Dante Alighieri, De vulgari eloquentia [On Common Eloquence]

John Took (University College London)
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Dante's work, everywhere, is an essay in clarification, in seeking out and stating the rationale of his undertaking as a poet and philosopher; so, for example, the early Vita nova (c. 1293), where by way of what amounts to an essay in affective philosophy, in the redefining of love as a matter less of acquisition than of disposition, it is a question of his resolving the ambiguities of his own experience as a love poet in the Siculo-Tuscan tradition of vernacular verse making. So, too, the Convivio, belonging in an ideal chronology to the years 1304-1307, where by way of a now more properly pedagogical undertaking, of a guide to human happiness for the benefit of "those many men and women in this language of ours burdened b…

2752 words

Citation: Took, John. "De vulgari eloquentia". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 February 2014 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16059, accessed 28 March 2024.]

16059 De vulgari eloquentia 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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