Dante and His Influence
Format: Paperback
ISBN13: 9780217818933
Paperback|9780217818933
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill DANTE'S PROSE Dante's relation to Literature, however, even though posterity is mainly interested in and concerned with his presentation of the passion of the Human soul through his incomparable poems, is by no means confined to such expression. He undertook to analyze and to lay down the philosophy of the relation of the expression of thought and passion to language, both in prose and verse; and both in Latin and the Lingua Volgare. He began by maintaining that the real power and beauty of a tongue are tested rather in its prose than in its poetry. In the beginning he had been the champion of the Classical Latin against the Italian Vernacular which he then held was but fit to serve the former as a handmaid. But in practice he was ere long the best exponent of the latter. In its use he emancipated the handmaid and, endowing it with the power of freedom, enriched it with the strength and the grace of eloquence in prose and passion in poetry. Hemay be said to have made the Italian Language and has been said by so great an Italian as Mazzini to have made it. In the Vita Nuova he gives his views?in Italian?briefly on the subject of the relative use and value of prose and verse. (Vita Nuova, XXV.) In the Convito he has a treatise on Literary Criticism and defends with his customary power, the use of the popular or vernacular tongue in preference to the language of scholars, though he declares the structure of the latter is more beautiful. In his treatise, De Volgari Eloquentia, he goes deeper and proceeds to analyze more fully the languages and their capacity for expression. It is said to be the first work on Romance philology. The Vita Nuova is the work of a young man, absolute in his surrender; arrogant in his assumption of singularity of devotion, soaring uncon...
| ISBN-13 | 9780217818933 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 0217818935 |
| Weight | 0.38 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 0.26 In |
| List Price | $14.14 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Pages | 108 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2009-08-01 |
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