Dante, the poet of all times

From: Gladiola Jorbus

The name of Dante Alighieri (Durante di Alighieri) is inextricably linked with that of the 'Divine Comedy', the work that justified his entry into the Pantheon of the greatest poets of all time. In this masterpiece, Dante appears connected to his city, Florence, a participant in social-political life and a writer attentive to cultural innovations.

This text continues to be studied all over the world as a masterpiece of the Italian language and evidence of medieval civilization. To deeply understand Dante Alighieri's poetic thought, one must study his life, the political and sentimental situations he experienced.

Dante was born in Florence in 1265. He was the son of Alighiero di Bellinciones and Donna Bella degli Abati. The paternal grandfather was a member of the Guelph faction, while the maternal grandfather, from whom the poet took his name, is suspected to have been the Florentine judge Durante degli Abati.

Dante's most famous biographer, Giovanni Boccaccio, recounts a family incident. Dante's mother, during her pregnancy, had a dream of her son born under a laurel tree, near a spring. After he was born, the boy began to feed on the weeds that fell from the tree and quenched his thirst at a spring, until he turned into a peacock. This prophetic dream is interpreted as an omen of Dante's future poetic glory.

Unfortunately, Dante lost his mother around the age of 5-6 and his father remarried. It should be underlined the fact that his family belonged to the small nobility and did not enjoy any wealth or great economic capital.

Regardless of his poetic greatness, political struggles or noble origins, Dante's life was not a smooth one. Dante's youth passed under the banner of Florentine social life. He received a good education, apart from economic problems, and was associated with Brunetto Latini, a friendship considered not so effective anyway. It is thought that Brunetto was no more than a good interlocutor for Dante, so he did not influence his vision of the world or poetry.

If we were to single out an impressive and weighty event for the well-known Florentine poet, it would undoubtedly be the meeting with Beatrice, a woman about whom very little is known, despite her role in Dante's human and artistic existence. He first met Beatrice when she was still a child. Many years later, when the young woman greeted him in Florence, Dante's life took an important turn, so much so that the disturbing anxiety and untimely death of Beatrice marked a key point, of triple value in the life of the author of the Divine Comedy ': personal, human and poetic.

Dante began writing poetry around the age of twenty, but he did not immediately gain the attention of the intellectuals of his time. The young poet made a series of attempts to be part of the elite of the time, among other things by sending letters to important social actors. He really wanted to be known.

However, thanks to these letters, Dante managed to meet the first person with whom he would establish a literary and intellectual friendship: Calvacanti (Guido Cavalcantin), who considered Dante a talent and this marked the beginning of their friendship.

Dante's first poems highlight the influence of Guitonism (critics discuss a Guitonian school, opposed at the end of the thirteenth century with a poetics closer to the Provençal heritage, which would later lead to Stilnovism), the presence of themes of love and taste for technique, although not yet completely organic. Dante's first fundamental work is "The New Life" in which the figure of Beatrice appears through an allegory of life and death, conceptually similar to the story of the saints. In this work, Dante constantly deals with the theme of love, under the medieval symbolic lens, where the prevailing idea was that there were always different levels of interpretation: the direct level, the metaphorical level, the moral level, the spiritual level. Woman for Dante, in this work, is an intermediary, a symbol and bearer of divine qualities between man and God.

In 1290, Dante began his philosophical studies which would decisively influence his works 'De vulgari eloquentia', 'Monarchia' and many passages of the 'Divine Comedy'. He also read several books by Aristotle and Cicero.

One of the books that impressed Dante's attention, like many other medieval authors associated with Roman pagan culture, was Severino Boezio's 'De consolatione filosofiae'. Dante is a great thinker and deep investigative themes are repeated in him. Knowledge of philosophy will lead him to another commitment to civil society and language. From this moment on, the ethical-moral charge manifested in Dante prompted him to embrace important political and cultural engagements. However, in this period he reaches new linguistic requirements: he experiments in different literary genres, starting from the Latin eclogue (lyrical composition of classical Greek and Latin poetry, with a pastoral theme, often allegorical, in dialogue or monodic form) to letter writing which, in the Middle Ages, was a highly codified literary genre.

Philosophy is a legitimate element in Dante's work. Suffice it to say that of the five works, including the two unfinished treatises, three are philosophical works almost in the strict sense of the word. Dante's philosophy is considered a symbol of a love capable of saving humanity.

It is worth noting that at the age of eighteen he lost his father. And, exactly 18 years old (at nine o'clock, nine years later), he saw Beatrice for the second time in his life, in a white dress. She greeted him kindly. This was a decisive moment for Dante.

Dante, a priori, is considered a figure of indisputable importance in Italian literature, given that his work has stood out for its artistic value, beauty and perfection.

The "Divine Comedy" has been crowned as the most important work of Italian literature, containing a Christian philosophical vision of man's eternal destiny. It should even be said that Dante himself created the Italian literary language, as he was the first to use it in a rich and extensive way. All the characters of the Middle Ages are reflected in his texts, in an extraordinary synthesis.

Dante rejects the idea according to which poetry is subordinate to philosophy, in the sense that philosophy is the queen of forms of knowledge, while poetry is always a subordinate form of knowledge because it is representative and as such intervenes between subject and object, transforming knowledge and giving it a secondary importance. He asserts that poetry has the ability to capture the essence of the divine through intuition: since intuition places truth before man, in its perfection.

In the same way, the figure of the angelic woman (Beatrice) in Dante's conception is renewed. She is no longer distinguished only for external beauty, but the poet clothes her with the virtue of inner nobility, which makes her similar to God, thus giving her the ability to spiritually uplift all who love her.

In terms of political experiences, he was elected Priore (Mayor) of Florence and while in office, the city was divided into two factions, the Black Guelphs and the White Guelphs. In Florence this (priore) was the original name of the Palazzo della Signoria. The mandate lasted two months and Dante governed the City of Florence from June 15 to August 15, 1300. He supported the white Guelphs who were concerned about the freedom of Florence, while the blacks favored the policies of Pope Bonaface VIII. When the Black Guelphs ruled Florence, Dante was sentenced to exile and accused of corruption. Initially, he hoped to return to his homeland, but after a failed attempt to return by force, Dante gave up. Leaving his beloved Florence, the city for which he was ready to give his life, was extremely painful for the poet.

He died in Ravenna in 1321. /Telegraph/