ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Dante Alighieri’s fascination with the global diversity of languages in De Vulgari Eloquentia. Dante is intent on proving the validity of the Italian vernacular as opposed to the artificiality of Latin. Different phases can be distinguished in the development of Dante’s position in relation to the intricate world of medieval plurilingualism. Whatever abstract linguistic conclusions Dante drew from the opposition between Latin and vernacular, he left the concrete supremacy of Latin literature untouched until he came to write the Comedy. Dante’s attitude to plurilingualism had become eminently practical. Both the specimens of regional speech and the references to the opening lines of poems in French, Italian and Provencal always have the force of quotations or exempla with which Dante substantiates the arguments he has evolved in Latin. Dante’s struggle with language is rarely fought in a purely literary or theoretical arena.
