Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:11:09.498Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Connecting the Dots. Italian Literature in a Global History of Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2013

Bart Van Den Bossche
Bart Van Den Bossche*
Affiliation:
Research Group MDRN, Arts, University of Leuven/KU Leuven, Blijde Inkomststraat 21-3311, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The goals and methods of a global history of literature may not always be easily reconcilable with those pertinent to local (‘national’ or ‘regional’) literary traditions; however, behind the, at times, lengthy or painstaking discussions on the criteria of selection, emphasis, and on more or less necessary nuances, there are also a number of deeper and more fundamental issues at stake in a global history of literature that can be fruitfully approached through the looking-glass of a local literary tradition. Even characteristics of a particular tradition of literature that may seem specific, even highly specific, can give rise to intriguing questions bearing on some of the wide-ranging issues tied to a global perspective on literature. More in particular, with regard to Italian literature, three issues come to the fore: the way literary history deals with the question of agency, the connections between literary history and cultural repertoires, and the question of canonicity and ideology in literary historiography.

Type
Focus: Writing a History of European Literature as Part of a World History of Literature
Information
European Review , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , May 2013 , pp. 300 - 308
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References and Notes

1. See De Vulgari Eloquentia, II, ii–xiv.Google Scholar
2. See Purgatorio II, 76–117 (Casella); VI, 58–75 (Sordello da Goito); XXI, 76–131 (Stazio), XXIII, 37–133 e XXIV, 1–33 (Forese Donati), XXIV, 34–63 (Bonagiunta Orbicciani), XXVI, 88–135 (Guido Guinizzelli) e XXVI, 136–148 (Arnaut Daniel). See Martinez, R.R. (1995) Dante and the two canons: statius in Virgil's footsteps (Purgatorio 21–30). Comparative Literature Studies, XXXII(2), pp. 151–175.Google Scholar
3. On Bembo see Kidwell, C. (2004) Pietro Bembo. Lover, Linguist, Cardinal (Montreal, Kingston: McGill Queen's University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4. On the recurrent application of similar interpretative patterns in the history of Italian literature, see Jossa, S. (2006) L'Italia letteraria (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 46–56.Google Scholar
5. On Foscolo and the establishment of a literary canon, see Elli, E. (2006) Un'idea di canone. Foscolo, Carducci, Pascoli (Novara: Interlinea).Google Scholar
6.De Sanctis, F. (1959) Storia della letteratura italian, first edition in two volumes 1870–71; an English translation is History of Italian Literature (New York: Basic Books.)Google Scholar
7. The most striking example is chapter XIX of the second volume of De Sanctis’ Storia, called La nuova scienza, dedicated to scientific and philosophic writings of Galilei, Campanella, Muratori and the lot.Google Scholar
8. To quote just one example: the 14-volume Storia della letteratura italiana directed by Enrico Malato (Roma, Salerno editrice, 1994–2004) dedicates large sections to historiography and scientific literature, in particular in the volumes on the 15th, 16th and 17th century.Google Scholar
9. See for instance the attention devoted to humanists and to neo-Latin literature in the volume on the Quattrocento of the above-mentioned Malato's Storia della letteratura italiana; histories of other European literatures, tend to deal far less extensively with local neo-Latin literature (in histories of Dutch literature, for instance, Erasmus is discussed basically for his influence on the literary culture of the Low Countries, but not as a writer considered to be part of Dutch literature).Google Scholar
10. Giovanni Del Virgilio's Latin paraphrase of Ovid's Metamorphoses was translated in vernacular by Giovanni Bonsignori in 1375–77, and for more than a century and a half Bonsignori's version was the most important mediation text for the Metamorphoses. In 1522, Niccolò degli Agostini published a version in verse of the Metamorphoses based on Bonsignori's prose version. An important testimony of the widespread use of the text can be found in Giulio Romano's frescoes for the Sala dei Giganti in the Palazzo del Tè. The presence of monkeys on the fresco goes all the way back to an error by Giovanni del Virgilio, who had misinterpreted a verse of Ovid. See on all this: Guthmüller, B. (1997) Mito, poesia, arte. Saggio sulla tradizione ovidiana nel Cinquecento (Roma: Bulzoni), pp. 291–307. For a critical edition of Bonsignori, see G. Bonsignori (2001) Ovidio Metamorphoseos Vulgare, ed. crit. a cura di Erminia Ardissino (Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua).Google Scholar
11. ‘[…] e per le note/di questa comedìa, lettor, ti giuro, s'elle non sien di lunga grazia vòte, /ch'i’ vidi per quell'aere grosso e scuro/venir notando una figura in suso […]’ (Inf XVI, 127–131); ‘Così di ponte in ponte altro parlando/che la mia comedìa cantar non cura, /venimmo […]’ (XXI, vv. 1–3).Google Scholar
12. ‘Euripilo ebbe nome, e così ‘l canta/l'alta mia tragedìa in alcun loco:/ben lo sai tu che la sai tutta quanta’ (Inf. XX, v.v 112–114).Google Scholar
13. ‘Se mai contenga che ‘l poema sacro/al quale ha posto mano e cielo e terra, sì che m'ha fatto per molti anni macro, /vinca la crudeltà che fuor mi serra […]’ (Par, XXV, 1–4); ‘sacrato poema’ (Par, XXIII, v. 62).Google Scholar
14. See on this matter Casadei, A.Il titolo della Commedia e l'Epistola a Cangrande. Allegoria, 60, pp. 167–181.Google Scholar
15. See on this topic Javitch, D. (1978) Rescuing Ovid from the Allegorizers. Comparative Literature, 30(2), pp. 97–107. D. Javitch (1991) Proclaiming a Classic: The Canonization of Orlando Furioso (Princeton: Princeton University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16.Perkins, D. (1992) Is Literary History Possible? (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press), pp. 129–130.Google Scholar
17. See for instance Lucy Riall's excellent book on Garibaldi – Riall, L. (2007) Garibaldi. Invention of a Hero (New Haven, London: Yale University Press) – in which the author convincingly shows how Risorgimento literary canon contains a kind of script for the creation of a Risorgimento hero, and how Garibaldi was cast into this role.Google Scholar
18. See for instance Jossa, S. (2010) L'Italia letteraria (Bologna: Il Mulino) F. Bruni (2010) Italia. Vita e avventure di un'idea (Bologna: Il Mulino); G. Ferroni (2009) Prima lezione di letteratura italiana (Bari: Laterza). On the formation of a national literary canon, see E. Elli (2006) Un'idea di canone. Foscolo, Carducci, Pascoli (Novara: Interlinea).Google Scholar