Page:A History of Italian Literature - Garnett (1898).djvu/50

32 in importance. It is epoch-making in many ways, as the first great example of Italian prose, the first revelation of the genius of the greatest mediæval poet, and the incarnation of that romantic conception of ideal love by which the Middle Age might fairly claim to have augmented the heritage bequeathed by antiquity. The main note of Dante's genius here is its exquisite and unearthly spirituality, which, indeed, is visible in much of the poetry and art of the time, but attains its most intense expression in him. Something like it has occasionally been seen since, as in John Henry Newman; but it is in our day too much out of keeping with the legitimate demands of a busy and complicated society to occur except as a temporary and individual phenomenon.

Nothing is more remarkable in a composition apparently so fanciful than the entire sincerity and straight-forwardness of the Vita Nnova: grant that Beatrice was a real person, and it is impossible to doubt the literal truth of the entire narrative. This is the more extraordinary in consideration of the impersonality alike of the enamoured poet and of the object of his passion. Dante, indeed, speaking throughout in his own character, cannot help portraying himself in some measure, though our conception of him is probably largely made up of involuntary associations with the more palpable Dante of the Divina Commedia. But Beatrice remains what he meant her to be, a spiritual presence, visible but intangible. No heroine of fiction conveys a stronger impression of perfection; but we see her as Andromeda saw Medusa, merely reflected in the mind of her lover.

More extraordinary works than the Vita Nuova have