SOURCE: A Review of Selected Poems, in Modern Language Review, Vol. 80, No. 4, October, 1985, pp. 959-61.

In the following excerpted review of Selected Poems, Formis finds that Pasolini's "fracture between moral vocation and inner feelings, between reason and instinct" is not resolved in his poetry.

Pasolini's death was tragic and at the same time dreary: a homosexual murdered by ragazzi di vita. The Italian media and over-zealous biographers exaggerated in giving details of the event. Here Pasolini's lifelong problem clearly comes to light: the fracture between moral vocation and inner feeling, between reason and instinct. I would not have brought this issue forward if the discrepancy were resolved in his poetry. But is it so? In my opinion Pasolini's style does not flow, rather it is like a diagram that oscillates up and down. The lyrical and autobiographical elements do not seem to blend consistently with that aspect of...