Dante

“… I am one who takes note when inspired by love, and in the very way that it dictates within me, so I go shedding meaning.” Dante was nine years old when he first saw Beatrice Portinari, who was a few months younger than he and lived close to his home in Florence. From that moment, he wrote, “love ruled my soul.” Beatrice was to marry Simone de’ Baedi, a wealthy banker, and it is improbable that she ever knew of Dante’s admiration for her. As for Dante he married Gemma Donati, by whom he had four children. Nontheless, it was his platonic love for Beatrice…”the woman of my mind,” as he described her---which was to be the inspiration of his life and work. After her death in 1290 at the age of twenty-five, Dante composed the Vita nova , a collection of poems interlaced with commentary, in which he told the story of his ideal love.Most famous of these poems is the sonnet  “Tanto gentile e tanto onesto pare.”an excellent example of dolce stil nuovo poetry. Beatrice is portrayed not as a human being but as an angel whose presence on earth is a miracle. The love she inspires is a spiritual bliss, one conveyed to a man’s heart through his eyes, excluding even the remotest implication of physical contact.

T.S. Eliot praised Dante’s “visual imagination” and his gift for making the “spiritual visible.”

Not only does Dante create new poetic forms but he established the Italian language as a significant rival to Latin for the writers of his time. His influence on English writers extends all the way from the Middle Ages to the 20^th century.