma dura crítica à nobreza do século XVIII por meio de uma sátira que busca se opor à poesia árcade sentimental em voga na época. O poema de Parini serviu de inspiração para grandes autores da literatura italiana estudados atualmente inclusive no Brasil, como Giacomo Leopardi, Alessandro Manzoni e Ugo Foscolo. Original, clássico e, ao mesmo tempo, atual, Il Giorno é uma obra que merece ser incluída nos estudos de literatura da academia brasileira e, portanto, necessita de uma versão comentada e anotada em língua portuguesa. Entendemos que sua ausência nos estudos dos italianistas brasileiros deva-se sobretudo à dificuldade de compreensão do poema, repleto de latinismos e figuras de linguagem e som, e julgamos que apresentar uma tradução comentada de ao menos uma parte Il Giorno é uma forma de incentivar o contato de professores, pesquisadores e estudantes com esse grande autor e, dessa forma, torná-lo conhecido em nosso meio acadêmico. Portanto, apresentamos uma tradução comentada de Il Mattino, primeira parte da obra. Trata-se de uma tradução estrangeirizante, que preserva os arcaísmos e rebuscamentos do poema italiano, fundamentais em sua constituição como obra satírica ao se contrapor ao assunto narrado na obra: o dia a dia superficial e irrelevante de um jovem membro da aristocracia italiana do século XVIII. / Although the Milanese poet Giuseppe Parini (1729-1799) plays a prominent role in the history of Italian literature of the eighteenth century, he is not studied in Brazil, not even within the academic community focused on Italian studies. His narrative poem Il Giorno is considered one of the most important works of the Italian Settecento: it presents a harsh criticism to the nobility of the eighteenth century by means of a satire that seeks to oppose itself to the sentimental Arctic poetry, very much in vogue at the time. Parinis poem was an inspiration for great Italian writers that are studied nowadays, in Brazil as well as abroad, such as Leopardi, Manzoni and Ugo Foscolo. Original, classic and modern at the same time, Il Giorno deserves to be included in the literature studies of the Brazilian academic community, and, therefore, needs an annotated version in Brazilian Portuguese. We understand that its absence in the field of Italian studies in Brazil is dewed mainly to the difficulty of its comprehension, full of Latinisms and stylistic literary devices, and we believe that an annotated translation of at least one part of Il Giorno is a way to encourage teachers, researchers and students to get in touch with this great writer and, thereby, make him known in our academic community. Therefore, we present an annotated translation of Il Mattino, the first part of Il Giorno. It is a foreignization translation, with all the archaisms and refinements of the Italian poem, considering that those archaisms and refinements, when countering the subject narrated in the work the superficial and irrelevant day-to-day of a young member of the Italian aristocracy of the eighteenth century , are fundamental to the formation of the poem as a satiric work.

Some time ago I came across a tiny collection of poems called Chungu tamu by Theobald Mvungi. The author was born in Mwanga province (Kilimanjaro) probably in the Fifties, as he graduated from the University of Dar es Salaam in 1975 and gained his M.Ed. degree in Nigeria (Ibadan) in 1978. He published his first collection of poems, Raha karaha, in 1982 and his third one, Mashairiya Chekacheka, in 1995. All Mwangi`s poems deal with social problems, but only those of the second collection are formally innovative. Five of the twenty poems of this collection tell a story and I am going to investigate three of them. It is striking and quite unusual in Swahili poetry to present the narration itself as another story. However, it is not the first time that it occurs in modern Swahili poetry. In fact, for instance Kezilahabi´s poem Hadithiya kitoto (from the collection Kichomi, 1974) opens with the scene of the narrator - the grandfather - sitting close to a fire with his grandchildren who want to be told a story, while roasting birds and potatoes. The last two strophes contain grandfather´s comment, i.e. a moral message. Thus the narrative act itself is represented, as it often happens in prose fiction. But whereas in Kezilahabi it only opens or frames the main story, in Mvungi the narrator´s interferences are intermingled with the main story to such an extent that in fact two parallel stories are narrated. I will call them the frame story and the main story.