Abstract

The article reconstructs the cultural relations between Belgium and Italy in the 1950s and 1960s through the study of the unpublished correspondence between Aldo Capasso and the poet and famous Belgian novelist Albert Ayguesparse from May 1953 to April 1970. In a series of journals (especially « Arte Stampa » and « Realismo lirico »), Capasso translates and comments on the Belgian neo-classical production characterised by universalising and abstract values. The intention is twofold: on the one hand, there is the desire to integrate it into the Lyrical Realism, the movement founded by Capasso himself, and on the other hand, it is included in the post-war poetic debate and offers itself as a fruitful alternative to Hermeticism. By virtue of his role as a passeur, Capasso, in turn, is invited to write in the prestigious journal « Marginales », founded by Ayguesparse, where he presents a counter-canon of 20th-century Italian literature compared to that established by the current literary histories.