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

extraneous cultural models. The Italian

society was suspended “between dialect and

Italian” (to quote the title of a well-known

essay by Alberto Sobrero): dialect and

language not interacting dynamically, but

conflictually opposed, because they are the

bearers of cultures wrongly portrayed or

deemed to be impermeable. On the one

hand, a language-culture in “Italian,”

“written,” standardized, centralistic and

monolithic; on the other, a myriad language-

cultures in “dialect,” “oral,” “inferior.”

Inasmuch as it has been subjected to the

burden of this opposition, dialect has

remained the language of the subaltern, the

poor, the voice of a plurality of cultures

about to disintegrate. This phenomenon has

had a clearer effect in the South, where, due

to particular historical circumstances,

dialects have withdrawn even more into a