Italians defend Dante from claims he was ‘light years’ behind Shakespeare

Widmann additionally maintained that as a lyric poet, Dante was beholden to French medieval troubadours, the poet-musicians who wrote verses on love. “One important difference tends to be overlooked,” Widmann wrote. “The troubadours were pop singers, of whose masterpieces only the lyrics survive; Dante aimed to achieve the same effect – without music. He always felt in competition.”

But maybe essentially the most damning evaluation was his comparability of Dante with Shakespeare. Widmann wrote that “Shakespeare, in his amorality, was light years more modern than Dante’s effort to have an opinion on everything, who dragged everything before the judgment of his own morality”.

Widmann wrote his article to coincide with Italians celebrating Dante Day on 25 March, chosen as it’s the date on which most students imagine he made his fictional descent into hell for the primary a part of The Divine Comedy. There are additionally occasions happening throughout Italy this yr to mark the 700th anniversary of the poet’s demise.

The harshest response to Widmann’s piece got here from Eike Schmidt, a German artwork historian and the director of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, who described the journalist as “ignorant” throughout a radio interview.

“Widmann maintains that Dante’s importance for the Italian language was not so great, because children at school would have difficulty understanding his texts,” Schmidt stated. “But that’s not the case at all. Apart from a few words and some theological concepts, Dante’s language is still perfectly intelligible today, unlike what happened with English or German in the 14th century.”

The Italian tradition minister, Dario Franceschini, tweeted a verse from Dante’s Inferno in response: “Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa (Inf. III, 51)” (“let us not reflect upon them, but watch and move on”).

Luca Serianni, an Italian linguist and vice-president of the Dante Alighieri Society, informed the information company Adnkronos that the article had “a childish approach”.

Dante was born in Florence in 1265 and died and was buried in Ravenna in 1321. Pope Francis and the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, each paid tribute to the poet to mark Dante Day final week. The pope wrote that Dante remained a “prophet of hope and witness to the human desire for happiness”, particularly at this “moment in history”.

Mattarella informed Corriere della Sera: “The Divine Comedy still attracts us, fascinates us, makes us wonder today because it talks about us, about the deepest essence of man, made up of weaknesses, failings, nobility and generosity.”