De vulgari eloquentia, Dante's book of exile
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
De vulgari eloquentia, Dante's book of exile
(Regents studies in medieval culture)
University of Nebraska Press, 1990
Available at 5 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes the author's translation of De vulgari eloquentia
Bibliography: p. 259-270
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Written in 1303-05, when Dante was in political exile from his native Florence, De vulgari eloquentia addresses the problem of how to raise the Italian language to the status of Latin in the esteem of the literate public. It is the fullest and most important document concerning vernacular writing in the Middle Ages-indeed, the earliest work of literary criticism dealing with a vernacular language. Marianne Shapiro offers the most detailed discussion in English of De vulgari eloquentia, whose form and spirit reflect Dante's political unrest and alienation. Hers is the first work in any language to analyze and explain the meaning of the grammatical and rhetorical terminology that Dante used in his treatise. And because her translation-included here-is based on a thorough exegesis of that terminology, it will be recognized as definitive. Shapiro's translation will be of special interest to medievalists and to serious readers of The Divine Comedy. In a later section, she considers the less precursors of Dante as a writer of the "Romance idiom" and their influence on him. Then she concentrates on the least studied aspects of the treatise in order to reveal its profound affiliations with late medieval grammatical investigations-it is possible to see in Dante "a grammarian beneath the poet." Her conclusion summarizes the apparent textual contradictions and the significance. Thus, this book provides a thorough historical, philosophical, and rhetorical context for De vulgari eloquentia and a new English translation that is enriched by that scholarship.
by "Nielsen BookData"