Читать книгу Gesammelte Aufsätze zur romanischen Philologie – Studienausgabe. Herausgegeben und ergänzt um Aufsätze, Primärbibliographie und Nachwort von Matthias Bormuth und Martin Vialon онлайн

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Rudolfo BultmannBultmann, R. septuagenario

There are some twenty passages in the Commedia1 where DanteDante, interrupting the narrative, addresses his reader: urging him either to share in the poet’s experiences and feelings, or to give credence to some miraculous occurrence, or to understand some peculiarity of content or style, or to intensify his attention in order to get the true meaning, or even to discontinue his reading if he is not duly prepared to follow. Most of the passages concerned are highly dramatic, expressing, towards the reader, at the same time the intimacy of a brother and the superiority of a teaching prophet. Professor Hermann GmelinGmelin, H., who has listed and discussed them in a recently published paper,2 is certainly right in saying that the addresses to the reader are one of DanteDante’s most significant style patterns, and that they show a new relationship between reader and poet.

Indeed, it is difficult to find anything similar in earlier European literature. Formal address to the reader was never used in classical epic poetry, such as VergilVergil’s or LucanLukan’s. Elsewhere, it was not unknown, but almost never reached the level of dignity and intensity present in DanteDante. OvidOvid addresses his reader fairly often, mostly in the Tristia,3 apologizing, asking for pity, or thanking the reader for his favor which promises the poet eternal glory. These addresses are still more frequent in Martial’s Epigrams;4 MartialMartial creates an atmosphere of witty and polite intimacy between the public and himself. There are, indeed, a few passages on his literary fame which have an accent of earnestness and solemnity;5 but everywhere he considers the reader as his patron, and his attitude is that of a man whose main object is to win the reader’s favor. There are some casual addresses in ApuleiusApuleius’ Metamorphoses6 and in Phaedrus;7 that is all, as far as I know. One may perhaps add certain funeral inscriptions such as the famous epitaphEpitaph of a housewife: hospes quod deico, paullum est, asta et pellege …8 All these examples have little in common with DanteDante’s style.