Dante’s Italy: national sentiment and world government

Abstract

ABSTRACT In much extant scholarship, Dante is either misused as the prophet of the modern Italian nation-state or dismissed as a naive imperialist. This paper steers clear of both these characterizations and gives serious consideration to Dante’s own understanding of nationhood. I examine the construction of language and national community in De vulgari eloquentia and then place Dante’s idea of the nation in the context of his argument for world government in Monarchia. Grappling with the received view that for Dante, as for Aristotle, language is inherently political, the paper suggests that Dante’s nation is first and foremost a kind of psychological bond arising from the experience and use of common language; it is not embodied in political-juridical institutions, nor is it a suitable sphere for human self-realization through civic discourse and participation. The recovery of Dante’s ‘non-political’ understanding of the nation cautions against a blanket dismissal of premodern ideas of the nation and offers a more nuanced perspective on language, national identity, and the future of nation-states.