Olindo Guerrini tra lingua e dialetto. A proposito di un libro recente

Olindo Guerrini (1845-1916), publicist, literary critic, reviewer, librarian, is now recognised as one of the most inventive and talented vernacular poets of the late nineteenthcentury. He stands as a provocative humorist of the modern Italian satiric poetry, and his work, also published under the pen name of Lorenzo Stecchetti, represents a crucial link between the essentially amateur and the cultivated man of letters. His poems span an unprecedented range of various genres, properly associated with the local dialect and multilingual adaptations. Guerrini wrote predominantly, but not exclusively, in dialect, although his preferred idiom was the prestigious urban varieties of Ravenna and Bologna, and not a low-status rural form. His apparently eccentric choice of linguistic medium show his polemical and politicals aims. Taking account the latest scholarship, and especially the first systematic critical exposition of Guerrini’s corpus, the present essay analyses the languages and the subject matter in which Guerrini extended his horizons and interests.