Milli mála - 01.01.2010, Síða 277
tative register marginalized the freshness and vehemence of prose
in the galilean vein.
During the sixteenth century, in several European countries, a
new form of modern subjectivity – separate from the Baroque –
takes shape, as well as a new literary genre, whose peculiar ele-
ments are a multilinguism that traverses different social classes (a
sort of transversal multilinguism): masks, irony, parody, dialogic
structure. This new genre is the novel, which has already given the
world masterpieces such as Gargantua and Pantagruel and Don
Quixote. Multilinguism, masks, irony, parody, dialogic structure
are precisely the elements that characterize most of galilean prose,
but not even in this sense is the galilean ‘school’ absorbed by
Italian literature. The first great Italian novel, alessandro
Manzoni’s I promessi sposi (The Bethrothed), would not be pub-
lished before the first half of the nineteenth century,107 while anoth-
er work, giacomo Leopardi’s Operette morali (Small Moral Works,
1824), which could be assimilated – for some characteristics – to
galileo’s works, was published in 1824. galileo, the progenitor of
so-called scientific prose, whose characteristic alternates rigorous
demonstration with vivid language, is destined to represent a sort
of isolated scientifico-literary ‘case’. Perhaps, if galileo’s two
major literary works (Considerazioni al Tasso and Postille
all’Ariosto) had been published during his life, his reputation as a
literary figure might have followed his fame as a scientist.
úTDrÁTTur
Hliðstæður í málfari í umfjöllun um vísindi og
bókmenntir í tveimur ritum galíleos
The Assayer (Il Saggiatore,1623) er eitt af höfuðritum galíleos, en
í því hrekur hann vísindakenningar sem eru settar fram í ritinu
Libra astronomica eftir jesúítann og heimspekinginn Orazio
grassi. Considerazioni al Tasso er hins vegar eitt af smærri verkum
STEFanO rOSaTTI
277
107The first edition of this novel came out in 1827, but Manzoni continued to work on it until
1840, when the revised version – the one which is read and studied in all the Italian high-
schools – was published.
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