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

Montale, “classics” par excellence and in

every meaning of the word ─ ; in the

foreword Jovine himself notes: “[...]

Common to dialect and language are

intuitive syntheses and cultural montages; if

we believe in the natural and popular

foundation of languages and in the identity

between imagination and intellect, we must

admit the coexistence of logical and poetic

faculties even in the ‘popular’ [...],”

declaring himself convinced that “The

reader will gradually be able to verify the

correspondence between ‘cultured’ and

‘popular’ customs and the aesthetic

realization of both [...]” This is an old,

belabored question, from Vico to Croce to

Gramsci, to the structuralists and

anthropologists of the Sixties: what is

interesting in this line of study, aside from

the Author’s Gramscian convictions, are