by Anna Battaglia
The criteria adopted for the comparison between three well known translators of Madame Bovary – Diego Valeri (1936), Oreste Del Buono (1965) and Natalia Ginzburg (1983) – is based on certain characteristics of Flaubert’s style, such as his use of free indirect speech, the impersonal form, the imperfect tense, inanimate subjects, etc. This article examines the extent to which each translator-writer recognised these particular characteristics and was able to reproduce them.