Deconstructionist Analyses of an Italian Poem with Special Emphasis on the Process of Translation Giovanni Papini: C’è un canto dentro di me

This second of three related articles presents two deconstructionist literary analyses of translations of Papini’s poem C’è un canto dentro di me. This study demonstrates how the two authors interpreted their own English translations and, thus, indirectly, the Italian original, in terms of the accepted deconstructionist analysis frame. Working independently, the authors’ three-level analysis of the poem (verbal, textual, and linguistic) resulted in significantly diverse outcomes concerning the poem’s overall message. This study compared the authors’ content elements and their familiarity with Papini’s work. Not surprisingly, it showed markedly different person-related readings and revealed that deconstructionist analyses conducted by two independent translators could lead to equally justified multiple interpretations of the poem. Another finding is that both authors’ translations could be considered real “deconstructionist” since they do not fit the foreignization – domestication continuum. This statement is especially true when the target language is English, an international communication medium. Therefore, translators can never know in advance which nationality and cultural background their readers might belong to. Nevertheless, both authors recognize that poetry, by its very nature, leaves less room for national-cultural aspects during the translation process than longer prosaic pieces. Therefore, translating poetry has a much higher chance of being “deconstructionist.”


Introduction
In this study, deconstructionist analyses of the authors' English translations (Tóth-Izsó & Lombard, 2022, p. 12-13) are presented with a particular focus on the process of translation. Since the two translations derive from the same Italian poem, these deconstructionist analyses can also be considered related to the original. As a linguistic and philosophical view, deconstructionism is, in a sense, closely aligned with the psychoanalysis of Freud: the deconstructionist way of reading uncovers the unconscious (covert) rather than the conscious (overt) dimension of the given text. Classical Freudian psychoanalytic criticism and Jungian archetypal literary criticism (in part) move the object of analysis from the text to some person, should it be the author, reader, or characters of the novel or poem, all of whom are being examined as independent personalities.
Each author presents the process and results of a deconstructionist analysis of their translated English versions of Papini's poem and their findings are then compared. In these three analyses of the poem (first author, second author, and the comparison between the two), all the experiences of these creative processes are interpreted from the view of the deconstructionist translation approach. The emphasis is firmly on the translation process. The translator is considered an ideal that is a comprehensive reader, who not just reads but also writes, in a language other than the language of the original text.

The Fundamentals of the Deconstructionist Translation Analysis
In this section only the most important philosophical tenets of deconstruction are discussed, declaring that in this world everything is inherently relativistic without any fixed reference points: "The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author" (Barthes, 1977, p. 148): The focus shifts from the text produced by an author to a text as something new produced by the reader (who could also be a translator). This allows another reader to have yet another new meaning of the same text.
"There is nothing outside of the text" (Derrida, 1997, p. 158): All reality is linguistic; therefore, words can only refer to other words. There is no meaningful discourse about a 'real' world that exists outside of the language. "In the resulting universe there are no absolutes or fixed points, so that the universe we live in is 'decentered'" (Barry, 2002, p. 68): There are no centers that could serve as reference points. According to Derrida, Deconstruction is neither an analysis nor a critique (…) I would say the same about method. Deconstruction is not a method and cannot be transformed into one. (…) It is not enough to say that deconstruction could not be reduced to some methodological instrumentality or to a set of rules and transposable procedures. (…) It must also be made clear that deconstruction is not even an act or an operation. (…) Deconstruction takes place, it is an event that does not await the deliberation, consciousness, or organization of a subject, or even of modernity. It deconstructs itself. (Derrida, 1988, p. 3-4) However, it is still already generally accepted that in a purely practical sense, deconstruction is also definitely both a method and a tool, as stated by Jan-Louis Kruger (2004, p. 49): "deconstruction and its practices (…) should rather be utilized as powerful analytical tools, ways of reading and writing with heightened awareness." Barry (2002, p. 74) proposed the verbal, textual, and linguistic classification levels and we accepted this analysis frame.
At the verbal level (related to the words, rather than the substance of the text), an attempt was made to: -Unravel hierarchical binary oppositions and demonstrate if they are unstable, -Reverse the hierarchy and observe any new perspectives that have arisen, -Search for elements in the text that contradict the hierarchies as presented, -Identify contradictions and paradoxes in the text.
At the textual level (related to how something has been written in the text), we have attempted to: -Locate shifts or breaksin focus, time, tone, point-of-view, pace, and vocabularyin the continuity of the text and observe if these reveal instabilities of attitude, -Discover what is left unnoticed or unexplained, -Locate significant omissions of information, -Identify contradictions and paradoxes on a larger scale in the text.
At the linguistic level (related to analyzing the language form, meaning, and use in context), we have attempted to: -Discover moments in the text when the adequacy of the language itself might be called into question, -Explore instabilities in language, -Explore intended and unintended meanings in metaphors, -Identify hidden (covert) contradictions, discrepancies, and associations on an even larger scale in the text.
As described in their first study (Tóth-Izsó & Lombard, 2022, p. 7) the authors kept reading logs (a journal of experiences) while translating. Thus they followed the advice of Dobie (2012, p. 168), who states that while first reading the text, a reading log about "how images, figurative language, and symbols come together to make a unified whole," can be particularly helpful when developing a deconstructionist analysis.
As previously established, the conventional (pre-deconstructionist) view of translation puts meaning before and beyond language. It considers language merely to transmit the objectively existing meaning from one language to another. In contrast, deconstruction states that meaning does not precede language; instead, it evolves through interacting in various ways with the text.
While conventional translation standards all emphasize the fidelity criterion, in other words, the faithfulness to the source text (Venuti, 2008), (i.e., the translator has to try to transfer the author's thoughts and feelings as accurately as possible), the deconstructionist translation theory, somewhat provocatively, states that fidelity is only a historical construction rather than a genuine relationship with the translation (Varney, 2008;Zhang and Liu, 2015). According to Derrida's view, Davis (2001) states that there is neither one concrete original nor any transcendent meaning inherently in the source text. Since the source text has no permanent meaning, translation cannot be considered a passive meaning transfer. Thus, translators have almost unlimited freedom, and as a consequence, an increased responsibility, too. Venuti (2008, p. 125-150) introduced a reader-centered continuum that characterizes these two translation approaches: foreignization (preserving the original cultural context of the source text) and domestication (adapting the cultural context of the source text for the readers). The conventional approach refers to the extreme degree of foreignization, which aims at maximal fidelity or literalness (to leave the author in their cultural environment and move the audience toward them). The other extreme in this continuum is the perfect domestication (to leave the audience in their cultural environment and move the author toward them). Continuous gradations exist between these two extremes. As Bolaños Cuellar explains: "Translational practice shows us that both strategies are usually combined within one single text and that their use by the translators is not always conscious." (2008, p. 342) Of particular interest to this debate is the statement by a famous Hungarian language renovator, Ferenc Kazinczy, who was fluent in Latin, German, French and Italian. He stated that excellent translations are worth more than their mediocre original. His translations were born due to a long domestication process: they were more adaptive reconstructions than close translations. He actually 'hungarized' the plots by placing them in Hungarian environments and giving Hungarian names to the protagonists (Burján, 2003).
The deconstructionist translation approach is not a foreignization process since it aims at producing a new text in the reader's creative style, relatively independent from the author's original. However, it is also not a domestication technique, since does not leave the audience in their cultural environment either. Instead, the context of interpreting the source text is that of the translator rather than the (often even unknown) audience. Therefore, the deconstructionist translation approach cannot be described by the binary oppositions of foreignization and domestication, since it is independent of them (refer to Figure 1). As Izadi (2012, p. 211) rightfully pointed out: "… all a translator, as an ideal reader, should do, is delve beneath the textual layers to uncover the sense of the text which has been cloaked, and then transfer it without any essential harm being done to it." As can be seen in this simplified figurewhere the cultural environment of the actors (the author, translator, and audience) are characterized by only two dimensionsthe conventional view considers translators as located somewhere along the foreignizationdomestication continuum, while according to the deconstructionist statement the translator is independent of this continuum. It has to be mentioned that these characteristic dimensions 1, dimension 2, etc. (e.g. measure of national pride, openness to values of other nations, etc.) under certain conditionsand also by investing rather significant effortscan be identified and even quantified by content analysis methods, involving if necessary even more than two dimensions.

Methodology
Both authors had produced their independent translations (refer to the first paper: Tóth-Izsó & Lombard, 2022, p. 12-13). Then, in accordance with the Experiment Design illustrated in the first paper, in this second paper, both the authors carried out a deconstructionist analysis of their translation. The requirements were to cover all three levels described in the last section (verbal, textual, and linguistic).
In the following analysesaccepting that deconstruction takes place quasi involuntarily during reading, and it is, consequently, an event that just happensthe two authors consider and employ deconstruction as a literary theory and a corresponding analytical tool for literary criticism. As mentioned above, to implement a systematic deconstructionist textreading, as proposed in the related literature (Barry, 2002, pp. 73-80;Schmidt, 2014;Al-Jumaily, 2017), they have followed a sophisticated procedure at three different levels: verbal, textual, and linguistic. In the comparative analyses, the content elements were compared (shared or unique) with the two author's backgrounds (i.e., what factors can directly be interpreted by the translators' knowledge and experience?). All cited pieces of the analyzed poem are respectively from the two translations presented in the first paper (Tóth-Izsó & Lombard, 2022, p. 11-13), therefore reference is not indicated at every single occurrence.

A Deconstructionist Analysis by the First Author
The poem offers a collection of ambivalences which is not surprising for anyone who is even nominally familiar with the life and work of Papini. In Papini, we find the general ambivalences originated from human nature, but they are all magnified by the loupe of his outsized personality. This is one of the reasons he was able to impress so many readers worldwide, with different cultural backgrounds, social statuses, and origins. Papini's words and expressions are usually simple, he uses the common language of the Florentine middle-class. As parts of the poem grow together and extend to form the literal text finally, a powerful whole is born. The poem starts to live independently and can be interpreted in many ways aside from Papini's original personal intent, whatever it might have been.

From a Verbal Level
The song inside Papinisimilarly to Papini himselfholds itself within several binary oppositions. A follower once, described Papini as a "humble vain" (Doni, 2003). His song acts the same way; it is terrible and marvelous at the same time. Papini theorized about this phenomenon, which he called "the law of contradictions" (Papini, 19611), as revealed in the poem by the phrases: "divine and killing song', "frightful song of love,' "painful sweetness,' "terrible song" and "marvelous song." Conventionally, we would prefer a divine, marvelous and sweet song of love, but then we would have the conventional laudation of a Sunday mass or the song of a lost lover. In fact, the song of Papini realizes its particularity and extravagance, because this song is something terrible, frightful, and finally killing. There lurks a murder (or a suicide?) in the song we are waiting for. The poem feels like the trailer of a thriller or a crime story. An invisible being "greater than the universe" prepares to come to light and murder its host. After reading the promising title, that is not what we would expect, and this is a painful omission.
Concerning the poet, while he owns "all his weakness," he has "to be the remorseless beast." It is difficult to say which polarity is the 'good one.' Usually, we want to be neither weak nor remorseless, but rather somewhere between. According to Western Christian culture, one is taught to prefer weakness out of the teachings of the gospels, and to behave as an altruistic Christian. Still, the poet, under these extreme conditions, has to become a beast and not a weak, unselfish, humble man to save others' lives.
Upon the first appraisal, another ambivalence is the heart of the poet, which is "grandiose" and "narrow" simultaneously. This seems to be an ordinary ambivalence, but upon deeper reflection, we discover that these verses can be better analyzed on the linguistic level.
The first consequential contradiction identified is "happy agony." A peaceful and quiet death is possible, but the phrase "happy agony" contradicts the nature of agony, which implies suffering, trauma, and pain. Another exciting contradiction is about "the real love of the same breath' that "kisses and destroys" and that "would burn away everything." Kisses usually are acts of love or at least represent some positive attitude. However, there are animals known for this contradicting behavior in nature, for example, the female Latrodectus Hesperus (western black widow spider), who kills her partner after copulation. In the case of Papini's poem, we are facing love (or at least attraction) contra cruelty. What makes it exciting is that the measure of the love mentioned in the verse is equivalent to its capacity to destroy, kill and burn. With all these characteristics, the poet wants to express this love's indescribable greatness and power. In a conventional sense, love would never render this kind of destruction, but in this case, the love that awaits to burst forth in the form of Papini's inner song would immediately consume the poet. Songs usually do not kill and eat people, but we might accept that a "terrible" piece would do so. Furthermore, this bizarre and ambivalent song would do something even more dramatic. It would not just consume its host, but as it bursts out from the poet's "too narrow heart," it would also change the whole outside world: "midnight would be more glaring than the most burning noon." In contradiction to all our everyday knowledge of physics and the functioning of the solar system, the darkest hour of the night would become embodied sunshine itself, and even more, almost an unsupportable glow.

From a Textual Level
The first discontinuity mentioned at the verbal level about the reader's expectations after reading the title could be considered a real rift at the textual level: an essential omission of something expected. After the title, we might expect something different from what comes. Our expectations are something lighter, more straightforward, and more understandable; we might think of meadows with flowers, sunshine, spring, dancing, or an inner landscape of happy, colorful visions. We would hardly think of a terrible, frightening, and killer song, and indeed, we do not expect the description of such a powerful inner struggle. In addition, this strange, powerful, and divine parasite song cannot even exit from its host heart. The next shift is between "There is a song inside of me that will stay there forever" and "If this song got out of my heart, it would break and destroy my heart." The poet starts the poem with the clinching certainty that the song will stay in him forever even though it is a heavy burden to bear. Then comes the shift; he suddenly starts the "what if" game and describes some of the consequences he would suffer if the song emerged. Then another shift, another break of a supposed straight path: "This song will be pronounced only in the last hour of my life; this song will then be the beginning of a happy agony." Another problem is that Papini does not find any language, rhythm, or music that is suitable for the song. From these inner considerations, he arrives to think not only about the song and himself but also about the audience! At this point, he once more switches his attitude from being an egoist to altruistic, from vain to humble: he starts to consider others who were, till this point, absolutely out of his horizon. Remember the verses "that only I have to hearthat I and only I have to suffer and to bear." He is so busy with his own fears that he would never ever consider the fate of other human beings. Then comes a break again as he turns back to the imaginary description of the song that has just broken out. It is such an unknown and mystic phenomenon that he "re-swallows" even its thought. So, this last one is an exceptionally huge shift in attitude since he honestly starts to consider others, or even more, to fear for the entire world.
Papini has the presentiment that this song which right now is stationed in his "too narrow heart" will change the whole world, will recolor the souls, and reverse the most unchangeable facts that we know about the physical world: "that day the earth would illuminate the sun and midnight would be more glaring than the most burning noon." Through numerous shifts that all reveal instabilities of attitude, the poet journeys from "still I do not want to die" to an altruistic approach where he "will not sing this song because" it would kill the others. Not because he would die immediately, but because others would die. Now that is a volte-face.

From a Linguistic Level
From a linguistic level, the poet makes an attempt to express the inexpressible, even though the language reveals itself to be an inadequate transmitter of communication. Nevertheless, despite the lack of proper linguistic tools, Papini still tries to describe the song. This contradiction produces the tension of the whole poem. To convey his intent to describe the inner song, the poet creates contradictory mixtures of different modalities, for example, "sound of lights, ray of chords." While "Ray of lights, sound of chords" would make more sense and keep us safe inside our habitual limits, they would not express something inexpressible.
The presence of metaphors is also a sign of slippages in the language. The poet cannot find adequate linguistic forms to express the measure of 'closedness,' so he reaches out for art solutions.
Despite the poet's will, the song wants to live an independent life and "strives to burst forth from his too narrow heart." Papini's heart is too narrow for the song; the song feels uncomfortable inside, longing for more space, to expand and "burst forth, with the same voluptuous and untamable way." Meanwhile, Papini also feels the contrary, so that his heart is "grandiose" and "sometimes can include the whole universe." So is this heart big or small? There is no single fixed reference point; everything becomes relative depending on the ever-changing view. The measure of everything depends on the choice of the point of reference. The poet does not clarify when he is talking about himself as the origo of the coordinate system and when he changes the origo to the song. We are in the middle of an Escher graphics. If we consider the poet as the origo, his heart is not at all narrow, it is huge and can sometimes contain the universe, so it is more significant than what a mortal human being could even imagine. As grammatical logic suggests, the universe is infinite, so Papini's heart would have to be "even more infinite" if it contains it. But the song feels even greater… How gigantic can this song be? It is a complication that a conventional reading would not even recognize, easily overlooking an essential focus of analysis.
A question arises: who is the real protagonist of the poem? The poem tends to reverse the polarity of the owner and owned, master and slave. While the song has to be kept inside by a prison gate, it is Papini who notes that he is "an obedient victim" of the song. He is the prison guard and the victim at the same time. The song, in long-term consideration, seems to dominate the poet and now seems to own him.
The question presents itself: what kind of song could play such a protagonist role? As we know it, a song has a rhythm, melody, and text, and generally, it is performed aloud to an audience that wants to hear it. Furthermore, there are some general rules about songs: usually, there is a refrain, an introduction, and closure signed by the content of the text or melody. However, in the case of Papini's song, "the words necessary for it still have not been created," if performed it would be "A song without measure and time, without rhythm and rules. A song that does not fit to any form and would lacerate any language." But if Papini's song is not pronounced, it is not a song! "No one could hear it", not even himself. The most significant contradiction is the poem itself, the whole "song." Papini still sings the song that cannot be sung.
The whole poem has a strongly ambivalent message which is one of the reasons why it can be sung neither as a happy nor as a tragic song. Positive and negative aspects fight against each other and no one wins. In the following some of these aspects are listed.
Negative aspects: • The reader might have the sensation that the song is dangerous for Papini: it consumes and tortures him from inside, and what is more, it threatens him with total destruction. • There is no way he can rid himself of the song. • The liberation from the song itself and its threatening singing is unavoidable. The poet feels it, but at this point, does not dare to face it: "because still, I do not want to die." • The poet is a victim of the song. • As the song escapes from inside, it would burn everything and everybody.
Positive aspects: • The song is similar to "heavenly adagios." • The song, once liberated from Papini's heart, "would be more harmonic than any known instrument." • The escape of this song will change the whole world: "earth would illuminate the sun and midnight would be more glaring than the most burning noon." • There would also be something "voluptuous" in the bursting out of the song; it would be a satisfaction, appeasement. Finally, it would not torture him any longer. • It is, in fact, a song of love, a song of "real love," "incandescence and resplendent by an insatiable longing'; it has infinite "sweetness." There is no stability and coherence along the negative-positive dimension, but deflexions in both directions. The text is full of covert or even overt paradoxes. In contradiction to the ordinary meaning of "song," the whole poem is a mute shout, just like the painting The Scream by Edvard Munch. It describes an inner tense silence, while singing the song would be a loud exterior activity that generally dissolves inner tension.
According to Anna Casini Paszkowski (personal communication, July 8, 2021, Fiesole)granddaughter of Papini, the only one who was able to write down the thoughts of the paralyzed, mute, and blind writer in his last years of lifein the poem the young Papini (in 1915) foresaw his "happy agony" (in 1956), for despite of all his physical problems, he was grateful for his intact intellect, the life he lived, the love of his family and friends and the reconciliation with his God.

Summary
In conclusion, it can be stated that the number of variations is unlimited, as always with deconstructionist analyses, as a result of an unending play with multiple meanings. Of this infinite, there are several partly overlapping possible interpretations: • The poem describes the poet's mental state right before the outbreak of madness: the struggle between the conscious and unconscious parts of his psyche. We do not know or suspect how it will finish, but the presence of the song is much more threatening than positive. • It describes the encounter of two different entities: human and something superhuman (something coming from another higher dimension). • In reality, the song is the poem's protagonist; it is like a parasitic creature that wants victory. The poet as a host is just a necessary tool for the song to exist, and the poem tells the story of the poet's travail before its delivery. • The song is divine, it is God's voice that calls the poet to change his life, but he does not recognize it yet. • The song wants to be born, but the poet does not want to give birth to it, because he feels that he would die in the delivery.
He is not ready for this birth. • The poet is not ready for the significant change that the song's birth would provoke in his life. He feels that the song would destroy his current life and that he would not be the same anymore. He is not prepared for this lurid and fatal change. • The poet is going to die. The inner song is the presentiment of his death. He is terrified, but deep inside, without admitting it, he knows that it will happen, and he has no power to stop it. • The poet faces the unknown. We do not know what it is, but one thing is sure, it is something bigger than him, even though it is inside him. It is frightening but, at the same time, also attractive for the poet. He identifies it as an unmeasurable love that radiates and changes everything. It is one particular feeling in one specific moment of the poet's life, like an ecstasy.

From a Verbal Level
Upon examining the poem from a deconstructionist perspective at a purely verbal level, we immediately are aware of numerous binary oppositions, such as: "heavenly song" and "suffer and endure," "craves no music" and "too melodious," "grand heart" and "too narrow heart," "divine" and "murderous," "tenderness" and "savage," "docile victim" and "savage beast," "true love kisses and destroys," "frightening song" and "marvelous song" and "sorrowful" and "sweet." Some binary opposites are hierarchical; for example, Panini's "grand heart" holds the universe, something that a "narrow heart" could not logically do. Similarly, with the reversal of "tenderness" with "savage," we are left with the incongruent image of the weak fearing tenderness, notwithstanding its source being that of a beast. Finally, the idea of true love "kissing" and then "destroying" seems to be significantly closer to our human experience (as perhaps best exemplified by Judas' kiss to Jesus) than true love first destroying and then kissing.
Other binary opposites hold together a unique tension of equilibrium; for example, one can easily imagine a song that is both marvelous, and at the same time, frightening, for is this not the fluttering feeling we have all experienced when first falling in love? Likewise, a song that "craves no music" because it is already "too melodious" stands on its own as anythingbe it physical or emotional -is already so full that it can hardly hold another drop of that which it already contains.
However, some of these binary opposites also pose certain contradictions. For example, how can the songthat is too great for the "grand heart' to hold without fatigue -fit inside and then "burst forth" from the "too narrow heart"? How can the "docile victim" whom the song is murdering suddenly rise as a "savage beast" and cause havoc amongst the weak? And why would a "heavenly song" have to be "suffered and endured," for indeed such painful music more likely lies in the domain of Purgatory, if not Hell?

From a Textual Level
When deconstructing the textual level of the poem, perhaps the most striking is the evolution of Panini's point-of-view regarding his song. He begins the poem with clear statements declaring that the song will never be released, never be written, and never bloom. He ends these proclamations with the definitive assertion: "There is a song inside me that will stay forever inside me." But right after these first stanzas, Papini starts to use the conditional tense. Instead of 'never,' he begins to contemplate the 'what if' with reflections such as: "If this song were ever to leave my heart..." and "If this song were written by my hand...", indicating that he is suddenly considering the possibility of one day releasing the song. This section ends with his agreeing to proclaim the song during the last hours of his life. As best he can, the poet then describes what the song is and is not. At this point, it feels like we are coming closer to experiencing the song until Papini fervently declares his rejection of it. Just as we can almost hear its 'too melodious music', the poet re-swallows it and insists that he does not want to die. Are we back to waiting for Papini's final hours before the song will be released? Perhaps, but the poet now indulges us by revealing the song's promise of lovea love full of polarities. This love is frightening, burning, true, destructive, kissing, passionate, and full of a light more radiant than any illumination from the sun or moon.
In the end, Papini returns to the beginning by asserting that he will "never sing the terrible song," he will "not sing this marvelous song," he will "not sing this song." Period. End of story, end of the poem. Nevertheless, something has changed. Unlike the beginning of the song, the poet is now including the 'other.' Instead of saying that "I, and only I, must suffer and endure" the song's furious rapture, Papini will "never sing the terrible song without anyone having compassion...," and concludes that he will "not sing this song because no one would be able to hold its infinite, heart-rending, sorrowful sweetness." Papini is no longer alone, holding the song tightly inside his veins, for we are now beside him as docile victims, wondering at our capacity to embrace the "divine and murderous song".

From a Linguistic Level
Deconstructing There's a song inside me from a linguistic point-of-view, the poem in its entirety is a metaphor for the process of creative transformation. Papini's struggle to suppress the song that is welling up inside him reflects the human capacity to resist change on a personal, societal, and global level. The song's existence is inevitable, beyond melody, outside of time, bigger than the universe, and full of frightening lovesentiments that radical change inevitably brings to attempt to "re-swallow" what we do not know to maintain the tepid, mediocrity of our lives.
This metaphor of transformation is further revealed throughout the poem in numerous detailed images, for example, the "lily root under the muddy slump." Traditionally a symbol of transformation, the lily shoots up in the springtime from the dark earth, heralding resurrection and renewal. The lily is also depicted in many images of the Annunciation, evoking a receptiveness to a higher will beyond personal desire or aspirations. But like his song, Papini's lily root is buried so deeply that it will never bloom; its stem will never be able to grow upward through the suffocating mud; its flower will never emerge forth into the sun. Another general metaphor for transformation is the complete reversal of fixed paradigms. Papini declares that the song's birth will completely alter the cosmos. Upon the song's release, a different sun will recolor our souls, the "earth will illuminate the sun," and noon sunshine will be dim compared to the light at midnight. Harmonious chords will become rays of light, and light will become sound. Papini also declares that the song will bring about his death, another metaphor for radical change in how one views the world. The "murderous song" will consume him and cause him to mourn for himself; he buries the song because he simply does not want to die. Finally, Papini's portrayal of love is also typified by its absolute power to transform one's life. The metaphor of fire as a transformative element is clearly evoked by the "frightening song of love" that burns, destroys, and is ablaze and in flames.
Perhaps the most intriguing contradiction in the poem is mid-way through when Papini states most clearly that the song will never leave him "because the words I need have yet to be written." And yet, this is the turning point when Papini actually writes the words that best describe the song, his deeper relationship to it, the song's potential effect on those around him, and its profound leitmotif of love. By the time we read his final words, the song is actually present to us, resonating in the writer's exhaled breath and expert juxtaposition of "infinite, heart rending, sorrowful sweetness," a litany that seems to hold all that is both human and divine.

Identified Content Elements Common in both Analyses
Binary opposites are listed in the same way in the two analyses. Both authors highlight the song's anticipatory behaviour: first kisses and then destroys. Curiously while the second author stays close "to our human experience (as perhaps best exemplified by Judas' kiss to Jesus)," the first author moves out from the human condition and brings an animal for exemplification.
The contradiction between a "grand" and "too narrow" heart is also analyzed by both translators, but in different places and different ways. The most crucial factor in both textual level analyses is "the evolution of Papini's point-of-view regarding his song." The two authors describe the switches and shifts in detail, one after another. Both authors see the biggest change of attitude in the appearance of the "others." The egoist attitude changes into altruistic. Yet this unselfishness is interpreted in different ways later on.
Both translators dedicate a few sentences to how the song's birth will completely change the universe. The contradiction or omission of writing down with words the indescribable appears in both analyzes as this element indeed acts as the central axis of the poem.
It can be stated that the major results of mechanical analyses are congruent, however, the translators' interpretations show great differences.

Identified Content Elements Unique to the First Author's Analysis
The first thing we notice is first author's analysis is more than double in length of the second author's. This characteristic of the first analysis can be interpreted by the first translator's broader knowledge of Papini's life and work and her personal experiences during approximately three years of intense study.
A unique feature of this analysis is the impressive metaphor of the song as a "parasitic creature" that slowly but surely will consume its host.

Identified Content Elements Unique to the Second Author's Analysis
The second author emphasizes that the continuous tension caused by the ambivalences found throughout the poem is, in fact, an ordinary human feeling. She reminds the reader of the readily recognizable human experiences of falling in love for the first time and the feeling when something is physically or emotionally so complete that one can hardly hold another drop. The second author also finds an essential opposite that the first author neglects: the poet is a "docile victim" and a "savage beast." In reality, we have in front of us the exact change of reference point as in the case of "too narrow" and "grandiose" that the first author describes in detail.
When reading "heavenly song," the second author immediately associates this phrase with Heaven in the triad of Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell, which deepens the meaning and the possible profoundness of the poem. This Christian dimension is absent from the first author's analysis.
Perhaps most striking is that the second author, even though she has less knowledge of Papini and his work, interprets the poem much more personally. She becomes involved emotionally and urges the reader of her analysis to accompany her on the journey, continually repeating the communal "we." Finally, this "we" expands into all of humanity. "Our" nature strives for a higher level that can approach the juxtaposition of human and divine and the song becomes "a litany that seems to hold all that is both human and divine". Firstly, we have this deep personal involvement, and secondly, the religious dimension reappears. Both these aspects are almost inexistent in the first author's analyses. As the second author's personal involvement especially fashions Papini's poem into a "new" poem, perhaps Barthes's thoughts (1977, p. 148) that the death of the author is the birth of the reader, is especially valid in her case. She states that "the poem in its entirety is a metaphor for the process of creative transformation," and also lists concrete metaphors like "lily" (symbol of transformation), "fire" (as a transformative element) and the metaphor of death that indicates the ultimate change at the end of one's life. References to this metaphorical language in the poem and the symbolic images they evoke to strengthen her interpretation of the poet's (and humanity's) inability to face inevitable, radical change.

Conclusion
The second author offers a very efficient and neat analysis that contains a personal interpretation alongside her professional knowledge, which may seem unusual in literary analysis, but it does seem to work. Interestingly, it is an entirely different approach from the first author's analysis that systematically examines the poem in detail, searches for new interpretations, dissects the poem and its meanings, and, on a personal level, keeps a certain distance from the poem.
Another conclusion is that both authors' translations could be considered real 'deconstructionist' since they do not fit to the foreignizationdomestication continuum (Figure 1). This statement is especially true when the target language is English, an international communication medium. Therefore, translators cannot know in advance which nationality and cultural background their readers might belong to. Nevertheless, both authors recognize that poetry, by its very nature, delimitates less room for national-cultural aspects during the translation process as compared to longer prosaic pieces. Therefore, translating poetry has a much higher chance of being "deconstructionist."