The introduction to the 'Cento Novelle
Antiche,' which were put into their present shape before l 300, avows
this object openly. Language is here considered apart from its uses in
poetry; its highest function is clear, simple, intelligent utterance in
short speeches, epigrams, and answers. This faculty was admired in
Italy, as nowhere else but among the Greeks and Arabs: 'how many in the
course long life have scarcely produced a single "bel parlare." '
But the matter was rendered more difficult by the diversity of the
aspects under which it was considered. The writings of Dante transport
us into the midst of the struggle. His work 'On the Italian Language'
is not only of the utmost importance for the subject itself, but is
also the first complete treatise on any modern language. His method and
results belong to the history of linguistic science, in which they will
always hold a high place. We must here content ourselves with the
remark that long before the appearance of this book the subject must
have been one of daily and pressing importance, various dialects of
Italy had long been the object of study and dispute, and that the birth
of the one ideal was not accomplished without many throes.
Nothing certainly contributed so much to this end as the great poem of
Dante. The Tuscan dialect became the basis of the new national speech.
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