Lo cunto de li cunti e il napoletano del Seicento: appunti per un'analisi linguistica

Abstract

This paper aims to describe some aspects of the language of Lo cunto de li cunti (1634-36), the first literary collection of fairy tales in Europe, written in Neapolitan dialect and Baroque style by Giovan Battista Basile. The first part of the paper illustrates some typically Baroque stylistic features used by Basile (such as metaphors and lexical lists). The second part describes three linguistic features (the metaphonetic diphthong ue, the past tense, and the prepositional object), showing that the Cunto offers a realistic representation of the 17^th century Neapolitan dialect.