Commedia: from Dante’s writing to Benigni’s performance

Abstract

Taking into consideration the theoretical background that performance is an act of transference (TAYLOR, 2013) and that poetry happens when vocalized (ZUMTHOR, 2007), the project Tutto Dante, by Roberto Benigni, comes to mind. The project, inspired in Dante Alighieri’s Commedia, active in Europe and the American Continent in the beginning of the 21^st century, had as a purpose make public the work considered as founder of the modern occidental literature and preceding of the Italian language. Since its publication, in the 14^th century, readers of the Dantesc work have wished that it gained voice, as theorized by Paul Zumthor (2007). The first person known to do that was Giovanni Boccaccio, the same who added the adjective Divine to the work. The objective of the present work is to make a brief analysis of the project Tutto Dante, bearing in mind the theoretical background of performance, writing and vocalization, as discussed by Aleida Asmann (2011), Arturo Carrera (2014), Diana Taylor (2013), and Paul Zumthor (2007).