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

representing the cognitive automatisms of

ethnological culture that allegorizes reality

into symbolic aggregates, and has no need

for excessive rationalizations. Therefore the

moral of his fables, when there is one, is

almost never biting, but at times it even too

predictable. An underlying empathy is

always at the root of the representations of

the various cases, which ultimately take on a

social significance without showing it

openly. Butera does not despair: the great

Calabrian dream of justice is almost

vindicated in the parables of the anecdotes

entrusted to animals, though confidence in a

palingenesis appears scarce, due to man’s

widespread tendency toward selfishness,

always ready as he is to take advantage of

his neighbor, especially when he is weaker.

The brief anecdote, the sketch, the

aphorism, seem to provide Butera with the