Poetic Machine Translation: An Oxymoron? The Case of Giacomo Leopardi into English

Letizia Leonardi

doi:10.14201/0aq0373641649

Poetic Machine Translation: An Oxymoron? The Case of Giacomo Leopardi into English

Letizia Leonardi^* (Corresponding Author)

^*Corresponding author for this work

French

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

Abstract

Despite the growing interest in AI, poetic machine translation remains a less explored area. Against this backdrop, this paper offers a quality assessment of automatic poetry translation on the Italian-English language pair. It uses a selection of poems by the 19th-century poet Giacomo Leopardi as a case study and compares the outputs produced by three freely accessible MT systems (Google, DeepL, Yandex) to determine which tool better performs with poetry and which are the linguistic areas calling for improvement. This paper does not suggest that AI should be used to translate poetry but rather demonstrates that, due to its stylistic and semantic complexities, poetic language can be used as a tool to improve MT efficiency. It concludes with some considerations on the impact that poetic machine translation may have on authorial representation.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Traducción y sostenibilidad cultural II
Subtitle of host publication	retos y nuevos escenarios
Editors	Sara García Fernández, Fátima Gómez-Cáneba, Beatrice Guerrero García, Francesca Placidi, Margarita Savchenkova, Susana Schoer-Granado
Place of Publication	Salamanca
Publisher	Universidad de Salamanca
Pages	641-649
Number of pages	9
ISBN (Print)	9788410910171
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.14201/0aq0373641649
Publication status	Published - 15 Feb 2025
Event	2nd International Conference Translation and Cultural Sustainability: Challenges and New Avenues - Salamanca, Spain Duration: 17 Apr 2024 → 19 Apr 2024 https://traduccioneinterpretacion.org/en/conference2024/

Conference

Conference	2nd International Conference Translation and Cultural Sustainability
Country/Territory	Spain
City	Salamanca
Period	17/04/24 → 19/04/24
Internet address	https://traduccioneinterpretacion.org/en/conference2024/

Keywords

poetry translation
Leopardi
machine translation
traducción de poesía
traducción automática

Access to Document

10.14201/0aq0373641649Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Leonardi_Poetic_Machine_Translation_VoR
CC BY NC ND https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Final published version, 456 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

Leonardi, L. (2025). Poetic Machine Translation: An Oxymoron? The Case of Giacomo Leopardi into English. In S. García Fernández, F. Gómez-Cáneba, B. Guerrero García, F. Placidi, M. Savchenkova, & S. Schoer-Granado (Eds.), Traducción y sostenibilidad cultural II: retos y nuevos escenarios (pp. 641-649). Universidad de Salamanca. https://doi.org/10.14201/0aq0373641649

Poetic Machine Translation: An Oxymoron? The Case of Giacomo Leopardi into English. / Leonardi, Letizia (Corresponding Author).
Traducción y sostenibilidad cultural II: retos y nuevos escenarios. ed. / Sara García Fernández; Fátima Gómez-Cáneba; Beatrice Guerrero García; Francesca Placidi; Margarita Savchenkova; Susana Schoer-Granado. Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 2025. p. 641-649.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

Leonardi, L 2025, Poetic Machine Translation: An Oxymoron? The Case of Giacomo Leopardi into English. in S García Fernández, F Gómez-Cáneba, B Guerrero García, F Placidi, M Savchenkova & S Schoer-Granado (eds), Traducción y sostenibilidad cultural II: retos y nuevos escenarios. Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, pp. 641-649, 2nd International Conference
Translation and Cultural Sustainability, Salamanca, Spain, 17/04/24. https://doi.org/10.14201/0aq0373641649

Leonardi, Letizia. / Poetic Machine Translation : An Oxymoron? The Case of Giacomo Leopardi into English. Traducción y sostenibilidad cultural II: retos y nuevos escenarios. editor / Sara García Fernández ; Fátima Gómez-Cáneba ; Beatrice Guerrero García ; Francesca Placidi ; Margarita Savchenkova ; Susana Schoer-Granado. Salamanca : Universidad de Salamanca, 2025. pp. 641-649

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abstract = "Despite the growing interest in AI, poetic machine translation remains a less explored area. Against this backdrop, this paper offers a quality assessment of automatic poetry translation on the Italian-English language pair. It uses a selection of poems by the 19th-century poet Giacomo Leopardi as a case study and compares the outputs produced by three freely accessible MT systems (Google, DeepL, Yandex) to determine which tool better performs with poetry and which are the linguistic areas calling for improvement. This paper does not suggest that AI should be used to translate poetry but rather demonstrates that, due to its stylistic and semantic complexities, poetic language can be used as a tool to improve MT efficiency. It concludes with some considerations on the impact that poetic machine translation may have on authorial representation.",

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KW - poetry translation

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KW - machine translation

KW - traducción de poesía

KW - traducción automática

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ER -

Poetic Machine Translation: An Oxymoron? The Case of Giacomo Leopardi into English

Abstract

Conference

Keywords

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