Irresistible Signs : The Genius of Language and Italina National Identity

Summary: Language is now understood as a key component of cultural identity, but discourses on linguistic nationalism are only a few centuries old. In Irresistible Signs, Paola Gambarota investigates the connection between Italian language and national identity over four hundred years, from late-Renaissance linguistic theories to nineteenth-century nationalist myths.Challenging the consensus that linguistic nationalism originated with nineteenth century German philosophers, Irresistible Signs advances a more nuanced theory of how culture and language become inextricably linked through literary and rhetorical elements. Gambarota combines Anglo-American theories of the nation with the most advanced Italian scholarship on language ideology and delves into ideas from Giambattista Vico, Giacomo Leopardi, and Melchiorre Cesarotti. Irresistible Signs also explores how images of national communities are represented within vernaculars, affirming their influence in shaping contemporary models of monolingual nationhood.

Record details

ISBN: 9781442695269
Physical Description: 1 online resource
remote
Computer data.
Publisher: Toronto : University of Toronto Press, [2017]
Copyright: ©2011

Content descriptions

General Note:	CatMonthString:january.23 Multi-User.
Formatted Contents Note:	Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Scripts of Vernaculars and Collective Characters in Early Modern Europe -- 2 Ut Lingua, Natio: Dominique Bouhours's Genius of the Nation and Ludovico Antonio Muratori's Italian Republic of Letters -- 3 Giambattista Vico, the Vernacular, and the Foundations of Modern Italy -- 4 Translating Genius: Cesarotti, Ossian, and the Question of National Character -- 5 Towards Sameness: Leopardi's Critique of Character, and the End of the Nation -- Irresistible Signs? A Postscript and the Question of Media -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Restrictions on Access Note:	restricted access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec online access with authorization
Type of Computer File or Data Note:	Text (HTML), electronic book.
Additional Physical Form available Note:	Issued also in print.
System Details Note:	Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web. Mode of access: Internet.
Terms Governing Use and Reproduction Note:	Access requires VIU IP addresses and is restricted to VIU students, faculty and staff. Access restricted through purchase.
Language Note:	In English.
Issuing Body Note:	Made available online by publisher.
Source of Description Note:	Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)