San Antonio College Library

A text by Dante Alighieri published in 1294. It is an expression of the medieval genre of courtly love in a prosimetrum style, a combination of both prose and verse. Referred to by Dante as his libello, or "little book", The New Life is the first of two collections of verse written by Dante in his life. La Vita Nuova is a prosimetrum, a piece containing both verse and prose, in the vein of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy. Dante used each prosimetrum...

Deeply felt but intellectually disciplined, radiant but analytical, "La Vita Nuova" reveals Dante's vision in which human love touches that of God's. Intended as a treatise for fellow poets, it consists of a sequence of astonishing and tender love poems to Beatrice, interspersed with Dante's own commentary explaining the events that went into their making and giving a detailed structural analysis. Dante chose to speak directly to his audience and...

Jerome Mazzaro examines Dante's Vita Nuova as an artistic correlative to what Dante conceived as an image of himself. Specifically, he explores the structure of the work in relation to medieval views of memory, self, music, form, and interpretation, and against the facts of Dante's life and culture as we have come to know them.