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

they showed something “photographic” (as

did other works of his later on), it could not

be regarded as a sort of “sin” other than to

the eyes of Croce’s Esthetics.

Di Giacomo, putting his various natures

“on a burner,” utilizing a more and more

refined alchemy of language, tempered with

a semantic density consonant with the

varied linguistic experiments taking place in

contemporary Italy, was able to find a

personal voice, rare and authentic, that

never degenerated or festered into the open

boils taken from French literature (Zola or

Maupassant), ever more pervasive and

abundant. The Eighteenth Century no doubt

enters his world, not only with the

modulations of Metastasio, Zappi, Frugoni,

Lamberti, Meli, Martello, but also with the

energy of Giacomo Casanova, whom he

translated with masterful discernment and