as in content, are written on a more elaborate scale than the other 28 poems; these include 23 regular sonnets, two sonetti doppi, one ballata, one canzone of two 13-line stanzas, one single stanza of 14 lines which closely resembles a sonnet. Canzone I is preceded by ten short poems, all but one of them sonnets; Canz. III is followed by ten short poems, all but one of them sonnets; between Canz. I and Canz. II are four sonnets; between Canz. II and Canz. III are three sonnets and a single stanza which closely resembles a sonnet. Thus we have the arrangement graphically represented in this way: Io short poems (9 of them sonnets) Canz. I 4 short poems (all sonnets) Canz. II 4 short poems (3 sonnets, I almost a sonnet) 10 short poems (9 of them sonnets) Furthermore, the three canzoni are related to each other in phraseology and in subject as well as in their position in the book. It does not appear that this symmetrical arrangement was intended by Dante as anything more than a formal embellishment of a sort that he afterwards employed frequently in the Divina Commedia. Once decided upon, it was doubtless one element governing the choice, among the poems already composed, of those to be included in the Vita Nuova.1 Thus the selection and the symmetrical arrangement of the poems are in accordance with a definite scheme, and in the 1 For the history of this subject and discussion of other aspects not touched upon here, see the essay in Norton's translation of the V. N., two articles by K. McKenzie cited in the Bibliography, Federzoni's edition of the V. N., and Labusquette, Les Béatrices. The only serious argument on the other side unfortunately accepted by some critics without any examination of the evidence-is that of M. Scherillo, La forma architettonica della Vita Nuova, originally published in the Giornale Dantesco in 1901, and reprinted with important additions in his editions of the V. N. prose a unity of interpretation is imposed upon them in spite of their original diversity of significance. Moreover, the narrative has many conventional elements, of which the most obvious are: the visions; the personifications, especially of love; the combination of religious and amorous emotions; the adoration of the lady as a superior being, and the trembling and fainting of the lover in her presence; the application to her of a poetic name, and the effort to conceal her identity; the sending of a sonnet to other poets, asking for the solution of a problem; the symbolism of the number nine; the use of astronomical circumlocutions to indicate times and seasons. The vision was a familiar literary device, used sometimes for a complete work, sometimes as an incident. In the Vita Nuova it is not an ordinary dream, but a conscious evocation adapted to produce a desired effect. The personifications are justified by Dante (XXV) on the ground that to writers of verse in Italian the same poetic license should be allowed as to Latin poets. The contrast of this defense of the vulgar (spoken) language with the picturesque scene in Purgatorio, XXIV, shows the broadening of Dante's imagination as well as the growth of the literary sense of his readers. Many modern critics, especially the very young, are inclined to ridicule the self-effacement, timidity, tears and fainting-spells described in the Vita Nuova. A more sympathetic insight into the character of Dante-sensitive, gentle, diffident, idealistic, highly emotional-and into the literary influences under which he wrote, appreciates the fundamental psychological truth of his descriptions of these phenomena, however conventional some elements of them may be. If in some cases the desire to conform to the traditions of a literary school evoked the emotion, no disrespect to Dante's poetic genius is involved in pointing it out, and the emotion was not on that account less real. The impression made upon him at nine years of age by a little girl of eight, and the visions of III and IX, are no more "incredible” than this statement by another great literary artist, Gustave Flaubert: L'enfant et le barbare (le primitif) ne distinguent pas le réel du fantastique. Je me souviens très nettement qu'à cinq ou six ans je voulais "envoyer mon cœur" à une petite fille dont j'étais amoureux (je dis mon cœur matériel). Je le voyais au milieu de la paille, dans une bourriche, une bourriche d'huîtres! 1 Do the conventional elements and the artful construction of the Vita Nuova prove, as some have thought, that the narrative and the personages are fictitious or symbolic, without basis of reality? The arguments cannot be given here in detail. We must remember, however, that the Troubadours wrote about real ladies, not abstractions. Many realistic incidents in the Vita Nuova were certainly derived from personal observation, and have no point unless they actually happened-a funeral, a wedding, the passage of a group of pilgrims on the way to Rome, etc. The scene is evidently laid in Florence, although the name of the city is not mentioned. In some cases Dante makes a special effort to have the circumstances conform to his scheme, as when he uses three calendars to connect the number nine with the death of Beatrice. If he had invented the story, he would have made the details conform to his scheme without such devices, just as he would have carried the symmetrical arrangement out more uniformly if he had composed all the poems together. No satisfactory explanation can be given of many details, except on the supposition that they were real: the gabbo and the death of Beatrice, her father's death, the request of her brother for a poem of condolence, the presence of Dante's sister at his bedside, etc. The element of symbolism is easily recognized; it was Dante's method to ascribe symbolic significance to persons or things that really existed, putting the literal meaning before the 1 Correspondance entre George Sand et Gustave Flaubert, letter no. CVII, written in 1869. allegorical. Beatrice in the Divina Commedia is undoubtedly a symbol, although a real woman at the same time; Vergil also is a symbol, but no one doubts that Dante thought of him as the Latin poet. The question which may fairly be asked is, how far the symbolism extends into the texture of the Vita Nuova, and whether there is, properly speaking, allegory in it. Allegory has been defined as "organized symbolism"; if found in the Vita Nuova, it is of the most elementary sort, hardly organized at all, and not comparable to the complex allegory of the Divina Commedia. Whether or not we consider the Vita Nuova as a prelude to the greater work, it is easy to see in it the central theme of Dante's spiritual development under the power of his love-a real love, though surrounded by traditional embellishments for Beatrice, the woman whose beneficent influence is indicated by her very name. In treating this theme he does not invent or distort incidents, he merely interprets them. The modern reader, in attempting to interpret the book, must follow the same principle. If Dante had written nothing after the Vita Nuova, no one would have been likely to think it other than an ingenuous narrative with a tendency to idealization. But the exalted position of Beatrice in the Divina Commedia leads some to infer that in the Vita Nuova she was primarily a symbol; and the Convivio gives an allegorical interpretation of the latter part of the Vita Nuova. In the uncompleted form in which Dante left it, the Convivio consists of three canzoni and an elaborate commentary in prose. The first two canzoni, written not long after the Vita Nuova, are connected with the episode of the gentile donna who consoled Dante for a time, after the death of Beatrice; they are inserted in the note on XXXV, where the matter is more fully discussed. The prose was written probably ten years later; in it, after expounding the literal meaning of the first canzone, Voi che 'ntendendo, Dante affirms that in the guise of the sympathetic lady he really meant to represent Philosophy. According to the principles already stated, it would be illogical to infer from this that the lady was nothing but a symbol, and still more so to apply the same argument to Beatrice. Dante had no intention here of misleading his readers, for it would not have occurred to him that the inference would be made. He merely wished to bring out, in accordance with his later point of view, what he chose to regard as the allegorical significance of an episode which he had recounted in the earlier work from the literal, realistic point of view. In the Convivio, may be noted, he does not speak of Beatrice as a symbol; but his attitude toward her there, as also in the Vita Nuova, leads logically to his glorification of her in the Divina Commedia. In the words of Vernon Lee, he gave a "philosophical explanation of his seemingly inexplicable passion for an unapproachable woman." it Except in the sonnet of XXIV, where she is called Monna Bice, the name of Beatrice is not mentioned in the poems written during her life. After her death, both in verse and in prose the name is frequent in the full form, Beatrice, with emphasis on its significance. Nowhere does Dante give a hint as to her identity. His son Pietro and Giovanni Boccaccio both say that she was the daughter of Folco Portinari and the wife of Simone de' Bardi. The evidence of Pietro Alighieri is not accepted as conclusive, since some manuscripts of his comment on the Inferno do not contain this item. The evidence of Boccaccio is discredited by some critics because he wrote novelle; in this case, however, he obviously believed his statement to be true, and he had trustworthy sources of information that are lost to us to-day. The existence of Folco Portinari is attested by documents; in 1288 he mentioned in his will his daughter Bice, and in the following year he died, at just about the time indicated in the Vita Nuova for the death of the father of Beatrice. All the evidence that we have, while not conclusive, is in favor of accepting Bice Portinari as the Beatrice of Dante; on the other side there is no evidence, but simply a general |