2 - Change, vision and language: the early works and Inferno Canto Two

Summary

From its title onwards, the Vita nuova is concerned with change: in the prose narrative, Dante speaks of how his life was transformed, becoming ‘new’, by virtue of his love for Beatrice; he also illustrates – in the sonnets, ballate and canzoni around which the love story is constructed – how the changes that Beatrice brought about in him were reflected in the development of his early lyric poetry.

Dante first met Beatrice – so the prose relates – when both he and she were nine years old. At the sight of her, Dante's ‘vital spirits’ trembled ‘in the inmost recesses of the heart’ (VN II): the moment is represented as one of psychological revelation, awakening Dante to the confusions and satisfactions of the emotional life; love appears at this stage to hold both a terrible power and also the promise of happiness – or ‘beatitude’. Even so, Dante senses that his love is accompanied by ‘the faithful counsel of reason’; and its rationality is confirmed by a further meeting which occurred nine years to the day after the first, at the ninth hour of the day (VN III). On this occasion, Beatrice for the first time bestows a greeting upon Dante, showing herself to be conscious of her lover's existence, and singling him out for attention. With this begins the poet's own conscious attempt to discern the reasons for his love of Beatrice and fathom her significance in his life.