THE BIRTH OF ITALIAN, ENGLISH AND CHINESE AS LITERARY LANGUAGES LA NASCITA DELL’ITALIANO, DELL’INGLESE E DEL CINESE COME LINGUE LETTERARIE

ITALIAN The first documents written in Italian as a literary language date back to XIIIth century. The poetic, Sicilian school of Iacopo da Lentini and other poets at Federico II’s court contribuited to the spread of a single, national, Italian literary language even if the best results were Dante Alighieri’s in La Divina Commedia / Divine Comedy. Dante first used the language spoken in Florence to describe his imaginary voyage after death. It is written in poetry.

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) He was the best poet of Italian Middle Ages and the father of Italian as a literary language.

The “land” Dante goes to

English Geoffrey Chaucer ( 1343-1400 ) was the father of English as a literary language. He worked as a page at court and then he became a diplomat, travelling on the king’s behalf on missions all over Europe. In Italy, Chaucer read Boccaccio’s Decameron and he copied its structure in his Canterbury Tales, dealing with a pilgrimage of a group of different people to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket, in Canterbury Cathedral and it is written in poetry. Thomas Becket had been the Archbishop of Canterbury until he was murdered in his cathedral, by four knights, for political reasons. All the pilgrims described by Chaucer belong to all English social classes with the exception of the highest and the lowest.

The Pilgrims

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) He was the best poet of English Middle Ages and the father of English literary language

Chinese The first work written in Chinese as a literary language dates back to the Zhou Dynasty (11th century BC- 6 th century BC). The title of the work is The Book of Songs, and it is written in poetry . The work is divided into three parts: farmers’ life, formal poems and poems for a sacrificial ceremony.

The Book of Songs It is a Royal Officials' Collection of poems. Master Confucius deletes many poems: at first, there were more than 3000 poems in the book. Confucius only selected 305 poems which he felt that best conformed to traditional ritual property, thus making the official Book of Songs.

A Chinese girl in The Book of Songs