Linguistic Variation of Dreams: The Somniale Danielis from Latin to Vernacular Italian

• In Event: Writing Modern Languages in Renaissance Europe: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a linguistic analysis within the transmission of the Somniale Danielis, in Latin and Italian manuscript sources and printed editions. Widely circulated in the late Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, the Somniale Danielis is a dream manual, structured through dream symbols and their concise explanation. Medieval and early Renaissance manuscripts — from the tenth century to 1496 — generally bear the same dreams but show changes in their interpretations. The coherence of the symbology over several centuries, allows for a linguistic analysis across these manuals, by situating them in specific cultural contexts. These ‘local copies’ are especially important for their connection to a pragmatic, local use that establishes their role as documents of writing peculiarities adopted during the process through which a new modern language was emerging.

Author

• Valerio Cappozzo, University of Mississippi