Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0521400643, Hardcover)

De vulgari eloquentia, written by Dante in the early years of the fourteenth century, is the only known work of medieval literary theory to have been produced by a practicing poet, and the first to assert the intrinsic superiority of living, vernacular languages over Latin. Steven Botterill here offers the only Latin-English parallel-text edition of an important early work by the author of the Divine Comedy, and the only English translation with thorough and up-to-date notes and introductory material.