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On Wed, 23 May 2001 21:38:57 -0700, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >Erminia: Not that it matters, but my teachers said that Manzoni influenced >"the >acceptance of the Florentine dialect as normative," not that his style was >the model. > >But there's something truly disturbing here. Florentine dialect in Dante's, >or Manzoni's, or our own time was not inherently superior to all of Italy's >other dialects, as you seem to feel, nor was it uniquely useful for >expression, it was merely more fortunate. I can certainly understand loving >one's own dialect. That doesn't make it better. > >I remember that Dante toyed with writing the Commedia in Provencal. Had he >done so Florentine might have become the normative dialect of Italian or >not. Some dialect or other would have, but not until the movement for >unification required that there be one. > >Mark > >At 12:38 AM 5/24/2001 +0100, you wrote: >>I was taught your version of the history of the language (with the >>>difference that at the University of Toronto they told me that the >>>acceptance of the Florentine dialect as normative for Italian was due to >>>the influence of I Promessi Sposi), but I'm curious what evidence there is >>>for the stability of the pronunciation of vowels, given that we have no >>>voice recordings from Dante's time. >> >> >> >>....Toronto is a wonderful university but literary informations and/or >>notions sometimes travel in an odd way: >>the authentic story is this: When Alessandro Manzoni wrote his I Promessi >>Sposi, being "Lombardo" (from the region Lombardia where Milan is), and >>therefore talking a language affected by Austro-Hungaric influences, before >>publication, he more or less stated (exactly) this: "I shall go to clean my >>work in the waters of the Arno river...” , a quite striking statement that >>became legendary because Manzoni was such an intellectual and a master of >>style that this modest submissive attitude towards the classics has always >>been used by teachers in school to stimulate the students to do the same…. >> >>Manzoni meant to say that he felt the need to refine his style on the model >>of the classics provided by the Florentine writers.... >> >>Therefore, it is not I Promessi Sposi a model for Italian, but vice-versa >>it was the Florentine and Florentine writers the model for Manzoni's I >>Promessi Sposi. >> >>Now, I wonder who taught you this twisted information.... >> >>: ) >> >> >> (Ah, I have such a sore-throat tonight...I went for the third time to >>watch "Capitan Corelli's Mandolin " here in Oxford and I really fell in >>love with Nicolas Cage, cried and wanted to heal his wounds...) >>