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XI.—The Symmetrical Structure of Dante's Vita Nuova.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Kenneth McKenzie
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Extract

At the beginning of the Vita Nuova Dante tells us that he proposes to copy into the little book words which he finds written in the book of his memory under the rubric Incipit Vita Nova; thus he brought together lyrics that he had already written, and connected them by a narrative and analysis in prose. The Vita Nuova belongs, then, to the class of writings made up of alternating prose and verse. As in the case of the Convivio, this method of composition was perfectly natural under the circumstances; Dante doubtless intended to do for his own early poems what had been done for certain Troubadours by the compilers of some of the Provençal anthologies, in which a prose biography is interspersed with specimens of the poet's verse. This has been pointed out by Pio Rajna, who further suggests that the analytical divisioni may have been modeled on certain works of St. Thomas. The prose explanations in the Provençal anthologies are called razos, and Dante uses the word ragione with the same meaning. In at least one respect, however, the Vita Nuova differs in form from the other works of this type; for the poems do not simply follow one another chronologically or according to the exigencies of the narrative, but are arranged on a symmetrical plan. The credit for having made this plain belongs to Professor C. E. Norton, who pointed it out in 1859.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , 1903 , pp. 341 - 355
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1903

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References

1 The edition cited here is: La Vita Nuova di Dante Alighieri, con commento di T. Casini, 2a edizione, Firenze, 1891. E. Moore's edition (in Opere di Dante, Oxford, 1894) and Prof. Norton's translation agree with Casini in chapter-numbers 4 to 26; as they divide into two the chapter that Casini numbers 26, their following numbers are one higher than his. Witte's edition agrees with Moore's beyond cap. 3.

1 Lo Schema della Vita Nuova, Verona, 1890; cf. Scherillo, Dante e Bertram dal Bornio, in Nuova Antologia, lxxi, 94 (1897); Giornale Storico d. Lett. Ital., xvi, 474 (1890).

2 Per le “Divisioni” della “Vita Nuova,” in Strenna Dantesca compilata da Bacci e Passerini, i, 111, Firenze, 1902.

3 V. N., cap. 35, 36, 37, 39, 40; cf. Crescini, Le “razos” provenzali e le prose della “Vita Nuova,” in Giornale Storico d. Lett. Ital., xxxii, 463 (1898); and Tobler in Archiv f. d. Stud. d. Neueren Sprachen, lxxxv, 121.

4 Gabriele Rossetti, a versified Autobiography, translated and supplemented by William Michael Rossetti; London, Sands & Co., 1901, p. 137.

1 The Canzoniere of Dante Alighieri. Translated by Charles Lyell, Esq.; London, Murray, 1835.

2 The Lyrical Poems of Dante Alighieri. Translated by Charles Lyell, A. M.; London, William Smith, 1845. This edition differs in various ways from the first.

3 G. Rossetti, Il Mistero dell' Amor platonico, London, 1840, vol. ii, p. 637. This passage was pointed out and discussed by Federzoni, Questioni Dantetche: Vecchie e nuove considerazioni sul disegno simmetrico della “Vita Nuova,” in Fanfulla della Domenica, xxiv, no. 43; 26 Ottobre 1902.

4 La Beatrice di Dante, di Gabriele Rossetti. Londra, stampato a spese dell' autore, 1842.

1 See Dante hérétique, révolutionnaire et socialiste, par E. Aroux; Paris, Renouard, 1854. Cf. Autobiography of Rossetti, p. 68; and Z. Benelli, G. Rossetti, notizie biografiche e bibliografiche, Firenze, 1898, p. 38.

2 Op. cit., p. 71.

3 Studies in Dante, second series, Oxford, 1899, p. 121, note.

4 At Cambridge, Mass., in a limited edition. The translations, but not the appendix, had already appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, The complete translation was published at Boston in 1867 and again in 1892.

1 The New Life of Dante Alighieri, translated by C. E. Norton; Boston and New York, 1892,“ p. 133.

2 V. N., 17.

3 V. N., 30.

4 V. N., 41.

5 La Vita Nuova di Dante, ed. C. Witte, Leipzig, 1876, p. xx.

6 La Vita Nuova di D. A., ill. per A. d'Ancona, 2a ed., Pisa, 1884, p. 175.

7 Enciclopedia Dantesca, Milano, 1898–99, vol. ii, p. 2159.

8 Review of Earle's article, mentioned below; Bullettino della Società Dantesca Italiana, vi, 59.

9 The Episode of the Donna Pietosa, by G. R. Carpenter, in Eighth Annual Report of the Dante Society, Cambridge, 1889, p. 39.

10 Studies in Dante, second series, pp. 115, 130.

1 Dante's ‘Vita Nuova,‘ published anonymously in the Quarterly Review, clxxxiv, 24–53 (July, 1896); in Italian in the Biblioteca Storico-critica d. Lett. Dantesca, xi, Bologna, 1899, with the author's name.

2 Quando fu composta la “Vita Nuova” ?, first published in 1898 in Roma Letteraria; reprinted in Studi e Diporti Danteschi, Bologna, 1902.

3 M. Martinozzi, Sovra la partizione della Vita Nuova, Modena, 1902. I have not seen this work, and know it only through reviews in Giornale Storico, xl, 457, and Rassegna Bibliografica d. Lett. Ital., x, 197.

4 La Forma architettonica della Vita Nuova, in Giornale Dantesco, ix, 84.

5 See Giornale Storico, xxxviii, 470, xl, 457, and xli, 390; Rassegna Bibliog., ix, 235, and x, 197; E. Lamma, Questioni Danteschi, Bologna, 1902, pp. 145, 163.

1 Cf. D'Ancona, V. N. di Dante, p. viii; Witte, V. N. di D., p. xvi; Rassegna Bibliog., x, 198.

2 Cf. G. Federzoni, Nota su la forma architettonica della V. N., in Giornale Dantesco, x, 3, where many of Scherillo's arguments are successfully refuted.

3 Scherillo's objection would have considerable force if we accepted the theory of Earle, loc. cit., that the V. N. was written all at one time, contrary to Dante's statements.

4 Op. cit., p. 84. As to the number thirty-three, I have shown that the error comes from Rossetti through Aroux. In one place (ibid.), Scherillo has been unable to translate English correctly, for he says, quoting Moore, ‘“the symmetry of its design,‘ cioè del povero Dante.”

1 Article cited; in Quarterly Review, p. 52; in Italian version, p. 77.

2 “Avvegna che forse piacerebbe a presente trattare alquanto de la sua partita da noi, non è lo mio intendimento di trattarne qui per tre ragioni . . . . e però lascio cotale trattato ad altro chiosatore,” V. N., 28. The “three reasons” have been thoroughly discussed by C. H. Grandgent, Dante and St. Paul, in Romania, xxxi, 14–27 (1902).

3 V. N., 31.

4 New Life, 1892 edition, pp. 130–133.

5 Studi e Diporti Danteschi, pp. 49–73.

1 Cf. Lamina, Questioni Dantesche, p. 158.

2 See letter, quoted above.

3 Studi e Diporti, p. 52.

4 See his article in Fanfulla della Domenica, already cited.

1 Carpenter, Episode of Donna Pietosa, p. 39.

2 Cf. I. del Lungo, Beatrice nella Vita e nella Poesia del Secolo xiii, Milano, 1891, p. 47 and passim; various other writers might be cited who express similar ideas.

1 Trattato ii, cap. 1.

2 Ibid.; cf. V. N., 25.

3 Cf. E. Gorra, Per la Genesi della Divina Commedia, in his Fra Drammi e Poemi, Milano, 1900, p. 117.

4 V. N., 3. It is to be borne in mind that the prose was written ten years or more after the sonnet.

1 This was suggested by Gorra, loc. cit. If we accept his interpretation, we have no need to explain the sonnet as Dante's first conception of the Divina Commedia, or as a reference to Beatrice's death or marriage. The commentators who advanced these interpretations were trying to explain the prose rather than the sonnet itself.

2 This is in the fourteenth sonnet (V. N., 24), of which the ninth line reads: “Io vidi monna Vanna e monna Bice.” Scherillo has suggested (see Giorn. Dantesco, x, 110; Bullettino d. Soc. Dant. Ital., ix, 43) that this sonnet was written only for the eye of Guido Cavalcanti, whose lady was Vanna; in that case, the exception would prove the rule. “Monna Vanna e monna Bice” are mentioned again in Dante's sonnet: “Guido, vorrei che tu e Lapo ed io,” which is not included in the V. N.; a new reading and interpretation have been suggested in this case by Barbi (see Bullettino, iv, 160).

3 Studi e Diporti, pp. 47–76, 123–153.

4 Federzoni does not at all depend on the argument that the twenty-fourth sonnet refers to a pilgrimage of 1300. This argument, advanced by Lubin in 1862, and once accepted by many critics, was demolished once for all by Pio Rajna, Per la Data della Vita Nuova, in Giornale Storico, vi, 113 ff.

1 Cf. Gorra, op. cit.

2 See Casini, V. N., p. xx; Scartazzini, Dante-Handbuch, Leipzig, 1892, p. 285; Paget Toynbee, Dante Dictionary, Oxford, 1898, s. v. Vita Nuova; D'Ancona e Bacci, Manuale, della Letteratura Italiana, nuova edizione, Firenze, 1903, I, 283.

3 See Lamma, Questioni Dantesche, pp. 139 ff. Cf. Bullettino d. Soc. Dant., viii, pp. 32, 264, 267; Rassegna Bibliog. d. Lett. It., viii, 195.

4 So he may have changed the chronological position; the sonnet Deh peregrini (V. N., 40) would more naturally come before the episode of the Donna Pietosa,—cf. Ronchetti, Di un possibile spostamento nella tessitura della V. N., in Giornale Dantesco, ii, 221.

5 It was written before 1295; cf. Scartazzini, Dante-Handbuch, p. 300; Carpenter, op. cit., pp. 27 f., 60. But Angelitti, Cronologia delle opere minori di Dante, Città di Castello, 1886, pp. 3 ff., says 1296.

1 Cf. D'Ancona, Vita Nuova, 2a ed., pp. 117–123.

2 Sidney Lanier, Shakspere and his Forerunners, New York, 1902, i, 169.