Difference as Punishment or Difference as Pleasure From the Tower of Babel in De vulgari eloquentia to the Death of Babel in Paradiso 26
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Abstract
Dante’s linguistic treatise, De vulgari eloquentia, is not without joy in linguistic difference and invention. However, the treatise’s signature attitude toward linguistic difference is signaled early in Book 1 by the powerfully punitive account of the Tower of Babel. Linguistic diversity, aka “confusion of tongues”, is the punishment meted out to Nimrod and his followers for their presumptuous building of the Tower of Babel: thus, difference is punishment. This essay traces Dante’s evolution as he moves from De vulgari eloquentia to the encounter with Nembrot (as Dante calls Nimrod) in Inferno 31 to Adam’s great discourse on linguistic creation in Paradiso 26: from difference as punishment to difference as pleasure. Dante’s evolution in the linguistic sphere correlates moreover with another transition: from the treatise’s castigation of Eve as a speaker, presumptuosissima Eva, to the Beatrix loquax of Paradiso.
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