marcin
(Marcin)
#1
Pascoli and Di Giacomo, continues without
interruption astride the last two centuries,
even though it receives a few beneficial jolts
here and there, as in the case of Giuseppe De
Domenicis from the Salento (alias Captain
Black), who tackles satire and historical
themes. The fact is, as Pasolini notes, that
one should study how a certain minor
literature of the Nineteenth century (from
De Amicis to Stecchetti) could be so
successful in the provinces of the former
Neapolitan kingdom, where indeed a great
author like Verga had made the broadest
possible use of dialect, until then
compressed by the ruling sentimental-
nationalistic rhetoric, to give “reality” to his
works.
The misconception of dialect as sub-
language or language as reservoir of
expressionistic specimens to be used by late-