Alpha Book

The printing of these works at once stereotyped
their respective languages, so that since the sixteenth century the
written forms of the vernacular tongues have been subject to relatively
minor change. Speaking generally, the sixteenth century witnessed the
fixing of our best known modern languages.
To review all the leading writers who employed the various vernaculars
in the sixteenth century would encroach too much upon the province of
professed histories of comparative literature, but a few references to
certain figures that tower head and shoulders above all others in their
respective countries may serve to call vividly to mind the importance
of the period for national literatures.
[Sidenote: Italian Literature]
At the very outset, one important exception must be made in favor of
Italy, whose poetry and prose had already been immortalized by Dante,
Petrarch, and Boccaccio a hundred years and more before the opening of
the sixteenth century. But that country, as we have already repeatedly
observed in many kinds of art, anticipated all others in modern times.


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