La forma letteraria dialogica nella cultura italiana del XVIII secolo

Abstract

The research aims to cover a gap in the studies in Italian Eighteenth Century, which is that relating to the fate and the uses of the dialogic literary form. If the dialogue genre has been specifically studied by the Italianists with regard to Humanism and Renaissance, few scholars have investigated the subsequent developments (with the exception of the Galilei’s Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi) and the possibility of identifying a more or less autonomous tradition in the Eighteenth Century. The rare critical reconnaissances have focused only on the scientific field, therefore on post-Galilean dialogue, indeed, viewed as a minor appendage of the formal model set by the masterpiece of the Pisan scientist. Nevertheless, the Eighteenth-Century phenomenological framework turns out to be more complicated and, in an attempt to provide a textual corpus of reference, we have identified dialogues concerning the economic, linguistic, political and literary debate, in addition to that scientific. In spite of the differences in content, works like the Francesco Algarotti’s Newtonianismo per le dame, the Onofrio Branda’s Della lingua toscana, the Ferdinando Galiani’s economic dialogues or the Pietro Verri’s political ones, show important affinities in terms of correlation between the selected morphological option and the communicative purposes. In essence, the signs of what has been interpreted as a sort of degradation of the Galilean archetype should not be confined to scientific domain, but they deal with general elements, linked to the forms of knowledge dissemination, the cultural practices and environments typical of the Italian Eighteenth Century. This can include, for example, the widespread recourse to the literary dialogue as part of polemics, discussions and querelles involving many different matters, or the relationship between the didactic use of the conversational-acting forms in colleges and the vulgarization coming from the Fontenellian model, which, in turn, is connected with the drawing room-manners of the sociability. By following these traces and by applying a ductile hermeneutical approach, the research aims to classify in categories the relevant texts and to draw up an overview as much as possible complete. That can give the idea of a separate tradition, which should be seen not only in comparison with the previous ones, but mostly as a crucial transition to the decline that the genre will go through during the 19th and 20th Centuries. [edited by Author]