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

Mario Gori (1926-1970) sings of the

dissolution, with the feud, of the rural

civilization, while poverty continues to

afflict the population (whence the

persistence, in those years, of the

phenomenon of emigration). In a certain

sense, Gori harks back to Di Giovanni’s

poetry, but not as an epigone.^18

Di Giovanni’s work will be dealt with

more extensively in the anthological section.

Vito Mercadante, from Prizzi (1873-1936),

was twenty-years old during the workers’

revolt of the Sicilian Fasces. He had the

opportunity to observe the dire conditions of

the rural underclass, in a historical period in

which the number of feuds was increasing in

the island and that of small owners

decreasing, while the dark power of the

gabelloti was expanding, at the expense of

the farmers. In such a climate, Mercadante, a