| Through a methodological approach based on both historical and pragmatic linguistics, this dissertation aims to provide a more objective ground to what is commonly and impressionistically referred to as the "dramatic" style of the Comedy. Aside from the resonances of actual dramatic sources, the Comedy, as a medieval work, participates in the "environmental theatricality" typical of the Middle Ages, when the role of performance, the presence of the voice, the orality, and the music played a major role in the transmission of "literary" texts. The Comedy shares with the dramatic genres the evident feature of direct discourse, whose quantitative predominance is demonstrated through detailed lists of statistical data. A stylistic and pragmatic analysis of the various characters' speeches shows how the written text---through repetitions, syntax accidents, discourse signals, conversational fillers, and changes of intent---replicates the typical modalities of the spoken language. Like a dramatist, Dante employs stylistic and linguistic mimetic devices to connotate the speech of his characters, going as far as to create a nonsensical language---a highly theatrical feature---for the devilish speech of Pluto and Nimrod. A special consideration is given to the deictic markers, discourse signals participating in the extralinguistic elements of orality, whose only possibility of decodification rests within the actual scene of their communicative context. As in dramatic works, deictic expressions are largely and significantly present throughout all three canticles. Typically, just like stage directions, even precise gestural indications are given in both narrative and direct discourse. Moreover, by shifting allocutory expressions according to the personality of the addressee, a calculated usage of "social deixis" contributes to the realism of the situation, as when the pilgrim discovers the noble identity of his interlocutors and reformulates his speech using reverential pronouns of address. Finally, Dante's Comedy displays an artistic device unknown to the classical tradition, but common in the performative genres: the address to the public. Thus, by explicitly and implicitly referring to his readers and listeners, the Comedy , a work based upon dialogues, proposes itself as a constant, continuous dramatic dialogue with its present and future public. |
