The opinion of educated people as to the social value of language is
fully set forth in the 'Cortigiano.' There were then persons, at the
beginning of the sixteenth century, who purposely kept to the
antiquated expressions of Dante and the other Tuscan writers of his
time, simply because they were old. Our author forbids the use of them
altogether in speech, and is unwilling to permit them even in writing,
which he considers a form of speech. Upon this follows the admission
that the best style of speech is that which most resembles good
writing. We can clearly recognize the author's feeling that people who
have anything of importance to say must shape their own speech, and
that language is something flexible and changing because it is
something living. It is allowable to make use of any expression,
however ornate, as long as it is used by the people; nor are non-Tuscan
words, or even French and Spanish words forbidden, if custom has once
applied them to definite purposes. Thus care and intelligence will
produce a language, which, if not the pure old Tuscan, is still
Italian, rich in flowers and fruit like a well-kept garden. It belongs
to the completeness of the 'Cortigiano' that his wit, his polished
manners, and his poetry, must be clothed in this perfect dress.
When style and language had once become the property of a living
society, all the efforts of purists and archaists failed to secure
their end.
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