Due trasposizioni svedesi della poesia Selige Sehnsucht di J.W.von Goethe

The aim of this contribution is to bring to light, through the comparison of two Swedish translations of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's lyric Selige Sehnsucht contained in the first book of his collection of poems entitled The Western-Eastern Divan (1819), the variety of interpretations generated by this text, which appears in the examination of the different translation choices. The Goethe's lyric is about a butterfly, which longs for the flame of a candle so much that it lets itself be burnt by it at the same time but this situation, which seems to be contradictory and destructive, will turn out to be, on a metaphorical level, as the necessary step toward reaching a new higher dimension. By the analysis of the two Swedish translations of the member of the Swedish Academy Anders Österling (1912) and the modernist poet Karin Boye (1935) one comes across many similarities but also clear differences due to both the temporal distance separating the two texts and Boye's very personal and creative style. In contrast to Österling, who tries to translate as faithfully as possible, she moves away from the original version, creating new expressions and very peculiar images through which the verses of the original German text are nevertheless, to some extent, described in a suitable way.