Sulla prima traduzione italiana de “La Belle et la Bête” di Mme de Villeneuve

Beauty and the Beast is one of the most famous fairy tales. Inventoried in the Aarne-Thompson catalog under the label 425C (The Girl as the Bear’s Wife), it boasts a host of illustrious literary ancestors and an even denser array of descendants. It is therefore surprising that so little at- tention has been paid to the work that lies at the origin of this rewriting process. La Belle et la Bête is a long tale that Mme de Villeneuve included in the collection La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins (1740). Sixteen years later, the same work will know a reduction under the pen of Mme Leprince de Beaumont (Le Magasin des enfants, 1756). It will be this second version, much more concise in form and content, to know more widespread. The short story of Mme Leprince de Beaumont will be translated into many languages since the eighteenth century, while the one of Mme de Villeneuve will fall into oblivion. The translation of the original tale will arrive in Italy thanks to Donzelli only in 2002. The aim of this study is to rediscover the specificities of this forgotten work through a linguistic-stylistic analysis, and then to measure the movement that the fairy tale makes under the impulse of translation. Attention will there- fore be paid to what A. Berman defines as “zones signifiantes”, in particular the oxymoronic pair belle/bête and the term esprit, which are central to the development of the narrative. Al- though starting from precise textual zones, the translation analysis does not intend to limit to the contrastive aspect but aims to bring out the editorial project in relation with the concept of translational tradition.