Dialect Poetry of Southern Italy (Italian Poetry in Translation Book 2)

inspired by ideals of peace and justice,

Polizzano kept in mind Mazzini’s lesson on

rights and duties; there is no common good

if progress and morality “don’t walk

united.”^14 In his poetry there are echoes of

Carducci, which the local speech dissolves

into an everyday dimension, whose best

results are to be found in the representation

of the small Universe of Madonia.

Aside from the rediscoveries, the first

decades of the century are dominated by the

personalities of Martoglio, Di Giovanni,

Mercadante, representative of the principal

tendencies which characterize dialect poetry

in the Twentieth century; they are, although

no rigorous demarcations can be established,

the three souls of realism: playful-popular

(Martoglio); spiritualist and social (Di

Giovanni); socialist and revolutionary

(Mercadante).