More than six centuries have passed since the day when Dante’s ashes were enclosed in a marble sarcophagus installed in Ravenna in the church of San Pierre Maggiore, but the image of the great poet and his creation, his “Comedy”, was already called “divine” by the next generation. remain high spiritual guidelines for humanity. Each new era of culture, bringing with it a different worldview, different knowledge, different values, invariably turned to the work of Dante as an absolute example and source of spiritual strength.
Dante was born into a noble family that belonged to the Guelph party, one of the most influential Florentine political parties. She expressed the interests of the urban bourgeoisie and was guided by the pope. The second influential party was the Ghibelline party, which defended the interests of the feudal lords and focused on the emperor. Since Florence at that time was the most developed and rich city of fragmented Italy, it was here that a fierce struggle took place between the bourgeoisie, which was gradually gaining strength, and supporters of feudal society.
The Ghibelline party was on the side of the Holy Roman Emperor, who had been chosen from among the German kings for several centuries. At the end of the 13th century. The Florentine Guelphs, who finally expelled the Ghibellines from the city, in turn split into two parties, “Blacks” and “Whites”, “Whites” defended the independence of the commune from the papal curia, and “Blacks” were supporters of the pope. There was no longer any guiding idea behind this split. This was not a fight between patriots and ideologists, but between predators and ambitious people. Dante, more clearly than anyone else, saw both the nobility and the baseness of politics, realized both its good necessity and its shameful unrighteousness. This clarity of consciousness imposes a distinct tragic flavor on his image and fate.
In Dante's life there are two leitmotifs, two fundamental realities - politics and literature. Up to a certain point, no rapprochement, no junctions arise between them: Dante the poet and Dante the public figure are like two different people who do not know each other.
From a young age, Dante participated in the political struggle on the side of the Guelphs, which influenced the formation of his active and active nature. At the same time, while studying law at the University of Bologna, he became interested in Dante's poetry. He is particularly influenced by the school of the “sweet new style”, the founder of which was Guido Guinizelli, a literature teacher at the University of Bologna. It was him who Dante called his teacher and father. The lyrics of the school of the “sweet new style” combined the experience of Provençal chivalric poetry with its refined cult of service to the Lady and the tradition of Sicilian poetry, rich in reflection and philosophical contemplation of beauty.
Dante's early works (30 poems, of which 25 sonnets, 4 canzones and one stanza), combined with prose text, formed a collection called “New Life” (Vita nuova). The works in this collection contain all the elements of the “sweet new style” - philosophy, rhetoric, mystical symbolism and grace of form. But at the same time, the collection also becomes the first achievement of the new Renaissance literature - a real hymn to life and love. Dante not only understands poetry, but also, being a man of strong character and strong passions, a person with a developed civic consciousness, becomes a prominent political figure. The Guelphs came to power in Florence, and in 1300 Dante was elected one of the seven members of the college of priors, which ruled the city commune. However, in the face of intensified social struggle, the unity of the Guelph party did not last long.
With the help of papal power, the “black” Guelphs defeated the “whites” and began to massacre them. Dante's house was destroyed, and he himself was sentenced to burning. Saving his life, Dante leaves Florence in 1302, to which he will never be able to return. During the first years of exile, he lives in the hope of the defeat of the “blacks”, tries to establish connections with the Ghibelins, but, quickly becoming disillusioned with them, proclaims that from now on he is “creating a party on his own.” Remaining a supporter of a united Italy, Dante pins his hopes on the German Emperor Henry VII, who soon dies.
In exile, the poet fully understands how bitter other people’s bread can be and how difficult it is to climb other people’s stairs.”
Florence offers Dante to return to his hometown on condition of performing a humiliating rite of repentance, which Dante resolutely refuses. In 1315, the Florentine lordship again sentenced him to death, and Dante forever lost hope of returning to Florence, but did not stop his socio-political activities for Italy without wars and without papal power.
He does not stop his literary activity. New features appeared in his work during the exile period, in particular passionate didacticism. Dante acts as a philosopher and thinker, driven by the desire to teach people, to open to them the world of truth, and to contribute through his works to the moral improvement of the world.
"The Divine Comedy"
If Dante had not written anything else, his name would still have gone down in the history of world literature forever. And yet, his world fame is associated primarily with his last work - the poem “The Divine Comedy” (1313-1321). In it, Dante brought together all the experience of his mind and heart, artistically reinterpreted the main motives and ideas of his previous works in order to say his word “for the benefit of a world where good is persecuted.” The purpose of the poem, as the poet himself noted, is “to snatch those living in this life from the state of junk and lead them to a state of bliss.”
Dante called his work “Comedy,” explaining that, according to the norms of medieval poetics, this is the effect of any work of the middle style with a terrifying beginning and a happy ending, written in the folk language. Giovanni Boccaccio, the author of the Decameron and Dante’s first biographer, called Dante’s poem “The Divine Comedy” in his book “The Life of Dante,” expressing his admiration for the artistic perfection of the form and the richness of the content of the work.
The poem consists of three parts: “Hell”, “Purgatory” and “Paradise”. Each part (cantika) in turn has 33 songs, to which an introduction is attached, and the poem thus has 100 songs. The form of the verse of the poem is also determined by the number 3. Give here canonizes the terzin form, taking it as the basis for the architectonics of the Divine Comedy. This structure, on the one hand, repeats the Christian model of the political world, which is divided into three spheres - hell - purgatory - heaven, and on the other hand, it is subject to the mystical symbolism of the number 3.
The compositional structure perfectly corresponds to the intention of the poem: through the vision common in the religious literature of the Middle Ages - a journey in the afterlife - to depict a person’s path to moral improvement. Dante here relies not only on religious literature, but also on the experience of Homer, who sent Odysseus to the kingdom of the dead, and on the most authoritative example of Virgil, in whom Aeneas also ascends to Tartarus to see his father.
At the same time, Dante goes much further than his predecessors. The most important artistic feature of his work is that the poet himself becomes a traveler in the other world. It is he who is “halfway through the earthly world” (that is, somewhere at the age of thirty-five), entangled in life’s equivalences, which he compares to a gloomy, harsh and wild forest inhabited by ferocious predators, who seeks salvation. His favorite poet Virgil comes to Dante's aid. He becomes Dante's guide and leads him through hell and purgatory, in order to further transfer him to his beloved Beatrice, with whose illuminated accompaniment Dante enters heaven.
Symbolism of the Divine Comedy
A characteristic feature of the poem is its extreme semantic richness. Almost every image in it has several meanings. Direct, immediate meaning, behind which lies an allegorical one, and that in turn can be either purely allegorical, or moral, or analogous (spiritual). So, the predators who crossed Dante’s path in the wild forest were the usual panther, she-wolf and lion. In an allegorical sense, the panther means cunning, pretense, and also oligarchy; Leo - neglect, violence, as well as tyranny; the she-wolf - greed, as well as the worldly power of the Roman church. At the same time, they are all symbols of fear, embarrassment, confusion in front of some hostile forces.
In allegorical terms, Dante is the embodiment of the soul, Virgil - the mind, Beatrice - the highest wisdom. Hell is a symbol of evil, heaven is a symbol of love, goodness and virtue, purgatory is a transition from one state to another, higher, and the journey through the afterlife itself means the path to salvation.
The combination in the poem of a purely medieval picture of the world with its established ideas about the afterlife and atonement for earthly sins with the poet’s extremely frank, passionate and emotionally charged attitude towards the images and events he painted brings it to the level of a brilliant innovative work. Representing a grandiose synthesis of medieval culture, The Divine Comedy simultaneously carries within itself the powerful spirit of a new culture, a new type of thinking, which foreshadows the humanistic era of the Renaissance.
A socially active person, Dante is not content with abstract moralizing: he transports his contemporaries and predecessors into the other world, with their joys and experiences, with their political preferences, with their actions and deeds, and carries out a strict and unforgiving judgment on them from the position of a sage - humanist. He acts as a comprehensively educated person, which allows him to be a politician, theologian, moralist, philosopher, historian, physiologist, psychologist and astronomer. According to the best Russian translator of Dante’s poem M.L. Lozinsky, “The Divine Comedy” is a book about the Universe and, to the same extent, a book about the poet himself, which will forever remain for centuries as an ever-living example of a brilliant creation.
Dante Alighieri is the greatest and most famous person born in the Middle Ages. His contribution to the development of not only Italian, but also all world literature cannot be assessed. Today, people often look for a brief biography of Dante Alighieri. But to be so superficially interested in the life of such a great man who made a huge contribution to the development of languages is not entirely correct.
Biography of Dante Alighieri
Speaking about the life and work of Dante Alighieri, it is not enough to say that he was a poet. The area of his activity was very extensive and multifaceted. He was interested not only in literature, but also in politics. Today Dante Alighieri, whose biography is filled with interesting events, is called a theologian.
Beginning of life
The biography of Dante Alighieri began in Florence. The family legend, which has long been the basis of the Alighieri family, stated that Dante, like all his relatives, was a descendant of the great Roman family, which laid the preconditions for the founding of Florence itself. Everyone considered this legend to be true, because Dante’s father’s grandfather was in the ranks of the army that participated in the Crusade under the command of the Great Conrad the Third. It was this ancestor of Dante who was knighted, and soon died tragically during the battle against the Muslims.
It was this relative of Dante, whose name was Cacciaguida, who was married to a woman who came from a very rich and noble family - Aldighieri. Over time, the name of a famous family began to sound a little different - “Alighieri”. One of the children of Cacciaguida, who later became Dante's grandfather, often suffered persecution from the lands of Florence in those years when the Guelphs were constantly fighting with the Ghibelline peoples.
Biography highlights
Today you can find many sources that briefly talk about the biography and work of Dante Alighieri. However, such a study of Dante’s personality will not be entirely correct. A short biography of Dante Alighieri will not be able to convey all those seemingly unimportant biographical elements that so greatly influenced his life.
Speaking about the date of birth of Dante Alighieri, no one can say the exact date, month and year. However, it is generally accepted that the main date of birth is the time that Boccaccio named, being a friend of Dante, - May 1265. The writer Dante himself wrote about himself that he was born under the zodiac of Gemini, which suggests that Alighieri’s birth time was the end of May - the beginning of June. What is known about his baptism is that this event took place in 1266, in March, and his baptismal name sounded like Durante.
Education of Dante Alighieri
Another important fact that is mentioned in all short biographies of Dante Alighieri was his education. The first teacher and mentor of the young and still unknown Dante was the popular writer, poet and at the same time scientist - Brunetto Latini. It was he who laid the first poetic knowledge in Alighieri’s young head.
And today the fact remains unknown where Dante received his further education. Scientists who study history unanimously say that Dante Alighieri was very educated, knew a lot about the literature of antiquity and the Middle Ages, was well versed in various sciences and even studied heretical teachings. Where could Dante Alighieri have acquired such extensive knowledge? In the poet’s biography, this became another mystery that is almost impossible to solve.
For a long time, scientists from all over the world tried to find the answer to this question. Many facts suggest that Dante Alighieri could have acquired such extensive knowledge at the university, which was located in the city of Bologna, since it was there that he lived for some time. But, since there is no direct evidence of this theory, we can only assume that this is so.
First steps in creativity and trials
Like all people, the poet had friends. His closest friend was Guido Cavalcanti, who was also a poet. It was to him that Dante dedicated a huge number of works and lines of his poem “New Life”.
At the same time, Dante Alighieri became known as a fairly young public and political figure. In 1300 he was elected to the post of prior, but soon the poet was expelled from Florence along with his comrades. Already on his deathbed, Dante dreamed of being in his native land. However, throughout his entire life after the expulsion, he was never allowed to visit the city, which the poet considered his homeland.
Years spent in exile
The expulsion of their hometown made Dante Alighieri, whose biography and books are filled with bitterness from separation from his native land, a wanderer. At the time of such large-scale persecution in Florence, Dante was already among the famous lyric poets. His poem “New Life” had already been written by this time, and he himself worked hard to create “The Feast”. Changes in the poet himself were very noticeable in his further work. Exile and long wandering left an indelible mark on Alighieri. His great work “The Feast” was supposed to be a response to the 14 canzones already accepted in society, but it was never completed.
Development in the literary path
It was during his exile that Alighieri wrote his most famous work, “Comedy,” which began to be called “divine” only years later. Alighieri's friend Boccaccio greatly contributed to the name change.
There are still many legends about Dante's Divine Comedy. Boccaccio himself claimed that all three cants were written in different cities. The last part, “Paradise,” was written in Ravenna. It was Boccaccio who said that after the poet died, his children for a very long time could not find the last thirteen songs that were written by the hand of the great Dante Alighieri. This part of the “Comedy” was discovered only after one of Alighieri’s sons dreamed of the poet himself, who told where the manuscripts were located. Such a beautiful legend is actually not refuted by scientists today, because there are a lot of oddities and mysteries surrounding the personality of this creator.
Personal life of the poet
In the personal life of Dante Alighieri, everything was far from ideal. His first and last love was the Florentine girl Beatrice Portinari. Having met his love in Florence, as a child, he did not understand his feelings for her. Having met Beatrice nine years later, when she was already married, Dante realized how much he loved her. She became the love of his life, inspiration and hope for a better future. The poet was shy all his life. During his life, he spoke only twice with his beloved, but this did not become an obstacle for him in his love for her. Beatrice did not understand, did not know about the poet’s feelings, she believed that he was simply arrogant, so he did not talk to her. This was precisely the reason that Portinari one day felt very resentful towards Alighieri and soon stopped talking to him altogether.
For the poet, this was a strong blow, because it was under the influence of the very love that he felt for Beatrice that he wrote most of his works. Dante Alighieri's poem “New Life” was created under the influence of Portinari’s words of greeting, which the poet regarded as a successful attempt to attract the attention of his beloved. And Alighieri completely dedicated his “Divine Comedy” to his only and unrequited love for Beatrice.
Tragic loss
Alighieri's life changed greatly with the death of his beloved. Since at twenty-one, Biche, as the girl’s relatives affectionately called her, was married to a rich and influential man, it remains surprising that exactly three years after her marriage, Portinari suddenly died. There are two main versions of the death: the first is that Biche died during a difficult birth, and the second is that she was very ill, which ultimately led to death.
For Alighieri, this loss was very great. For a long time, not finding his place in this world, he could no longer feel sympathy for anyone. Based on the awareness of his precarious position, a few years after the loss of his beloved woman, Dante Alighieri married a very rich lady. This marriage was created solely for convenience, and the poet himself treated his wife absolutely coldly and indifferently. Despite this, in this marriage Alighieri had three children, two of whom eventually followed the path of their father and became seriously interested in literature.
Death of a great writer
Death overtook Dante Alighieri suddenly. In late summer 1321, Dante went to Venice to finally make peace with the famous Church of St. Mark. During his return to his native land, Alighieri suddenly fell ill with malaria, which killed him. Already in September, on the night of the 13th to 14th, Alighieri died in Ravenna without saying goodbye to his children.
Alighieri was buried there, in Ravenna. The famous architect Guido da Polenta wanted to build a very beautiful and rich mausoleum for Dante Alighieri, but the authorities did not allow this, because the poet spent a huge part of his life in exile.
Today, Dante Alighieri is buried in a beautiful tomb, which was built only in 1780.
The most interesting fact remains that the familiar portrait of the poet has no historical basis or authenticity. This is how Boccaccio imagined him.
Dan Brown in his book "Inferno" writes a lot of biographical facts about Alighieri's life, which are actually recognized as reliable.
Many scientists believe that the beloved Beatrice was invented and created by time, that such a person never existed. However, no one can explain how, in this case, Dante and Beatrice could become a symbol of enormous and unhappy love, standing on the same level as Romeo and Juliet or Tristan and Isolde.
Dante's works
DANTE Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet, creator of the Italian literary language. In his youth, he joined the school of “Dolce Style Nuovo”, translated as “New Sweet Style” (sonnets praising Beatrice, autobiographical story “New Life”, 1292-93, edition 1576); philosophical and political treatises (“Feast”, unfinished; “On National Speech”, 1304-07, edition 1529), “Epistle” (1304-16). The pinnacle of Dante’s work is the poem “The Divine Comedy” (1307-21, edition 1472) in 3 parts (“Hell”, “Purgatory”, “Paradise”) and 100 songs, a poetic encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. He had a great influence on the development of European culture.
DANTE Alighieri (May or June 1265, Florence - September 14, 1321, Ravenna), Italian poet, one of the greatest geniuses of world literature.
Biography
Dante's family belonged to the urban nobility of Florence. The poet's grandfather was the first to bear the family name Alighieri (in another vowel, Alagieri). Dante was educated at a municipal school, then, presumably, studied at the University of Bologna (according to even less reliable information, he also attended the University of Paris during the period of exile). He took an active part in the political life of Florence; from June 15 to August 15, 1300 he was a member of the government (he was elected to the position of prior), trying, while fulfilling the position, to prevent the aggravation of the struggle between the parties of the White and Black Guelphs (see Guelphs and Ghibellines). After an armed coup in Florence and the coming to power of the Black Guelphs, on January 27, 1302 he was sentenced to exile and deprived of civil rights; On March 10, he was sentenced to death for failing to pay a fine. The first years of Dante's exile are among the leaders of the White Guelphs, taking part in the armed and diplomatic struggle with the victorious party.
The last episode in his political biography is associated with the Italian campaign of Emperor Henry VII (1310-13), to whose efforts to establish civil peace in Italy he gave ideological support in a number of public messages and in the treatise “Monarchy”.
Dante never returned to Florence; he spent several years in Verona at the court of Can Grande della Scala, and in the last years of his life he enjoyed the hospitality of the ruler of Ravenna, Guido da Polenta. Died of malaria.
Lyrics
The bulk of Dante's lyric poems were created in the 80-90s. 13th century; with the beginning of the new century, small poetic forms gradually disappeared from his work. Dante began by imitating the most influential lyric poet of Italy at that time, Guittone d'Arezzo, but soon changed his poetics and, together with his older friend Guido Cavalcanti, became the founder of a special poetic school, which Dante himself called the school of the “sweet new style” (“Dolce Stilo Nuovo” ). Its main distinguishing feature is the utmost spiritualization of the feeling of love.
Dante, providing biographical and poetic commentary, collected poems dedicated to his beloved Beatrice Portinari into a book called “New Life” (c. 1293-95). The actual biographical outline is extremely sparse: two meetings, the first in childhood, the second in youth, marking the beginning of love, the death of Beatrice’s father, the death of Beatrice herself, the temptation of new love and overcoming it. The biography appears as a series of mental states leading to an ever more complete mastery of the meaning of the feeling that has befallen the hero: as a result, the feeling of love acquires the features and signs of religious worship.
In addition to the “New Life,” about fifty more poems by Dante have reached us: poems in the manner of the “sweet new style” (but not always addressed to Beatrice); a love cycle known as “stone” (after the name of the recipient, Donna Pietra) and characterized by an excess of sensuality; comic poetry (a poetic altercation with Forese Donati and the poem “Flower,” the attribution of which remains doubtful); a group of doctrinal poems (dedicated to the themes of nobility, generosity, justice, etc.).
Treatises
Poems of philosophical content became the subject of commentary in the unfinished treatise “The Feast” (c. 1304-07), which represents one of the first experiments in Italy in creating scientific prose in the popular language and at the same time the rationale for this attempt - a kind of educational program together with the defense of the folk language. In the unfinished Latin treatise “On Popular Eloquence,” written in the same years, an apology for the Italian language is accompanied by the theory and history of literature in it - both of which are absolute innovations. In the Latin treatise "Monarchy" (c. 1312-13), Dante (also for the first time) proclaims the principle of separation of spiritual and temporal power and insists on the complete sovereignty of the latter.
"The Divine Comedy"
Dante began working on the poem “The Divine Comedy” during the years of exile and completed it shortly before his death. Written in terzas, containing 14,233 verses, it is divided into three parts (or cantics) and one hundred cantos (each cantic has thirty-three cantos and another is the introductory one to the entire poem). It was called a comedy by the author, who proceeded from the classification of genres developed by medieval poetics. The definition of “divine” was assigned to her by her descendants.
The poem tells about Dante's journey through the kingdom of the dead: the right to see the afterlife during his lifetime is a special favor that frees him from philosophical and moral errors and entrusts him with a certain high mission. Dante, lost in the “dark forest” (which symbolizes the specific, although not directly named, sin of the author himself, and at the same time the sins of all humanity, experiencing a critical moment in its history), comes to the aid of the Roman poet Virgil (who symbolizes the human mind, unfamiliar with divine revelation) and leads him through the first two afterlife kingdoms - the kingdom of retribution and the kingdom of redemption.
Hell is a funnel-shaped hole ending in the center of the earth; it is divided into nine circles, in each of which execution is carried out on a special category of sinners (only the inhabitants of the first circle - the souls of unbaptized babies and righteous pagans - are spared from torment).
Among the souls that Dante met and entered into conversation with him, there are those familiar to him personally and others known to everyone - characters from ancient history and myths or heroes of our time. In The Divine Comedy they are not turned into direct and flat illustrations of their sins; the evil for which they are condemned is difficult to combine with their human essence, sometimes not devoid of nobility and greatness of spirit (among the most famous episodes of this kind are meetings with Paolo and Francesca in the circle of voluptuaries, with Farinata degli Uberti in the circle of heretics, with Brunetto Latini in circle of rapists, with Ulysses in the circle of deceivers, with Ugolino in the circle of traitors).
Purgatory is a huge mountain in the center of the uninhabited, ocean-occupied southern hemisphere, with ledges it is divided into seven circles, where the souls of the dead atone for the sins of pride, envy, anger, despondency, stinginess and extravagance, gluttony, and voluptuousness.
After each of the circles, one of the seven signs of sin inscribed by the gatekeeper angel is erased from the forehead of Dante (and any of the souls of purgatory) - in this part of the “Comedy” it is felt more acutely than in others that Dante’s path for himself is not only educational , but also redemptive.
At the top of the mountain, in the earthly paradise, Dante meets Beatrice (symbolizing divine revelation) and parts with Virgil; here Dante fully realizes his personal guilt and is completely cleared of it.
Together with Beatrice, he ascends to heaven, in each of the eight heavens surrounding the earth (seven planetary and eighth starry) he becomes acquainted with a certain category of blessed souls and strengthens in faith and knowledge. In the ninth, the sky of the Prime Mover, and in the Empyrean, where Beatrice is replaced by St. Bernard, he is awarded initiation into the secrets of the trinity and the incarnation.
Both plans of the poem finally come together, in one of which the path of man to truth and goodness is presented through the abyss of sin, despair and doubt, in the other - the path of history, which has approached the final frontier and is opening towards a new era. And The Divine Comedy itself, being a kind of synthesis of medieval culture, turns out to be its final work.
Composition
The years of exile coincided with Dante's creative maturity. He created a number of works, including scientific treatises. Among them is “The Banquet,” conceived as a kind of encyclopedia in the field of philosophy and art and intended for the widest circles of readers; the name “Banquet” is allegorical: simply and clearly presented scientific ideas should saturate not the chosen ones, but everyone, since Dante considered it necessary to make learning and culture the property of the masses; his idea was extremely democratic for those times. The treatise “The Banquet” (unfinished) was written in Italian, it alternates poetry and prose, integrating allegory and specifics.
In "The Banquet" the image of Beatrice appears again, but now she is "Saint Beatrice", since by then the real Beatrice Portinari had died. Dante mourned her bitterly and canonized her (although there was no official canonization of Beatrice, and it was audacity on Dante’s part to declare her a saint himself). Dante admitted that he even retained “spiritual fidelity” to his late beloved: he had other hobbies, but again and again he returned his memories to Beatrice. The poet identifies Beatrice with the only faith in his life, sometimes he calls it “bottom Philosophy,” which guides him through life, helping him comprehend the labyrinth of his own consciousness.
In “The Banquet,” Dante expresses one of his most intimate thoughts - about human dignity, which lies not in the nobility of birth, and certainly not in wealth, but in a noble heart and, above all, in noble thoughts and actions for the good of people. This thought prophesied the humanistic concept of man. True nobility, according to the creator of “The Banquet,” involves physical beauty, “nobility of the flesh.” The concept of harmony between the physical and spiritual indicates the closeness of the poet of the 14th century. to the humanism of the Renaissance. In “The Banquet,” as in the previous “New Life,” the poet anticipates imminent and beneficial changes, which is why both works, excellent in style, are filled with a feeling of spring renewal. Dante writes about the new literary language: “It will be a new light, a new sun... and it gives light to all who are in darkness and darkness, since the old sun no longer shines on them.” By "old sun" the poet meant Latin and, perhaps, the entire old belief system.
The problem of a new literary language became central to the treatise “On Popular Eloquence,” probably written in those same years (disputes about the dating of this treatise continue). Dante wrote this treatise in Latin, since he addressed it not only to the Italian, but also to the European reader as a whole. Dante presents the question of the origin of languages according to the Bible, but his thoughts on the commonality of Romance languages, their classification, and consideration of Italian dialects are extremely interesting for the history of linguistics. It is noticeable that Dante views Latin not as the language of communication of the Romans, but as a constructed, conventional language of modern Europe, necessary for the communication of scientists. According to Dante, the living Italian language should become the language of art and poetry.
Dante examines the various dialects of the Italian language, highlighting the most “learned” of them - Florentine and Bolognese, but will come to the conclusion that none of them, taken separately, can become the literary language of Italy; some kind of generalized modern language is needed that fits would be all dialects. Dante “entrusts” the task of creating such a language to professional Italian writers, poets, people called by God to literary work. This was Dante's boundless faith in the possibilities of a creative person. Probably, Dante realized that it was he who had to complete this extremely difficult task - to create an Italian literary language, as it happened in the near future, since Dante did so much for the national literary language that his followers, even such outstanding ones as F. Petrarch and G. Boccaccio, all that remains is to follow the path that he paved.
In his treatise “On Popular Eloquence,” also unfinished, Dante talks about three literary styles. Here he adheres to ancient traditions, in particular, the aesthetic precepts of Horace. Dante distinguishes the tragic, comic and elegy styles (i.e., the middle one). In all cases, we are talking not about dramatic, but specifically about lyrical genres: the style of tragedy belonged to writing about high feelings, the style allowed for simple folk language, which could dominate the comic style. In a colloquial style it was permissible to talk about the “animal” in man, since for the medieval poet man was a “divine animal” (“divino animal”), intellect brought her closer to God, instincts - to animals.
During the years of exile, Dante moved away from the Black Guelphs, who kicked him out and threatened him with burning at the stake if he appeared unauthorized in Florence, also moved away from his allies - the White Guelphs and became, to quote him, “his own party.” But still, Dante’s political views brought him closer to the Ghibellines, who believed in the German emperor. In his treatise “On Monarchy,” Dante presents his political program, according to which all European countries, including Italy, should unite under the single authority of the German emperor, while state power, concentrated in the hands of the emperor, should become independent from the papal power, the church should not interfere in earthly state affairs. At that time, this idea was not only daring, but also seditious, since the poet wanted to remove the church from the executive power of the emperor.
In his treatise “On the Monarchy,” Dante also expressed the idea of consolidating the divided Italian city-communes, the idea of the unity of the Italian nations. Dante condemned feudal strife and wrote about peace and unification as necessary conditions for statehood. All three treatises (“The Banquet”, “On Popular Eloquence”, “On the Monarchy”) affirmed the idea of Italian state unity, which was to be based on the unity of territory and language. The poet's compatriots saw in these treatises the theory of future Italian statehood.
The years of exile coincided with Dante's creative maturity. He created a number of works, including scientific treatises. Among them is “The Banquet,” conceived as a kind of encyclopedia in the field of philosophy and art and intended for the widest circles of readers; the name “Banquet” is allegorical: simply and clearly presented scientific ideas should saturate not the chosen ones, but everyone, since Dante considered it necessary to make learning and culture the property of the masses; his idea was extremely democratic for those times. The treatise “The Banquet” (unfinished) was written in Italian, it alternates poetry and prose, integrating allegory and specifics.
In "The Banquet" the image of Beatrice appears again, but now she is "Saint Beatrice", since by then the real Beatrice Portinari had died. Dante mourned her bitterly and canonized her (although there was no official canonization of Beatrice, and it was audacity on Dante’s part to declare her a saint himself). Dante admitted that he even retained “spiritual fidelity” to his late beloved: he had other hobbies, but again and again he returned his memories to Beatrice. The poet identifies Beatrice with the only faith in his life, sometimes he calls it “bottom Philosophy,” which guides him through life, helping him comprehend the labyrinth of his own consciousness.
In “The Banquet,” Dante expresses one of his most intimate thoughts - about human dignity, which lies not in the nobility of birth, and certainly not in wealth, but in a noble heart and, above all, in noble thoughts and actions for the good of people. This thought prophesied the humanistic concept of man. True nobility, according to the creator of “The Banquet,” involves physical beauty, “nobility of the flesh.” The concept of harmony between the physical and spiritual indicates the closeness of the poet of the 14th century. to the humanism of the Renaissance. In “The Banquet,” as in the previous “New Life,” the poet anticipates imminent and beneficial changes, which is why both works, excellent in style, are filled with a feeling of spring renewal. Dante writes about the new literary language: “It will be a new light, a new sun... and it gives light to all who are in darkness and darkness, since the old sun no longer shines on them.” By "old sun" the poet meant Latin and, perhaps, the entire old belief system.
The problem of a new literary language became central to the treatise “On Popular Eloquence,” probably written in those same years (disputes about the dating of this treatise continue). Dante wrote this treatise in Latin, since he addressed it not only to the Italian, but also to the European reader as a whole. Dante presents the question of the origin of languages according to the Bible, but his thoughts on the commonality of Romance languages, their classification, and consideration of Italian dialects are extremely interesting for the history of linguistics. It is noticeable that Dante views Latin not as the language of communication of the Romans, but as a constructed, conventional language of modern Europe, necessary for the communication of scientists. According to Dante, the living Italian language should become the language of art and poetry.
Dante examines the various dialects of the Italian language, highlighting the most “learned” of them - Florentine and Bolognese, but will come to the conclusion that none of them, taken separately, can become the literary language of Italy; some kind of generalized modern language is needed that fits would be all dialects. Dante “entrusts” the task of creating such a language to professional Italian writers, poets, people called by God to literary work. This was Dante's boundless faith in the possibilities of a creative person. Probably, Dante realized that it was he who had to complete this extremely difficult task - to create an Italian literary language, as it happened in the near future, since Dante did so much for the national literary language that his followers, even such outstanding ones as F. Petrarch and G. Boccaccio, all that remains is to follow the path that he paved.
In his treatise “On Popular Eloquence,” also unfinished, Dante talks about three literary styles. Here he adheres to ancient traditions, in particular, the aesthetic precepts of Horace. Dante distinguishes the tragic, comic and elegy styles (i.e., the middle one). In all cases, we are talking not about dramatic, but specifically about lyrical genres: the style of tragedy belonged to writing about high feelings, the style allowed for simple folk language, which could dominate the comic style. In a colloquial style it was permissible to talk about the “animal” in man, since for the medieval poet man was a “divine animal” (“divino animal”), intellect brought her closer to God, instincts - to animals.
During the years of exile, Dante moved away from the Black Guelphs, who kicked him out and threatened him with burning at the stake if he appeared unauthorized in Florence, also moved away from his allies - the White Guelphs and became, to quote him, “his own party.” But still, Dante’s political views brought him closer to the Ghibellines, who believed in the German emperor. In his treatise “On Monarchy,” Dante presents his political program, according to which all European countries, including Italy, should unite under the single authority of the German emperor, while state power, concentrated in the hands of the emperor, should become independent from the papal power, the church should not interfere in earthly state affairs. At that time, this idea was not only daring, but also seditious, since the poet wanted to remove the church from the executive power of the emperor.
In his treatise “On the Monarchy,” Dante also expressed the idea of consolidating the divided Italian city-communes, the idea of the unity of the Italian nations. Dante condemned feudal strife and wrote about peace and unification as necessary conditions for statehood. All three treatises (“The Banquet”, “On Popular Eloquence”, “On the Monarchy”) affirmed the idea of Italian state unity, which was to be based on the unity of territory and language. The poet's compatriots saw in these treatises the theory of future Italian statehood.
