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

superficial psychological posture. But

Russo’s world is not just tied to what has

been described as his “Baroque surrealism,”

but spills over into many directions,

advancing a sort of claim over all that

concerned the maudit in the province, at

times with dark tones. He also employs

Ariosto’s type of irony, and harks back to

Pulci and Berni, going as far as the double

theatralization of narration”16. In many

respects he catches old and fresh aspects of

the Neapolitan spirit, which however

appears, from one book to the next, at times

pathetic and at times melodramatic, at times

humorous and at times festive, without ever

coming face to face with the burning core of

a feeling that smolders to the end and turns

to ashes so it can rise again and regenerate

itself, or vanish in the desert and live the

sense of emptiness, abandonment, anguish.