Dante’s Volgare and the Pastoral Presence: An Analysis of the Concept of Language in the Divina Commedia

Author

Paola M. Rodriguez, The Graduate Center, City University of New YorkFollow

Date of Degree

9-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Comparative Literature

Advisor

Paola Ureni

Committee Members

Steven Kruger

Paolo Fasoli

Subject Categories

Classical Literature and Philology | European Languages and Societies | Italian Linguistics | Italian Literature | Medieval Studies | Music Performance | Translation Studies | Women's Studies

Keywords

Dante, Divine Comedy, Pastoral poetry, bucolic poetry, medieval classical reception, Dante and Occitan troubadour poetry

Abstract

Dante’s conception of the Italian vernacular, the “volgare illustre”, is a central concern of his work and one which catalyses and nurtures, both overtly and covertly, his creation of the Commedia. Although Dante positions himself in his writings as the continual defender and most prolific poet of the vernacular, isolating a specific linguistic use and structure, a coherent definition of what vernacular Dante privileges or what appropriate usage he adheres to, is a difficult and often confusing task. The existence of two eclogues, the only works by Dante to have been written after the majority of the Commedia had been written, provide an important and significant addition to the investigation of Dante’s possible ideas surrounding the vernacular and its deployment in literature and poetry. In this study, I provide an in-depth analysis of the two eclogues written by Dante, highlighting possible connections and similarities to his ideas about language in the Commedia. The background and transmission of Virgil’s eclogues, their positioning as a work of allegory and written in a “humble” and lower style than the Aeneid, the other significant Virgilian work featured in the Commedia, propose a fertile and profound new perspective on Dante’s own espousal of both allegory and a vernacular that communicates through allegory. In my study, I seek to isolate and highlight several bucolic allusions and situations within the Commedia, defining the use of Virgil’s bucolic as the foundation of Dante’s defense and espousal of the vernacular. I begin with a short introduction outlining my position vis-à-vis the connection between Dante’s interpretation of the Virgilian bucolic found in Virgil’s eclogues and Dante’s concept of vernacular use. The second chapter provides a detailed analysis of Dante’s two eclogues a work significant for the consideration of the linguistic values and ideas found in the Commedia, and themselves a significant contribution to the development of pastoral poetry. The third chapter concentrates on the presence of Virgil and Francesca, and their ties to bucolic allegory, and the metapoetic implications of Geryon, fraud and lies in the Malebolge section of the Inferno. The fourth chapter looks at the use of Cato as a challenge and subversion of classical Latin poetic genre, and the recycling and re-use of the love-lyric through Casella and Matelda, as well as the union of earthly and divine, and the repercussions on the vernacular of such a dialectic, in the Garden of Eden in Purgatorio. The final and fifth chapter concentrates on the feminine contingent in Dante’s Paradiso, Beatrice, Piccarda and Cunizza, as testimony to Dante’s espousal of allegory, and thus the vernacular, as a valid instrument of knowledge transmission, and the necessity of heterogeneity and change in the consolidation of vernacular progress and establishment.

Recommended Citation

Rodriguez, Paola M., "Dante’s Volgare and the Pastoral Presence: An Analysis of the Concept of Language in the Divina Commedia" (2024). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6010