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

biased, it reveals an outdated and almost

exploitative intent which certainly does not

do poetry any good.

The dialect of Creazzo, often harsh,

conservative and tendentiously archaic,

almost petrified (so that it does not lend

itself to the frequent practice of translating

Latin odes into vernacular), depends entirely

on slang, a consequence of his attempt to

remain close to the static rural world, which

does not allow other types of values, even

when it is forced to deal with the need for

integrative lexical loans.

Somewhat more successful are the

political stances of Nicola Giunta (1895-

1968). But they rarely reach the level of

comprehensive meaningfulness, because the

observation point, resentful and polemical, is

generally urban Reggio Calabria. The

definitive switch to dialect took place after