Epochs Of Italian Literature PDF Download

Excerpt from Epochs of Italian Literature Italian was not, among Romance languages, the first to claim the dignity of a literary language. Italians realized but late that, even though Latin was still considered the literary language of the country lying between the Alps and the sea, there was room for a new literary language that should share with it the field of science and literature, with claims not inferior to those which French or Provencal could urge in France. The spoken language of Italy, the vernacular, during the ten centuries that separate Augustus from King Arduin, had diverged more and more from the recognized language of science and art, literary Latin; and, while learned writers laboured for a couple of centuries longer under the delusion that they were full heirs to the perfect craftsmanship of Cicero and Horace, the distinction between the vernacular (volgare) and the literary language (lingua di grammatica) was becoming evident to all. Nor, under the improving social conditions, was it possible to debar from all literary enjoyment those who were ignorant of Latin, any more than it was practicable for judges to continue the use of Latin in the courts, when those who appeared before them understood nothing but the vernacular. The peoples of France and Spain, being farther removed from Rome, were faced by difficulties similar but less formidable. Among them Roman tradition was less active. Few, if any, of the inhabitants of Gaul or Iberia regarded themselves as the descendants of the Romans. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."