Das Substantiv Wildnis als „ökokritischer” Kontrastmarker in den Romanen Christoph Ransmayrs. Überlegungen zu seiner Semantik und Übersetzung ins Italienische

The central purpose of this paper is to emphasize the function of the noun Wildnis as a recurrent lexical stylistic device in Christoph Ransmayr’s novels. The juxtaposition of symbols of progress, even in their most extreme forms, with the wild nature represented by the term, reflects a fundamental dichotomy in human perception and values. The analysis is grounded in research conducted on a corpus comprising the Austrian author’s novels, complemented by an examination of passages containing the term Wildnis. In a subsequent section, the semantics and etymology of the noun are examined, and the problems it poses for Italian translators of Ransmayr’s texts are highlighted. In this context, the strategies adopted to render the nouns in the Italian versions of the novels will be outlined briefly.