Scan barcode
A review by emjay796
La Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
"The lady through whom love binds you so is not like other ladies."
Dante is the og Main Character Syndrome protagonist, and I will never get tired of it. I read and studied The Divine Comedy intensely as an undergrad, and that work is correctly placed as Dante's enduring contribution to the world. However, it bothered me I never got around to Vita Nuova, and this month, I decided to remedy that.
More than anything, Vita Nuova is an exploration of love and romantic devotion as ideals... adoration focused on a particular, sublime object. A groundbreaking work in vernacular Italian (instead of Latin), Dante attempts to elevate the courtly love poem from the realm of the self to the realm of the sacred. Reading Dante's commentary was especially lovely—yes, it made me laugh more than once for how simultaneously on-the-nose and superior it appears, but what an incredible thing to be able to hear from Dante how he would interpret his own work.
Dante, Beatrice, the Lord of Love—what a fascinating cast of characters in a fascinating era of the world with fascinating views of love and life and what it might mean to transcend it all.
Dante is the og Main Character Syndrome protagonist, and I will never get tired of it. I read and studied The Divine Comedy intensely as an undergrad, and that work is correctly placed as Dante's enduring contribution to the world. However, it bothered me I never got around to Vita Nuova, and this month, I decided to remedy that.
More than anything, Vita Nuova is an exploration of love and romantic devotion as ideals... adoration focused on a particular, sublime object. A groundbreaking work in vernacular Italian (instead of Latin), Dante attempts to elevate the courtly love poem from the realm of the self to the realm of the sacred. Reading Dante's commentary was especially lovely—yes, it made me laugh more than once for how simultaneously on-the-nose and superior it appears, but what an incredible thing to be able to hear from Dante how he would interpret his own work.
Dante, Beatrice, the Lord of Love—what a fascinating cast of characters in a fascinating era of the world with fascinating views of love and life and what it might mean to transcend it all.