SOURCE: "The Hidden Pinocchio: Tale of a Subversive Puppet," in Literature and Revolution, edited by David Bevan, Rodopi, 1989, pp. 49-61.

In the following essay, Rosenthal discusses the political views Collodi expressed in Pinocchio.

The Adventures of Pinocchio: Tale of a Puppet, by Carlo Lorenzini (who used his mother's birthplace, Collodi, as his pen-name), is a glorious book. Its glories have been obscured for many by Disney's syrupy treatments: his charming animated film that is nevertheless untrue to the sardonic, sometimes anarchic side of the original story; and his "book" version, a tiny, shameless bit of baby-talk.

In 1979 the late Rolando Anzilotti, that gracious man, asked me on behalf of the Collodi Foundation to try my hand at a new translation of Pinocchio in time for the book's 1983 centenary. He knew I had little or no Italian, but thought he saw in my poems and other writings qualities that...