Poetical potency: reading and translating poetry in additional language classes

Abstract

In order to overcome recurrent barriers and concerns that arise when thinking about the presence of literary texts and, in particular poetic texts, in additional language classes, this paper proposes to discuss ways of using poetry as a didactic resource for teaching and learning languages, more specifically, the Italian language. Our objective is, first and foremost, to investigate some of the particularities of poetic texts that could encourage a closer contact with the language being learned, stimulating the development of not only linguistic skills, but also social, critical, and intercultural ones. Therefore, we intend to explore the poetic text as a zone of probable restlessness, disagreements, dissonances, but also as a way of bringing curiosity and critical awareness of the multiplicity of languages. In this sense, we will focus on poetry reading, connected to the practice of poetry translation (concentrating more on the translation process itself, rather than on a result), as a pedagogical possibility, as an immersive way of interpreting poetic texts. Finally, with the example of the poem "Una città come questa", by the Italian poet Giovanni Raboni, we expect to elucidate how poetry reading and translation can be understood as a practice that values the confrontation with the additional language – not appeasing the difficulties encountered in this learning process, but rather appropriating them and using them as a didactical tool.