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

LATIUM

For centuries, approximately since the

Renaissance, everything written in dialect in

the Latium region is related to Rome;

generally the poets who have expressed

themselves in the dialect of Rieti or Viterbo

or of some small town like Bagnoregio Alatri

have been imitators, more eager to pattern

themselves after Peresio, Berneri or Belli

than to develop their own style. Today

things have changed or are changing, due in

part to the frenzy of the dialect vogue, but

also to the small towns’ rediscovery of the

historical, cultural and linguistic patrimony

of their past. We are thus witnessing an

apparently rather paradoxical phenomenon:

the more restricted dialect speech becomes,

the greater the blossoming of dialect poets,

who are not only storehouses of philology or