Aligheri Dante
(1265-1321)
Quick
Overview
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is Italy's greatest poet and also one of
the towering figures in western European literature. He is best known for
his monumental epic poem, La commedia, later named La divina commedia
(The Divine Comedy).
By choosing to write his poem in Italian rather than in Latin, Dante
decisively influenced the course of literary development. Not only
did he lend a voice to the emerging lay culture of his own country, but
Italian became the literary language in western Europe for several centuries.
In addition to poetry Dante wrote important theoretical works ranging
from discussions of rhetoric to moral philosophy and political thought.
He was fully conversant with the classical tradition, drawing for his own
purposes on such writers as Virgil, Cicero, and Boethius. But,
most unusual for a layman, he also had an impressive command of the most
recent scholastic philosophy and of theology.
His learning and his personal involvement in the heated political controversies
of his age led him to the composition of De monarchia, one of the major
tracts of medieval political philosophy. (see also Index: vernacular)
His
Life
Links
His
Works
The
Divine Comedy
Links
69% Liam's
HomePage
64% Three
Composers in Search of a Muse
59% Right
to Life Association of Thunder Bay and Area
27% Medieval
Sourcebook: Full Text Sources
LA
DIVINE COMEDIE de DANTE d'ALIGHERI
LA DIVINE COMEDIE de DANTE ALIGHIERI L'Enfer Le Purgatoire Le Paradis
Situation Politique Tradition Eschatologique Béatrice Difficile.
http://www.mygale.org/00/yrol/LITTERA/dante.htm
Find
Related Web pages
Deep into that
darkness, peering
Literature: Aligheri, Dante: Renaissance Dante in Print (1472-1629)
Calvino, Italo: La Citta` Invisibile Christie, Agatha: Agatha Christie's.
http://hertz.njit.edu/~jrh7925/html/lit.html
Find
Related Web pages
BarnesandNoble.com
Survey Archive
World's Largest Bookseller Online Shopping Cart Home Online Community
. . . QuickSearch Keyword Author Title VIEW SURVEY ARCHIVE SURVEY ARCH.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/community/survey/sur
Find
Related Web pages
Lecture
38: Medieval Lyric Poetry and Music
Lecture 38: Medieval Lyric Poetry and Music Links for Web assignment
(Brians 230-235, 245-248) Questions on the Medieval Lyric Poetry and Mu.
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/brians_syllabus/le
Find
Related Web pages
Lori's
Library
...and I have only passed through you quickly like light, and you have
only surrounded me suddenly like flame. --Mary Mackey Some people say.
http://english.cla.umn.edu/GraduateProfiles/LoriG/
Find
Related Web pages
Elenco espositori
lettera T
Elenco espositori lettera T T.M.L. SRL ** PADIGLIONE PZ CIVITELLA DEL
TRONTO FRAZIONE FAVALE * TEL. 0861.910342 SERBATOI -CALDAIE-BOLLITORI-.
http://www.stelnet.com/fiera/letterat.htm
Find
Related Web pages
143 HONORS PROGRAM
143 HONORS PROGRAM The University of Iowa Liberal Arts Guide to Courses
Spring Semester - January 20 - May 15, 1998 143:050 Honors Seminar i.
http://www.uiowa.edu/registrar/guide/143.html
Terra 6000 years
old
Terra 6000 years old From: "Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <th81@umail.umd.edu>
Well, everybody, the BIG DAY is here. According to the cutting .
http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/misc/bday.html
Find
Related Web pages
Aproapele si Departele
Romania literara nr.30 din 30 iulie 1996 LECTURI de Andreea Deciu Aproapele
si Departele Tinind cont de ciudatenia imprejurarilor in care s-.
http://www.kappa.ro/news/romlit/rl309.html
Sevilla a pie:
Parque.
Sevilla a Pie. Jardines del Parque de María Luisa En 1.893 la
infanta María Luisa Fernanda, duquesa viuda de Montpensier, cedi.
http://www.fie.us.es/Sevilla/apie/Parque.html
His
Life
Overview
of Life
Dante was born in Florence, of a bourgeois family
of noble
descent, the son of Alighiero di Bellincione d'Alighiero, a
moneylender, and his first wife Bella. He was baptized Durante,
later contracted into Dante.
He first saw his lifelong love, Beatrice Portinari (c.1265--90),
when they were both nine in 1274. There is no evidence that she
returned his passion, and only one further meeting between the
two, nine years later, is recorded. She was married at an early
age to one Simone de' Bardi, but neither this nor the poet's own
subsequent marriage interfered with his pure and platonic
devotion to her. Dante married Gemma Donati c.1285, to
whom he had been betrothed since 1277. She was the daughter
of a powerful Guelph family. Nothing of his wife appears in his
writings, but his feelings for Beatrice intensified after her early
death in 1290. After this, Dante embarked upon a dedicated
period of study of the Classics, religion, and philosophy. The
story of his boyish but unquenchable passion is subsequently
told in La Vita nuova (c.1293, The New Life), a collection of lyric
poems in the form of an autobiographical novel.
In 1289 he fought as a cavalryman at Campaldino, where
Florence defeated the Ghibellines, and at Caprona. He entered
public life in 1295 by joining the Guild of Physicians and
Apothecaries, and from there moved to public office. He is
recorded in the guild register as "Dante d'Alighieri, Poeta '. In
c.1300 he became politically active in Florence during the
struggles of Guelphs with Ghibellines, further complicated by the
struggles between the powerful anti-papal Colonna family and
Pope Boniface VIII.
After filling minor public offices and going on some embassies
abroad, Dante briefly became one of the six priors of Florence
(1300). He was then recorded as being the leader of a large
group of Guelphs, and he procured the banishment of the heads
and leaders of the rival factions, showing characteristic
sternness and impartiality to Guelph and Ghibelline alike. In
1301, following the threatened interference of Charles of Valois
against the Guelphs, he was sent on an embassy to Pope
Boniface VIII in Rome. Political machinations and deception
meant he never again set foot in his native city. He was
banished from Florence in 1309, accused of opposing the Pope
and Charles of Valois, and he was sentenced to death in his
absence. From then on he was a wanderer, almost having to
beg his way through life. He eventually settled in Ravenna
(1318), where he remained for most of the rest of his life.
During his exile he was politically active, and he also completed
his most celebrated work, the epic poem Divinia commedia
(Divine Comedy), begun c.1307. It is his spiritual testament,
narrating a journey through Hell ( Inferno ) and Purgatory (
Purgatoria ), guided by Virgil, and finally to Paradise ( Paradiso
), guided by Beatrice. It gives an insight into the highest culture
and knowledge of the age in poetic form. The Divine Comedy
elevated the vernacular Italian language from daily use into art.
This was a breakthrough, and Dante had hesitated to employ
Italian on such a theme; he is said to have begun his poem in
Latin. However, he became a champion of the use of vernacular
as a vehicle for great art, writing persuasively in its favour in the
unfinished De vulgari eloquentia (c.1304--7, Concerning
Vernacular Eloquence).
Another important work is the fragment called the Convivio
(c.1304--7, Banquet), which takes the form of a commentary on
some of the author's canzoni , or short poems, of which there
are only three. The work, if completed, would have contained 14.
De monarchia (c.1313, On Monarchy), in Latin, expounded
Dante's theory that the pope should not have temporal authority
over a nation's monarch. Canzoniere is a collection of short
poems, canzoni , sonnets, etc, and there are a dozen epistles
addressed mainly to leading statesmen or rulers.
Dante was a political thinker in the mediaeval tradition, a
rhetorician, and a philosopher, the chief poet of the Italians, and
one of the world's greatest writers. He had seven children: six
sons and a daughter named Antonia who, after her father's
death, became a nun, taking the name of Sister Beatrice. He
died from malaria shortly after he had finished the Paradiso
The
Inferno Available on the J-Drive