Il plurilinguismo de Il barone rampante: cause e sintomi di una tradizione allargata

The Baron in The Trees is written in an Italian that might be called standard. However, this essay focuses on the many passages in which the hero speaks quite a few foreign languages, especially classic ones, to prove that the novel can indeed be associated with ‘literary multilingualism’, in other words a variety of idioms that matches the vastness of literary interests of the main character. Having established how the weight of such interests affects the language of the novel, the essay explores the concept of ‘extended tradition’ that comes to the fore in the novel, prompted by the realisation of a paradoxical situation: Calvino makes Cosimo meet real historical figures and famous fictional characters, as if both were part of the historical background of the plot. In the attempt to understand what concept of literature can support such a choice, this article finds in the universal character of the epos the model the author enacts in the most individual genre ever, fiction.