Page:A translation of the Latin works of Dante Alighieri.djvu/139

120 quite clear that by this time, whenever it was, Dante's views of the poetic art had undergone a radical change since the days when he had written the present treatise. The Comedy is in fact a repudiation of the doctrines of the De Vulgari Eloquentia. We find in the second book of the treatise (c. 2-4) that the highest subjects, arms, love, and righteousness are to be handled in the j illustrious vulgar tongue, in canzoni, and in the tragic style; and intricate rules follow which are to be observed by the writers of canzoni. But in the Comedy we find that Dante has completely shifted his position. Arms, love and righteousness are there treated of, but not in canzoni, not in the tragic style, and not in the illustrious vernacular, as defined in the earlier treatise. If, when this treatise was being written, the Comedy was already in contemplation, we are landed in the absurd position that the greatest achievement of the poet's genius was classed by him among the 'other illegitimate and irregular forms of poetry' which in II. 3: 10 he promises to discuss 'further on.' It is, indeed, not unreasonable to conjecture that the De Vulgari Eloquentia was interrupted by some temporary cause, and that its subsequent completion was abandoned by reason of the revolution in Dante's ideas as to the scope of poetry in the vulgar tongue wrought by his conception of the Divine Comedy.

With reference to the title, the designation De Vulgari Eloquentia is to be preferred to that of De Vulgari Eloquio, which has been sometimes used (though no difference in meaning is involved) for the following reasons: (i) Because