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Comicità e vanto nella letteratura rusticale e nenciale

2010; Loescher; Volume: 187; Issue: 620 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1484/j.gsli.5.129153

0017-0496

Massimo Scalabrini,

Educational and Social Studies

The topos of the boast is a distinguishing feature of the rustic genre and the Nencia tradition that emerged in Tuscany and northeastern Italy in the second half of the 15th century. This topos is also present in the macaronic works and the plurilingual and dialect plays of the 16th century, which constituted major channels of expression for rustic literature and the Nencia tradition. Through the analysis of examples of boasting in such texts as Nencia di Barberino, Francesco Berni’s Catrina, Giorgio Sommariva’s sonnets in Paduan dialect, Teofilo Folengo’s Zanitonella and Ruzante’s plays, this article retraces on the one hand the literary genealogy of the figure of the boast (in the Greco-Latin pastoral and in the medieval epic and parody), and on the other highlights its magnificent comic function. Despite its manifold manifestations, the boast of the rustic genre and Nencia tradition emerges in these texts as a form of discourse that is typical of those residing on the hostile border that divides rustic culture and language from the urban sphere.