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

The crisis of Decadentism seems to leave

no trace in Russo; it passes over him and he

remains intact in his cocoon as it gathers the

remnants of old melodies, the heartfelt or

violent calls of the slums, the rhythm of a

slyness, of a dignity and heroism without

future altars. Russo is the bard of a present

entirely played in the cracking whips of the

coachmen, in the cries of water-carriers, in

the tavern scuffles, in the houses of common

women, in the demeanor assumed in

downtown streets. He is the bard of a

solarity of twilight, the haughty backflow of

a society that has its rites and feasts, its sad

moments and repetitions, its particular

thrills. Carlo Bernari, while editing in 1984

Poesie del Russo^17 , has pointed out, besides

the discrepancies in earlier editions, certain

poetic postures of the Neapolitan attributed

to his often evident “secularity”. One thing