Litanic verse is based on different syntactic and rhetorical devices, such as enumeration, parallelism, anaphora, and epiphora. Its Italian variants are not to be seen as a mere convention of versification, but as a multifactorial phenomenon, which involves semantic and performative aspects as well. The variants reveal their different faces within various periods, beginning with the Duecento. This book analyzes Italian poetry up until the first decades of the twentieth century, together with certain musical pieces that are closely related to the history of literature. The monograph is the fourth of five volumes devoted to the emergence and development of litanic verse in the literature of European regions.

The book contains comparative analyses of the development of litanic verse in European poetry, from medieval to modern times. Litanic verse is based on different syntactic devices, such as enumeration, parallelism, anaphora and epiphora. However, it is not to be seen merely as a convention of versification as the popularity of different variants of the verse in Europe reflects the religious, intellectual, social and political history of various European regions. The essays in the first volume focus on the origins of the Litany (the Near East, Greece, Byzantium, Rome), as well as the emergence of litanic verse in the Iberian languages (Castilian, Catalan, Galician, Portuguese) and Slavic and Central European literatures (Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Serbian, Russian).

The book contains comparative analyses of the development of litanic verse in European poetry, from medieval to modern times. Litanic verse is based on different syntactic devices, such as enumeration, parallelism, anaphora and epiphora. However, it is not to be seen merely as a convention of versification as the popularity of different variants of the verse in Europe reflects the religious, intellectual, social and political history of various European regions. The essays in the second volume focus on litanic verse in the Germanic languages. They discuss predominantly the literatures of Protestant countries (Great Britain, Denmark, Germany, Norway), but also Austrian poetry.