Mayacaman
04-10-2020, 07:00 AM
Now is the time when, shut in, we may catch up on the Classics. Dante Alighieri (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=+dante+alighieri&t=osx&ia=web) of Florence (1265 - 1321) is credited with being the father of the Italian language. He was the author of a great epic poem, La Comedia Divina (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=la+divina+comedia+dante+alighieri+pdf&t=osx&ia=web), or "The Divine Comedy (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=The+Divine+Comedy+%2C+dante+alighieri+&t=osx&ia=web)." Prior to the publication of this work there was no "Italian language" per se. There were only many dialects of the speech of the Commons, tongues that were despised by churchmen & jurists as degenerate forms of Latin, and that varied from one city state to the next, and even from village to village within the Italian Peninsula.
Dante was exiled from Florence - on pain of death if he returned - on account of being on the losing side of a power struggle within the city, between the Black Guelphs (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=black+guelph+nobility&t=osx&ia=web) and the White Guelphs. Dante Alighieri was a "White Guelph (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Dante+Alighieri+%2C+%22White+Guelph%22&t=osx&ia=web)." He spent the rest of his life in exile, wandering around Italy, with no permanent place of abode. It was while he was in exile that he conceived and produced one of the greatest works of literature of all time. He also codified and clarified the many disparate dialects of the Common speech of the Italian peninsula into a unified language - Modern Italian.
Dante's great Book, the Divine Comedy is available for free, @ librivox.org. You don't have to go to the trouble of reading it. You may listen to it in English in the Blank Verse (https://librivox.org/the-divine-comedy-by-dante-alighieri/) translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, or in the original Italian (https://librivox.org/la-divina-commedia-by-dante-alighieri/) - which is music to the ears.
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Dante was exiled from Florence - on pain of death if he returned - on account of being on the losing side of a power struggle within the city, between the Black Guelphs (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=black+guelph+nobility&t=osx&ia=web) and the White Guelphs. Dante Alighieri was a "White Guelph (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Dante+Alighieri+%2C+%22White+Guelph%22&t=osx&ia=web)." He spent the rest of his life in exile, wandering around Italy, with no permanent place of abode. It was while he was in exile that he conceived and produced one of the greatest works of literature of all time. He also codified and clarified the many disparate dialects of the Common speech of the Italian peninsula into a unified language - Modern Italian.
Dante's great Book, the Divine Comedy is available for free, @ librivox.org. You don't have to go to the trouble of reading it. You may listen to it in English in the Blank Verse (https://librivox.org/the-divine-comedy-by-dante-alighieri/) translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, or in the original Italian (https://librivox.org/la-divina-commedia-by-dante-alighieri/) - which is music to the ears.
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