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LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

 

Dante and Shakespeare. Two geniuses. Two stars. Two milestones. We cannot imagine a world without them. In their works language and literature kiss each other and dance together. That nobody dare separate language from literature. Their marriage is a holy and indissoluble union.

Lo maggior don che Dio per sua larghezza

fesse creando ed alla sua bontate

pił confermato e quel ch'Ei pił apprezza,

fu de la volontą la libertate;

di che le creature intelligenti,

e tutte e sole, fuoro e son dotate. (Paradiso, V, 19-24)

 

 

To die, to sleep; to sleep perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

when we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

must give us pause - there's the respect

that makes calamity of so long life. [...]

Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life,

but that the dread of something after death,

the undiscovered country, from whose bourn

no traveller returns, puzzles the will,

and makes us rather bear those ills we have

than fly to others that we know not of? (Hamlet, III Act, Scene I, 64-83)

 

USEFUL LINKS TO REFLECT ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

Prof. John Lye's Page

Literature and Meaning

Contemporary Literary Theory

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