Polemiche letterarie nella lirica italiana del Duecento

Abstract

The article deals with the theme of literary polemics in the Italian lyric poetry of the XIIIth century, focusing on the most representative and the most relevant aspects of the literary debate: from Sicilian lyric poetry to Dolce stil novo and Dante. The contrastive attitude in the metaliterary sphere is to be found almost exclusively in dialogical sonetti (“tenzoni”): analyzing their texts proves helpful in describing the contemporary literary canon and allows to point out the influence of major poetic models such as Guittone d’Arezzo or Guido Guinizzelli. In most cases the polemic displays through a “serious” attitude which excludes both vituperium and the burlesque features that are typical of the “comic-realistic” poets: this absence proves particularly striking within the outlook of medieval romance poetry, where this kind of dialectic devices are frequently employed in satiric genres.