"The winding labyrinth of thy strange discourse": The Italian translations of Sir Thomas More

When writing an article, I generally begin by emphasising the aims of my research and the results expected. This time I will introduce my study stating what this article will not deal with, because I strongly believe that the critical debate surrounding Sir Thomas More’s textual neighbourhood has been so vivid in the last few decades, that it is impossible for me to add anything new or ground-breaking. Indeed, the circumstances of its composition and the six different hands which contributed to shape the text as we know it today, together with Shakespeare’s alleged role in the creation of the play – a three-page contribution (ff. 8r, 8v, 9r, Harley MS 7368) which would represent the only extant literary manuscript written by the Bard – have attracted eminent critics . Their philological, historical and literary competence has converged in establishing some well-known chronotopic coordinates for the attribution of the play to certain authors who wrote and revised it at some point during their respective careers . Taking into account (and for granted) the above-mentioned details about the genesis of Sir Thomas More, this article aims to compare and contrast the three Italian translations of the play published thus far with particular reference to the first seven scenes (or to the first two acts, depending on the edition ), corresponding to the 1517 Ill May Day riots in London and More’s attempts to stop the citizens’ xenophobic behaviour towards immigrants in England. The results of this corpus-based analysis may – or may not! – shed light on translational attitudes and the translators’ sensitivity (in terms of lexical choices) towards issues of contemporary migration policies in Italy (from the 1990s to today) and encounters/clashes with the Other.