From close reading to cross-reading

Sacco-Vanzetti poetry and the politics of new formalism

Bartholomew Brinkman

pp. 96-115

in: Verena Theile, Linda Tredennick (eds), New formalisms and literary theory, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Abstract

As any student of the American Left is likely to know, on 23 August 1927, a cobbler named Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and a fishmonger named Bartolomeo Vanzetti were sent to the electric chair. The two Italianimmigrant anarchists were convicted of robbery and murder, and despite several motions for retrials based on new evidence, conflicting testimony, and even a confession, they were sentenced and executed. A number of factors — including the men's immigrant status, their affiliation with the international labor cause, and the suspicion of Judge Webster Thayer and Governor Charles Fuller's legal and political corruption — made the case one of the most notorious of the twentieth century, igniting fiery arguments and inciting protest in the United States and abroad. It was, in terms of publicity and public engagement, the O.J. Simpson trial of its day.