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

in memory, and in part already consigned

for ever to the cemetery of Adami. What is

at stake is Butera’s conception of poetry,

which is called to play a role of neoclassical

value, as comfort and illusion, but also as

testimonial. The serenity that through it can

reach the world cannot be hampered by the

sad observations on reality. Poetry must

serve man as instrument of illusion, comfort

him in the moments of melancholy and

sadness, freeing him from negative thoughts

even when these are induced by the analysis

of events. Butera discovers in popular

consciousness the tension of the anecdote

that metaphorizes the message, and makes it

analogically expressive of moral truths

through associations which unleash the

mental proliferation on which rests the

culture of the early ages of peoples. In some

ways it is as if through it the poet aimed at