Linguistic Theories in Dante and the Humanists

Studies of Language and Intellectual History in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Italy
Erscheinungsjahr 1993
ISBN: 978-90-04-09702-5
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 38, 272 Seiten, Format (B × H): 165 mm x 246 mm, Gewicht: 648 g

Reihe: Brill's Studies in Intellectual History

One of the burning issues of late medieval and early Renaissance Italy was the question of language. The single most important figure to treat this subject in the late Middle Ages was Dante Alighieri. The Dantean argument on language with its implicit acknowledgment of a classical bilingualism and its faith in the efficacy of the vernacular stimulated and defined the debate on language among the humanists of the 15th century.
This book aims at a novel and open-ended reading of Dante's literature on language and at a systematic reconstruction of the whole body of humanistic literature on linguistic phenomena. In so doing, it recaptures the theoretical assumptions — philological empiricism, political ideology, stylistic imperatives, literary aspirations — that shaped the thinking of Bruni, Biondo, Alberti, Guarino, Poggio, Filelfo, Valla, Landino and Lorenzo de' Medici. This work goes beyond the strict, technical periphery of linguistic enquiry, and becomes a study of intellectual history.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mazzocco, Angelo

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften

Über Autor(innen)

Angelo Mazzocco, Ph.D. (1973) University of California, Berkeley, is Professor of Italian and Spanish, Mount Holyoke College. He has published numerous articles and has contributed to several volumes including Poesia e poetica delle rovine romane: momenti e problemi (1987).