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

expressive choice made since the times of Di

Giacomo, and then of Marin and Pierro? If

then we approach the last few decades, the

break becomes more evident still with

respect to the distant 1903, when, dazzled by

Di Giacomo's poetry, Benedetto Croce, in an

essay that was to become famous, went so

far as to say: “What does it mean to contest

the rights of dialect poetry? How can one

prevent someone from composing in dialect?

Much of our soul is dialect, as much of it is

made of Greek, Latin, German, French, or of

ancient Italian language.” And then,

decisively: “When an artist feels in dialect,

he must express himself with those sounds.

And, according to the necessity of his vision,

he will express himself in dialect, in dialect

mixed with Italian, in an idiom of his own

particular making.” And of course he was

alluding to the macaronic Latin of Teofilo