Paestum: for the first time in Italy the European Poetry Festival

On Thursday, June 27, 2019, the Italian leg of the 12th edition of the Frankfurt am Main Festival of European Poetry will be held at the Archaeological Park of Paestum.

For thefirst time in Italy, the event will be dedicated to the figure of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: the great German poet was fascinated precisely by the Doric temples of Paestum and one can still read his impressions in the famous book Viaggio in Italia.

The homage to Goethe will be the common thread throughout the Festival, which, in the Pestan edition, will also see the collaboration of the Municipality of Capaccio-Paestum.

Introducing the theme of the journey with a critical speech will be Professor Vincenzo Guarracino: the title chosen is precisely a paraphrased part of Goethe’s book “Paestum is the last, and I’m going to say the most Splendid image that I will take with me intact to the North.”

Paestum Archaeological Park director Gabriel Zuchtriegel added, “The great writer and friend Andrea Marcolongo, when she was in Paestum, spoke of poetry as an essential theme of our lives that is somehow prompted by the enclosure of temples. The Festival for us expresses this centrality of poetic language in our culture. Goethe is a prime example, not least because the ”singing temple“ in Faust seems to be a reference to the Pestan experience. But from the time of Homer, poetry was a major force, albeit one practiced by a rather marginal group. As another Mediterranean author, Nathalie Handal, writes in one of her poems: a song can change a people.”

Also in attendance will be the curator of the Frankfurt am Main Festival, Marcella Continanza, who said, “The Frankfurt Poetic May with the patronage of the municipality and starting from the historic Plenar Saal of the Römer seat of the German Parliament, now takes place in the Historical Museums of the city. In the temples will unfold the moments of the poetic lesung in which the poets will measure themselves, each with their own style, their own personality in the evocative power of Goethian writing.”

During the Pestan evening, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., chapters from Goethe’s Italian Journey will be read in the Park’s Southern Sanctuary.

Admission will be free as it falls within the hours of MiBAC’s #iovadoalmuseo initiative scheduled every Thursday from 6 to 7:30 pm.

Paestum: for the first time in Italy the European Poetry Festival

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