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Dante divine comedy beatrice
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Beatrice in Dante's Divine Comedy
How many people spend their whole life in love with a person they met only once
when they were nine years old? Dante Alighieri, born in 1265, had only one
meeting with Beatrice Portinari in 1274, making him only nine years old. By
Dante's own account this was the most important event of his youth (Alighieri).
When she passed away in 1290 Dante was about 25 and overcome with grief (Barbi
6). If Dante hadn't met Beatrice much of his work would have never been written.
When he met the Florentine gentlewoman, she made a deep impression on his
feelings. In the Inferno Beatrice symbolizes blessedness or salvation, and Dante
always called her by her full name to indicate that she brought happiness to
whoever looked upon her. All evidence shows she was the daughter of Folco
Portinari, and later, the wife of Simone die Bardi. Dante expressed his love for
her in his poetry and believed she was "the guide of his thoughts and emotions
toward that ideal perfection which is the goal of every noble mind" (Barbi 6).
Other poets of the time wrote about the cruelty of women and demanded pity.
Dante exalted or glorified Beatrice as a miracle of courtesy and virtue sent to
earth by God for the welfare of himself, and for those who would appreciate her
qualities. Because of such exultation Dante believed that Beatrice would not
stay long in the earthly life, and in June 1290 she died. This caused intense
contemplation of her in the glory of heaven (Barbi 6). Dante was married shortly
after the first anniversary of Beatrice's death. However, her memory came back
and he felt horrible f...
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Dante Alighieri met the love of his life when he was only nine years old, but
never stopped loving her. She passed away when he was about 25 and Dante was
never the same. After 16 years his love for her never faded, even though both
had married. Even right before his death Dante still wrote about Beatrice and
held her in the highest regard. Beatrice inspired his work and gave it meaning.
Works Cited
Alighieri, Dante. "The Inferno." The Norton Anthology World Masterpieces
Expanded Edition vol. 1. Ed. Maynard Mack. W.W. Norton & Co. Inc. 1995. 1693-1828.
Alighieri, Dante. Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. CD-ROM. Microsoft
Corporation,1993-1997.
Barbi, Michele. Life of Dante. London: Cambridge University. 1954.
"Knights, Ladies and Constant Heartache." Discovery Online. 3/14/04.www.discovery.com.
In Dante and Difference, Jeremy Tambling asserts that “Beatrice is throughout dealt with in the Commedia with the assumption that she will already be a familiar figure” in order to make the point that the Commedia “is not offering itself as a single, separate, autonomous work”. While I agree with Tambling’s claim about the need to read the Commedia as a part of a greater work (and the possible ways of doing this are endless—Vita Nuova a preparation for the Commedia, Commedia as “sequel” to Vita Nuova, etc) there is something inherently flawed with the first part of his statement: the idea of Beatrice as “familiar” figure. For Beatrice is actually anything but familiar. Tambling is, of course, referring to the fact that anyone reading the Commedia who has read the Vita Nuova will recognize Beatrice—but the implication is that such a reader will have more knowledge of her than someone reading Dante for the first time. In actual fact, the opposite is the case. In the Vita Nuova , we have accompanied Dante in his breathless chase through visions and painstaking re-writings, elaborate lies and fainting fits in the arguably vain attempt to make sense of, to track or write down a woman who has always managed to be the proverbial two steps ahead. By the opening lines of the Inferno, Beatrice is only familiar in her unfamiliarity: we know her as the one who escaped the Vita Nuova unmarked and unwritten, leaving Dante to “no...
Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno. Trans. Allen Mandelbaum. Notes Allen Mandelbaum and Gabriel Marruzzo. New York: Bantam Books, 1980
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Alighieri, Dante. "The Inferno." The Divine Comedy. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: First New American Library Printing, 2003.
Dante, the main character and the hero of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy found himself alone in the woods he was thirty-five years old and terribly frightened. “I had become so sleepy at the moment when I first strayed, leaving the path of the trut...