Dante and His Circle
THE YOUNG DANTE was one poet among many creating the first full-blown "vulgar" language modern European literature. They followed the model of the Troubadours of Languedoc in France, yet chose their Tuscan Italian dialect in creating a body of work that established a distinct linguistic community in the language people actually spoke — rather than the Latin of the Roman Empire.
"DANTE'S CIRCLE" perhaps overstates the case, since at least one of the poets included in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's anthology, Boccaccio, was of a different generation altogether. Yet many of the fifteen poets in this book knew each other by poems if not in person, exchanged poetic barbs or conversations about writing, about love, about personal feelings. This selection from Rossetti's work centers on the theme of love.
DANTE'S OWN "VITA NUOVA" is a series of poems about his beloved Beatrice up to and including her early death, with his own meticulous notes on how he constructed the poems, plus a few poetic commentaries by his fellow poets. Although it's included in the Dante and His Circle book, the Vita Nuova is also sold separately. You can see a mobile version of the text for it, with interlinear original Italian here, and you might like to purchase the paper edition (English only) to keep.
DANTE AND HIS CIRCLE. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Edited by Sasha Newborn. 154pp. ISBN 978-0-9422087-09-2, Order for $12.95.
Copyright © 2012 Bandanna Books