Rhythmic Clausulae in Dante’s Latin Prose Texts and in their Italian Translations Using Examples from De Vulgari Eloquentia and Monarchia

Abstract

This paper studies Dante’s Latin prose and its Italian translations. The texts observed in this analysis are the samples of De Monarchia and De vulgari eloquentia. In ancient rhetoric, rhythmic units were used at the ends of sentences and clauses in prose texts. Medieval Latin prose rhythm was based on word stress and was called cursus. Generally, it is believed that the most prevalent clauses during the Middle Ages were cursus planus, cursus velox, cursus tardus and cursus trispondaicus. The aim of this paper is to compare the frequency of cursus in the original Latin texts and in their Italian translations. The research method used is comparative-statistical analysis.