Tra nazionalismo e universalismo: Dante in due interventi di Ernesto Giacomo Parodi e di Francesco D’Ovidio negli anni della prima guerra mondiale

The essay starts from a discussion of the traditional definition of Dante as “the father of the Italian language”, with references to some studies produced by valiant historians of the Italian language in recent years, and then moves on to re-evoke the mythologizing of Dante carried out by the Risorgimento and post-Risorgimento culture: on the one hand as a “prophet of the nation” and on the other hand as a European and universal symbol. In this context, two lectures given by Parodi and D’Ovidio in 1914 and 1916 are analyzed and compared with the large number of writings produced in Italy, during the years of the Great War, which, as a whole, put Dante again in the role of father of the homeland in arms and defender of its linguistic boundaries. The two lectures also provide an opportunity to reread the early twentieth-century polemics against the scuola storica and the excesses of Dantean idolatry.