Sermo absentium: Rhetoric, Epistolarity, and the Emergence of Italian Literary Culture - eScholarship
Scott Sims Millspaugh
The goal of this dissertation is to propose a theory for the emergence Italian literary culture in Duecento , with particular reference lyric production Giacomo da Lentini and Guittone d'Arezzo, as well Dantean history Purgatorio XXIV XXVI. `Le origini', label long preferred by criticism describe period between 1230 1300, presupposes coherent national narrative framed, on one side, an irrepressible vernacular spirit that defies political fragmentation and, other, Italy's hard-won unification nineteenth century. Though studies has done much undermine fiction all periods literature, significant gaps scholarship remain . This due complications arising, first all, from traditional division disciplinary labor, but also condition record, which limited chronologically years around 1300 geographically Tuscany Bologna. A third challenge faced scholars thirteenth century overwhelming presence Dante, whose self-consciously ambitious Commedia along De vulgari eloquentia provides most complete, if problematically teleological, available period. Recent advances rhetoric - Ronald Witt's Two Latin Cultures Foundation Renaissance Humanism Medieval Italy have opened critical space non-teleological is, nevertheless, acutely aware Dante's influence. It within I intend formulate accounts not only writing practices thirteenth-century poets, structures their reception. argues three movements early poetry scuola siciliana siculo-toscani Dolce stil nuovo can mapped onto bifurcation medieval into `legal-rhetorical' documentary communes, emerged result Investiture Struggle eleventh twelfth centuries, revival Carolingian `traditional book culture' accompanied `rise signori ' at end communal d'Arezzo results importation Occitan song discursive milieu defined ars dictaminis effect practical rhetorical arts be seen, hand, its epistolary orientation, fully manifest sonnet, tenzone canzoniere ; pessimistic ambiguity Guittone's trobar clus, foregrounds troubling polysemy courtly signifiers. Toward century, however, renewed interest attends collapse commune, disparages association tradition `municipal' activities notaries dictatores Instead, classicizing tendencies, nourished Brunetto Latini's Ciceronian revival, Paduan humanism, lead him reject outright, brings close stage development culture.