مطالب

Nel panorama degli studi comparati fra la lirica romanza medievale e quella orientale uno degli esempi eclatanti che nella sua storia ormai pluridecennale ha suscitato molte polemiche e discussione è stato senza dubbio il rinomatissimo Linguaggio segreto di Dante e dei Fedeli d'Amore di Luigi Valli. Il suddetto tomo, come asserisce l’editore della casa editrice Luni, pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1928 dall’editrice Optima di Roma, fu integrato nel 1930, da un secondo volume dedicato alle «Discussioni e note aggiunte», originate dal primo. Per fornire uno schema della storia editoriale dell’opera citiamo una delle annotazioni bibliografiche dell’opera prestigiosa di S. Salzani Luigi Valli e l’esoterismo di Dante : Il linguaggio segreto di Dante e dei fedeli d'amore, I, Optima, Roma, 1928 Il linguaggio segreto di Dante e dei fedeli d'amore. Discussioni e note aggiuntive , II , Optima, Roma 1930 (ristampa anastatica del v. I: Libreria Antiquaria Bertoni, Roma 1969; Fratelli Melita,Genova 1981; I Dioscuri, Genova 1988; FirenzeLibri, Firenze 2008;riedizione integrale in un volume: Luni, Milano 1994).

Of the many dilemmas facing the assessment of literary competence, one is the extent to which language should constitute part of the target construct intended to be measured. Some argue for the construct-irrelevance of language and hence recommend that it be eliminated or minimized in favor of an exclusive focus on literary competence. In practice, this does not seem to be the case, as language proficiency considerations seem to creep into assessment, clouding assessment outcomes. The current study sought to examine students' perceptions of the degree to which knowledge of language constitutes part of the construct of literary competence in two departments of English and Persian literature. To this end, a total of seventy students in two poetry courses, one in the English department and the other in the Persian, responded to a questionnaire designed to gauge their perceptions of the extent to which language competence constitutes a component of the literary competence. Data were analyzed through one sample and independent samples t-tests. It was found that language competence is somehow construct-irrelevant in testing literary competence. Interestingly, measurement-invariance was observed regarding Persian and EFL students’ stance on the construct-irrelevance of language in tests of literary achievement and competence.