PAROLE CORTE, LONGA AMISTATE
Description
PAROLE CORTE, LONGA AMISTATE
SAGGI DI LINGUA E LETTERATURA PER PATRICIA BIANCHI
a cura di C. Di Bonito, R. Giglio, P. Maturi, F. Montuori
This book was written by a fine group of friends, putting together a series of essays written expressly for this special occasion, to be given as a gift to Patricia Bianchi on the occasion of her last academic lecture in the History of the Italian Language course in October 2022 at the Master of Arts in Modern Philology program at Federico II University. Keeping so many papers together in one book also required an effort of synthesis from the authors. Hence the reference to a proverb quoted by Guittone d'Arezzo in one of his letters, "Ove parole corte, longa amistatThis book was constructed by a fine group of friends, putting together a series of essays written expressly for this special occasion, to give as a gift to Patricia Bianchi on the occasion of her last academic lecture in the History of the Italian Language course in October 2022 at the Master of Arts in Modern Philology program at Federico II University. Keeping so many papers together in one book also required an effort of synthesis from the authors. Hence the reference to a proverb quoted by Guittone d'Arezzo in one of his letters, "Ove parole corte, longa amistate," which means that few words are also an indication of long friendship. By recalling this proverb, Guittone intends to emphasize that true friends do not lavish themselves in broad and frequent declarations of benevolence, but demonstrate their feelings through actions ("con operando assai e più amando"). The intention of pursuing a certain brevitas ("short words") is matched in this book by the wide range of topics covered, ranging from the Middle Ages to the contemporary age, from masterpieces of great authors to non-literary writings, from major themes of epochal significance to aspects of linguistic history and events that affect, in one way or another, everyday life. The breadth of topics covered, distributed between language and literature, reflects the happy disposition with which Patricia Bianchi tends to combine interests in the history of language with those in literary and theatrical texts, particularly those of the XIX and XX centuries. These authors investigated are: Matilde Serao, Salvatore Di Giacomo, Ferdinando Russo, Eduardo Scarpetta, Roberto Bracco, Peppino de Filippo, Eduardo De Filippo, Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, Annibale Ruccello, Enzo Striano, Lionello Balestrieri. Patricia Bianchi's activity has naturally touched many other themes, starting from the question of language, studied in the writings of Francesco D'Ovidio, to the fortune of The Betrothed in Southern Italy to the realization, with other authors, of a university textbook dedicated to Italian, but in her scholarly industriousness one can easily recognize the continuous thread of a "longa amistate," if one can still say so by mentioning the title, with the protagonists of Neapolitan literary culture in the last decades of the XIX and early XX centuries.
