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

peoples and diversified relationships (suffice

it to consider the ties between the

Capitanata ─ Foggia’s province ─ and the

Abruzzi region, and Bari’s vocation for the

Orient). For various centuries it followed the

destiny of the Kingdom of Naples. As a

marginalized province, it passively suffered

the influence of the capital, not being able to

produce a cultured class that could elevate

dialect to the language of poetry. For this

reason the latter, “due to the absence of a

Court, of centers of lively culture, but also to

the narrowness of life experiences, of needs

other than the primary ones that involved

the immediate necessities of a poor society,

restricted and subjugated, was almost

limited to the nucleus of family

relationships, of domestic and municipal life,

of hunger, of survival, of material culture, of

faith and superstition, of coarse laughter, of