Polyphony and Prosody: A Comparative Study of Musicality in Georgian and Italian Lyric Poetry

This study undertakes a comparative analysis of musicality in Georgian and Italian lyric poetry, two traditions that represent contrasting approaches to the ancient kinship between poetry and music. Georgian poetry is fundamentally shaped by the country’s polyphonic singing tradition—an intangible cultural heritage where poetry exists as a performed, vocal, and communal art form. Italian lyric poetry, from the Sicilian School through Petrarch to the Renaissance, developed a sophisticated tradition of written musicality, where sound patterns, prosodic forms, and rhythmic structures create an internal music accessible through silent reading as well as recitation. Through analysis of canonical works—Shota Rustaveli’sThe Knight in the Panther’s Skin, Galaktion Tabidze’s modernist lyrics, Dante’sVita Nuova, and Petrarch’sCanzoniere—this study explores how each tradition constructs musicality through distinct formal, performative, and philosophical means. The comparison reveals that Georgian musicality is embodied and communal, rooted in the living voice of polyphonic song, while Italian musicality is architectonic and individual, crafted through the written structures of prosody. By placing these traditions in dialogue, this research contributes to comparative poetics and offers new insights into how different cultural contexts shape the relationship between language and sound.