Life of one poet from Florence

DANTE ALIGHIERI

• Why Dante? (Introduction) • How did Dante begin

his philosophic life?• Dante and his time• Dante and poetical movement • Dante as a founder of

modern Italian language • Dante as a poet • Divine Comedy of Dante • Memory of Dante in Florence

OUTLINE

Dante Alighieri is Italy's most beloved and most famous poet, thought of as

the founder of modern Italian language and literature.

In Italy he is known as il Sommo Poeta ("the Supreme Poet") or just il

Poeta. He, Petrarch and Boccaccio are also known as "the three fountains" or "the three crowns". Dante is also called

"the Father of the Italian language".

WHY DANTE?

He is undoubtedly the greatest literary

expression of the Medieval culture or Middle Ages;

moreover is considered to be the greatest poet ever

lived. His work and his life are high examples of coherence, magnanimity

and greatness.

That's why Dante.

• Dante's engagement with philosophy cannot be studied apart from his vocation as a writer -- as a poet whose theme, from first to last is the significance of his love for Beatrice, but also as an intellectual strongly committed to raising the level of public discourse.

• In about 1285 he married Gemma di Manetto Donati, who gave him three children (or maybe four, we don’t know exactly).

HOW DID DANTE BEGIN HIS

PHILOSOPHIC LIFE?

However,  Dante had already fallen in love with another girl, Beatrice Portinari that is mentioned same in "Divine Comedy", (known also as Bice). Years after Dante's marriage to Gemma he met Beatrice again. He had become interested in writing poems.

Dante’s stories of unrequited love are famous, as is that young Beatrice, the girl he falls in love with at the age of nine. She died at the age of 24, when Dante, in a state of depression, then threw himself into studying Italian philosophy and eventually became heavily involved in his city's politics, though unfavorably.

The historical period Dante lived in was the late Middle

Ages, especially the XIV century. This century will see, just after Dante, the

agony and death of the traditional Medieval

culture, that is the one formed mainly by the

influence of the Church, the Roman classical

tradition and the German populations.

DANTE AND HIS TIME

• In Italy, there was no political union, but the country was divided into many different town councils.

• The political parties were two: the Guelfi and the Ghibellini.

• At the beginning of the XIV century, the Guelfi led most of the councils in Italy.

• In Florence, the Guelfo party split in two parts: the whites (in favor of the Emperor) and the blacks ( in favor of the Pope).

• Dante was a white guelfo.

• In this period (especially between 1280 and 1310) a new poetical movement was born: the Stilnovo (the name, invented by Dante (see Purgatorio, XXIV, ll. 55–57) is the Italian for "new style").

• It was really a new way to intend and to write poetry. It was widely diffused only in Tuscany, especially in Florence.

• The most important Stilnovo poet was Dante himself.

• This movement used the poetical art only to speak about love, to celebrate it..

DANTE AND POETICAL MOVEMENT

Another important cultural debate was the one about language to be

used in literary works. It consisted in choosing either Latin or an Italian

dialect to write the works. The Italian dialects were various, since Italy was

neither culturally nor politically united. Dante proposed his solution to this technical problem in the De

vulgari eloquentia.

DANTE AS A FOUNDER OF MODERN ITALIAN

LANGUAGE

Born around 1265 in Florence, Dante often used autobiographical

references in his works and so actual

streets and citizens of medieval Florence often feature in his

greatest works, such as The Divine Comedy

and La Vita Nuova.

DANTE AS A POET

Dante Alighieri is universally known as the author of the Divine Comedy, a poem written in terza rima in the vernacular

language of his time, divided into Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. For its grandeur of construction, its power and

variety of form, and its immense richness of expression, the Divine Comedy is acknowledged as one of the supreme

masterpieces of world literature.

DIVINE COMEDY OF DANTE

DIVINE COMEDY OF DANTE

• Dante died in Ravenna in 1320 and is still buried there.

• Regretful, the Florentines made an unsuccessful attempt in 1829 to return him to Florence by building a tomb for him in the church Santa Croce, which remains empty.

MEMORY OF DANTE IN FLORENCE

• Sasso di Dante, Piazza DuomoThe Sasso di Dante, or Dante's stone was a favourite spot of Dante's. Although the stone is no longer there, there is a plaque on the wall, that claims to be the spot where Dante apparently sat and wrote poems, while watching the walls of the Duomo rise up in front of him.

• The church of Santa Margherita de' Cerchi.This is the very church where the nine-year-old Dante first saw and fell in love with Beatrice. He was so taken by her from this one meeting that she became his life long muse and true love.

•Biography of Dante Alighieri http://www.readprint.com/author-2/Dante-Alighieri-books#anchor_biography•Dante in Florence http://www.walkaboutflorence.com/articles/dante-florence•Dante Alighieri http://www.greatdante.net/life.html

REFERENCES