Before his time we meet with many
an artistic verse; but he is the first artist in the full sense of the
word--the first who consciously cast immortal matter into an immortal
form. Subjective feeling has here a full objective truth and greatness,
and most of it is so set forth that all ages and peoples can make it
their own. Where he writes in a thoroughly objective spirit, and lets
the force of his sentiment be guessed at only by some outward fact, as
in the magnificent sonnets 'Tanto gentile,' etc., and 'Vede
perfettamente,' etc., he seems to feel the need of excusing himself.
The most beautiful of these poems really belongs to this class-- the
'Deh peregrini che pensosi andate,' ('Oh, pilgrims, walking deep in
thoughts,' from Vita Nuova.) Even apart from the 'Divine Comedy,' Dante
would have marked by these youthful poems the boundary between
medievalism and modern times. The human spirit had taken a mighty step
towards the consciousness of its own secret life.
The revelations in this matter which are contained in the 'Divine
Comedy' itself are simply immeasurable; and it would be necessary to go
through the whole poem, one canto after another, in order to do justice
to its value from this point of view. Happily we have no need to do
this, as it has long been a daily food of all the countries of the
West.
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