If a People Had No Distinctive Features

If a people had no distinctive features other than language, this would already be enough to give it an entirely original literature, even if it were limited to remaking what has already been done in other languages. That is to say: if the language is authentic, it can never be imitated, because there will always be something unique about it. But beyond this: the greatest literature will be that which encompasses, in its own language, the widest range of models and themes, and therefore it is more than convenient, but necessary, to rethink in one’s own language what has already been thought of in others, to recreate what has already been created, endowing it, through language, with authentically vernacular colors: this is the only way to build a vigorous literary tradition of universal value.