ABSTRACT
The poetry of Dante is principally, it might almost be said solely, the poetry of the “Divine Comedy,” for there he at once attained to complete originality and artistic excellence. It has been disputed, and it is still disputed, whether Beatrice was a real personage—a Florentine girl whom he had really met and loved, or an ideal creation, who embodied the experience and memory of various loves, or whether she was merely a figment of the poet’s imagination. Linked with these stray words and images, is an exquisiteness of rhythm and sound, found also in Dante’s youthful lyrics, almost to be called music. It is the music of a ravished soul, wrapping conventional forms and figures of speech in its own harmonious flow. Affectation should be still more completely banished from the consideration of the little book in which Dante made a selection from his poems, framing them in a prose narrative and accompanying them with a commentary.
