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

his feet in the mud, which is a way to

measure him in a way diametrically opposed

to Vann’Antò’s infantryman, even morally.

Between the infantryman and the farmer

there is a perfect correlation, as Voluntas tua

and Il fante and even ‘U vascidduzzu (1956)

are part of the same project. We will find

that infantryman again, after the tragedy of

a war whose reasons escape him, in the

fields, living his troubles and fantasies and

raising the “Harvest Song.” 2

In representing his (metahistorical)

model of the farmer, Vann’Antò has no

bourgeois causes to defend, nor does he

share Mercadante’s rebellious stance: his

farmer does not aspire to any social

vindication, because he is wise and is

satisfied with little, enclosed as he is in the

boundless horizon of his land (and here Di

Giacomo anticipates the concept of