Cambridge Medieval Classics
2 total works
De vulgari eloquentia, written by Dante in the early years of the fourteenth century, is the only known work of medieval literary theory to have been produced by a practising poet, and the first to assert the intrinsic superiority of living, vernacular languages over Latin. Its opening consideration of language as a sign-system includes foreshadowings of twentieth-century semiotics, and later sections contain the first serious effort at literary criticism based on close analytical reading since the classical era. Steven Botterill here offers an accurate Latin text and a readable English translation of the treatise, together with notes and introductory material, thus making available a work which is relevant not only to Dante's poetry and the history of Italian literature, but to our whole understanding of late medieval poetics, linguistics, and literary practice.
The Monarchia, Dante's treatise on political theory, addresses the fundamental question of what form of political organisation best suits human nature; it embodies a political vision of startling originality and power, and illuminates the intellectual interests and achievements of one of the world's great poets. The whole text is here presented in a new translation, the first for forty years, based on a more up-to-date and scholarly version of the Latin original than has previously been available. The translation, together with accompanying introduction and notes, has been prepared by Prue Shaw. In this new and accessible form, the Monarchia will interest not only Dante specialists, but also students of literary studies, political history and philosophy.