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

Neapolitan language into a high instrument

of poetry by infusing it with new freshness

and renewing its expressive felicity.”

And De Mauro concludes his impeccable

introductory essay this way: “With the

innovations mentioned and the precious

archaisms, the rhythm opens the way to a

renewed vitality of Neapolitan. Perhaps, like

so many other great dialect poets of the

Twentieth Century, the Anonymous has

written in dialect from afar, moving from a

condition of estrangement. At any rate, the

Anony-mous himself says: it’s the words we

have to smash / to go back to living, / they

have to make the fourth of May.

It seems to me that De Mauro underlines

a problem of great importance, the

“renewed importance of Neapolitan,” an

inexhaustible language, always nourished by

the warm breath that comes from the sea