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

Folengo, remembering De Sanctis who had

introduced him, as one of the few different

poets of our literature.

Since the time of Croce's essay, reflected

dialect literature, as the great philosopher

defined it, distinguishing it from popular

poetry, has never been a problem, has long

has the various local idioms have resisted, as

source of inspiration for the poets

themselves (or even for writers such as

Gadda). Idioms in every sense, to the extent

that they make one think of a maternal

tongue: the national language being the

language of the father, of authority, of

power. But then, as was said before, when

the mass media have come to prevail, things

have not stayed the same. Detachment has

set in, and dialect has become for its

devotees a form of experimentalism, of

which Pasolini himself has provided