De vulgari eloquentia (On Vernacular Speech) is the title of an important essay by Dante Alighieri, written in Latin and initially meant to consist in four books, but aborted after the second. It was probably written in the years that preceded Dante's exile, between 1303 and 1305. The first book deals with the relationship between Latin and vernacular, and the searching of an illustrious vernacular in the Italian area, while the second is an analysis of the structure of the song, a very important and noble literary genre. Dante in a fresco series of famous men by Andrea del Castagno, ca. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... // Events 24 February: Battle of Roslin 20 April: Pope Boniface VIII founds the University of Rome La Sapienza Edward I of England reconquers Scotland (see also: William Wallace, Wars of Scottish Independence) The Khilji Dynasty conquers time travel Births Saint Birgitta, Swedish saint (died 1373) Gegeen Khan, Mongol emperor of... Events August 5 - English troops capture William Wallace Wenceslas III becomes king of Bohemia Archbishop of Bordeaux, Bertrand de Got, was elected as Pope Clement V. Philip IV of France accused the Knights Templar of heresy. ... Look up Vernacular in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... [[ For other uses, see Song (disambiguation). ... A literary genre is one of the divisions of literature into genres according to particular criteria such as literary technique, tone, or content. ...

Latin essays were very popular in the Middle Ages, but Dante made some innovations in his work: firstly the topic, which is the vernacular, was an uncommon choice at that time. Secondly, the way Dante approached this theme, that is giving to vernacular the same dignity that was only meant for Latin. Finally, Dante wrote this essay in order to analyse the origin and the philosophy of vernacular, because, in his opinion, this language was not something static, but something that evolves and needed an historical contextualisation. The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... The philosopher Socrates about to take poison hemlock as ordered by the court. ... This article is about evolution in biology. ... History studies the past in human terms. ...

Structure

Dante interrupted his work at the fourteenth chapter of the second book, and though historians have tried to find a reason for this, it is still not known why Dante so abruptly aborted his essay. Indeed it is an unfinished project, and so information about its intended structure is limited. Though at some point, Dante mentions a fourth book in which he planned to deal with the comic genre, the mediocre one, nothing at all is known about the third book. It is thought, however, that the first book was meant to be a sort of preface to the following three books, and so shorter than the other ones.

Content

In the beginning, Dante faced the historical evolution of the language, that he thinks was born unitary and, in a second time, was separated in different idioms because of the presumptuousness demonstrated by the humankind at the Tower of Babel time. He compiled a map of the geographical position of the languages he knows, dividing the European territory into three parts: one to the east, with the Greek languages; one to the north, with the Germanic languages; one to the south, separated into three languages identified by the affirmation adverb: oc language, oïl language and sì language. He then discussed the grammar, which is a static language consisting of unchanging rules, needed to make up for the natural languages. In the chapters ten to fifteen of the first book, Dante writes about his research for the illustrious vernacular, among the fourteen varieties he claims to have found in the Italian region. In the second book, Dante deals with literary genres, specifying which are the ones that suit the vernacular. Human beings are defined variously in biological, spiritual, and cultural terms, or in combinations thereof. ... Engraving The Confusion of Tongues by Gustave Doré (1865), who based his conception on the Minaret of Samarra According to the narrative in Genesis Chapter 11 of the Bible, the Tower of Babel was a tower constructed to reach the heavens by a united humanity. ... A map is a simplified depiction of a space which highlights relations between components (objects, regions) of that space. ... Geography (from the Greek words Geo (γη) or Gaea (γαια), both meaning Earth, and graphein (γραφειν) meaning to describe or to writeor to map) is the study of the earth and its features and of the distribution of life on the Earth. ... Look up position in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article is 150 kilobytes or more in size. ... The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST, internally called HT-7U) is a project being undertaken to construct an experimental superconducting tokamak magnetic fusion energy reactor in Hefei, the capital city of Anhui Province, in eastern China. ... Greek ( IPA: or IPA: — Hellenic) is an Indo-European language with a documented history of 3,500 years, the longest of any single language in that language family. ... {{Otheruses4|north the direction}} [[Image:CompassRose16_N.png|thumb|250px|right|[[Compass rose]] with north highlighted and at top]] {{wiktionary}} <nowiki>North is o<nowiki>ne of the [[4 (numbe</nowiki> Block quote r)|four]] cardinal directions, specifically the direction that, in Western culture, is treated as the primary direction: north... A compass rose with South highlighted South is most commonly a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. ... Occitan, known also as Lenga dòc or Langue doc (Occitan: occitan, lenga dòc) is a Romance language spoken in Occitania (i. ... The langue doïl language family in linguistics comprises Romance languages originating in territories now occupied by northern France, part of Belgium and the Channel Islands. ... Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people,[1] primarily in Italy and Switzerland. ... For the surname, see Grammer. ... The term natural language is used to distinguish languages spoken and signed (by hand signals and facial expressions) by humans for general-purpose communication from constructs such as writing, computer-programming languages or the languages used in the study of formal logic, especially mathematical logic. ...

Models

Dante takes inspiration from rhetoric essays in Latin, Occitan and Italian, and from philosophical readings. The main classic rhetoric text from which he drew information were the Ars Poetica by Horace, the Rhetorica ad Herennium by an anonymous author, and De Inventione by Cicero. About the philosophical works, it is important to know that Dante read not only first hand texts, but also summaries that sometimes were not of the original work, but of an intermediary one. Rhetoric (from Greek , rhêtôr, orator, teacher) is generally understood to be the art or technique of persuasion through the use of oral language and written language; however, this definition of rhetoric has been contested since rhetoric emerged as a field of study in Universities. ... Ars Poetica is the name of at least three pieces of literature. ... Horace, as imagined by Anton von Werner Quintus Horatius Flaccus, (December 8, 65 BC - November 27, 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. ... The Rhetorica ad Herennium is the oldest surviving Latin book on rhetoric. ... The De Inventione is a handbook for orators that M. Tullius Cicero composed when he was still a young man. ... Cicero at about age 60, from an ancient marble bust Marcus Tullius Cicero (IPA:Classical Latin pronunciation: , usually pronounced in English; January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, political theorist, philosopher, widely considered one of Romes greatest orators and prose stylists. ...

Directly or indirectly, Dante came to read Saint Augustine's works, the De Consolatione Philosophiae by Boëthius, Saint Thomas Aquinas's works and some encyclopedic dictionaries like the Etymologiae by Isidore of Seville and the Livre du Tresor by Brunetto Latini. He takes also inspiration from Aristotelian philosophy, and in Dante's work are traceable some references to texts by representatives of what is sometimes referred to as Radical Aristotelianism. “Augustinus” redirects here. ... This early printed book has many hand-painted illustrations depicting Lady Philosophy and scenes of daily life in fifteenth-century Ghent (1485) Consolation of Philosophy (Latin: Consolatio Philosophiae) is a philosophical work by Boethius written in about the year 524 AD. It has been described as the single most important... Boethius teaching his students (initial from a 1385 Italian manuscript of the Consolation of Philosophy) Boethius redirects here. ... Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225 - March 7, 1274) was a Catholic philosopher and theologian in the scholastic tradition, who gave birth to the Thomistic school of philosophy, which was long the primary philosophical approach of the Roman Catholic Church. ... An encyclopedic dictionary typically includes a large number of short listings discussing a wide of topics. ... First printed edition of 1472 (by Guntherus Ziner, Augsburg), title page of chapter 14 (de terra et partibus), illustrated with a T and O map. ... Saint Isidore of Seville (Spanish: or ) (c. ... Brunetto Latini (c. ... Aristotle (Greek: AristotélÄ“s) (384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ...

See also

Other works by Dante:

• La Vita Nuova
• the Convivio
• La Divina Commedia
• the Monarchia
• the Epistole
• the Fiore
• the Rime

Wikipedia articles on: La Vita Nuova (English: New Life) is a book of verse written by Dante Alighieri, roughly around the year of 1293. ... Convivio is a work written by Dante Alighieri roughly between 1294 and 1307. ... Dante shown holding a copy of The Divine Comedy, next to the entrance to Hell, the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory and the city of Florence, in Michelinos fresco. ... The Rime is a collection of lyrical poems written by Dante Alighieri in the Italian language. ...

• Averroes & Averroism: for discussion of the concepts of Radical Aristotelianism and heterodox Aristotelianism

Ibn Rushd, known as Averroes (1126 – December 10, 1198), was an Andalusian-Arab philosopher and physician, a master of philosophy and Islamic law, mathematics, and medicine. ... Averroism is the term applied to either of two philosophical trends among scholastics in the late 13th century, the first of which was based on Averroës interpretations of Aristotle. ...

External links

• Complete text of De Vulgari Eloquentia
• [1] De vulgari eloquentia in Latin.
• Concordances of De Vulgari Eloquentia