marcin
(Marcin)
#1
trajone [The Dragon], a mock-heroic poem
made of seven cantos plus an interlude-idyll
in rhymed sestinae. The work, that betrays a
remote echo of the poems by Pulci, Tassoni
and Ariosto, harks back to the popular fairy-
tale of the dragon that terrifies a peaceful
community of common people. The
uniqueness of this singular accomplishment
lies in its ironic reversal of popular tradition,
which has led some critics to discern in it a
soothing and placating message, as a
deliverance from the sorrows of war and
anachronistic ancestral fears.
To be sure, Borazio’s strenuous training
as a self-taught man has allowed the
Garganic, and Apulian, dialect to make some
gains in the expressive and folkloric spheres:
if by “folklore” one understands, with
Ernesto De Martino, a progressive culture,
conscious of its relationships in a field of