Abstract

This paper focuses on the role of the Italian dialects in the poetry and intellectual output of Giosue Carducci (1835-1907). Carducci's style appears to lack any dialectal influence, even if some vernacular inserts (i.e. lexical borrowings from Italian dialects) can occasionally be observed in his poems. Thus, as in his critical and theoretical work, his typical literary repêchage of classical (especially Latin and old Italian) linguistic material does not exclude a deep interest in the rich Italian dialectal tradition. Carducci's sensitivity for dialects is more historical, cultural and political than properly linguistic: nevertheless, some of his remarks about the most important dialectal poets of modern Italy (such as Cesare Pascarella) were influential in the founding of the literary canon of dialectal literature. A number of letters sent to Carducci by poets and scholars, and kept at the Archive of Casa Carducci (Bononia), are published here for the first time.