Dante wanted to collect and publish the lyrics dealing with his love for Beatrice, explaining the autobiographical context of its composition and pointing out the expository structure of each lyric as an aid to careful reading. The result is an important early example of emotional autobiography, as was Saint Augustine's Confessions in the 5th century.[4] However, like all medieval literature, it is far removed from the modern autobiographical impulse.
Dante and his audience were also interested in the emotions of courtly love and how they develop, how they are expressed in verse, how they reveal the permanent intellectual truths of the divinely created world and how love can confer blessing on the soul and bring it closer to God.
The names of the people in the poem, including Beatrice herself, are employed without use of surnames or any details that would assist readers to identify them among the many people of Florence. Only the name "Beatrice" is used, because that was both her actual name and her symbolic name as the conferrer of blessing. Ultimately the names and people work as metaphors.
In chapter XXIV, "I Felt My Heart Awaken" ("Io mi senti' svegliar dentro a lo core", also translated as "I Felt a Loving Spirit Suddenly"), Dante recounts a meeting with Love, who asks the poet to do his best to honour her.
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Io mi senti' svegliar dentro a lo core Un spirito amoroso che dormia: E poi vidi venir da lungi Amore Allegro sì, che appena il conoscia, Dicendo: "Or pensa pur di farmi onore"; E 'n ciascuna parola sua ridia. E poco stando meco il mio segnore, Guardando in quella parte onde venia, Io vidi monna Vanna e monna Bice Venire inver lo loco là 'v'io era, L'una appresso de l'altra miriviglia; E sì come la mente mi ridice, Amor mi disse: "Quell'è Primavera, E quell'ha nome Amor, sì mi somiglia." |
I felt myself waking up inside my core A loving spirit that sleeps: And then I saw Love coming from afar Cheerful yes, as soon as he knows it saying, "You think you can honour me;" and with each word laughing. And little being with me my lord, watching the way it came from, I saw Lady Joan and Lady Bice coming towards the spot I was, one wonder past another wonder. And as my mind keeps telling me, Love said to me: "She is Spring who springs first, and that bears the name Love, who resembles me." |
Dante does not name himself in La Vita Nuova. He refers to Guido Cavalcanti as "the first of my friends", to his own sister as "a young and noble lady... who was related to me by the closest consanguinity", to Beatrice's brother similarly as one who "was so linked in consanguinity to the glorious lady that no-one was closer to her". The reader is invited into the very emotional turmoil and lyrical struggle of the unnamed author's own mind and all the surrounding people in his story are seen in their relations to that mind's quest of encountering Love.
La Vita Nuova is helpful for understanding the context of his other works, principally La Commedia.[5]
