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

“the dialect epic.” Villa Glori is nevertheless

less “fanciful and lively” than La scoperta

dell’America [The Discovery of America].

In 1941 Storia nostra [Our History] comes

out posthumously, which however gives too

much play to linguistic wordplay and

historical ambiguities, told amidst puns and

“comical anachronisms,” as has been noted.

In part the “distraction” of the journeys, in

part the overly programmatic poetics in

keeping with the official standard of the

regime, weaken this work by Pascarella who

however, perhaps thanks to his tolerant

attitude, became Academic of Italy in 1930.

Thus, there is truth in what Cecchi wrote, as

Brevini notes, that “Pascarella was the epic

poet that Carducci could not be for linguistic

reasons.”

Cesare Pascarella died in Rome in 1940.