Language

Dante’s tireless reflection on technique while making poetry[1] is a crucial component of his intellectual make-up. It lies at the root of his systematic investigation on language in De vulgari eloquentia, and also to some extent in the Convivio, and is picked up again, with further developments, at many points throughout the Commedia. Dante’s views in the domain of the philosophy of language coincide largely with those of his contemporaries, although – and this is where his originality lies – he applies them to a completely new subject, namely the ever-changing vernacular, devoid of the stability which literary Latin appeared to enjoy. His remarks in Conv. I 5 8 on diatopic and especially diachronic variation in the vernacular, a natural language learned spontaneously and therefore juxtaposed to the stability and non-corruptibility of Latin, were to provide the conceptual backdrop to the De vulgari. In the early chapters of Book I, Dante acknowledges that the language faculty belongs exclusively to human beings, who make use of linguistic signals that are both perceptible to the senses and rational. He also deals with the problem of the origin and history of language: the tongue spoken by Adam coincides with Hebrew, the only perfect and unadulterated language to have survived Babel. With regard to this last point, the Commedia reveals a symptomatic evolution. In Par., XXVI, in the conversation with Adam, Dante acknowledges that Adam’s language was changeable and short-lived too: it became extinct prior to Babel and subsequently developed into Hebrew. He thus saw variation not solely as the outcome of divine punishment, but as an inherent characteristic of all natural languages. This conclusion regarding the vernacular also provides a justification for the apparent paradox of a sacred poem written in a language that is destined to die[2].

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[1] G. Contini, Introduzione alle Rime di Dante, in Id., Un’idea di Dante. Saggi danteschi, Torino, Einaudi, 1976, p. 4.

[2] G. Contini, Dante come personaggio-poeta della Commedia, in Id., Un’idea di Dante, cit., p. 42.