In Studi Danteschi, no. 35, 1958. Review by Domenico De Robertis of Pound’s “inspired and unbiased” examination of an English translation of Dante’s Inferno, and its rebuttal by Gianfranco Contini, always a reference point for Pasolini. 

 

 

Gianfranco Contini open-mindedly accepts the comments by De Robertis, but accompanied by his own contribution in which he reiterates the fact that he has never “joined in the universal outcry for charity towards the ‘victim’ of events far too grave and serious than he was”, and the fact that he has abstained from “protests against the immoderate worship directed towards the victim”: a supposed prince of culture. Regarding Pound’s essay reviewed by De Robertis, he adds: “Qualified readers will not be troubled by the amateur approach, but by the procedure of the illiterate ‘apprenti sorcier’ who presumes to be able to make use, with effects that are even more pitiful than grotesque, of the instruments of technique”.