An exquisite medley of lyrical verse and poetic prose, La Vita Nuova (The New Life) ranks among the supreme revelations in the literature of love. Its allegorical view of the soul's crisis and growth combines a narrative with meditations, dreams, songs, and prayers.
In this masterpiece of his youth, Dante assembles a selection of his love poems within a prose framework that situates them chronologically and autobiographically. The result is a history of his love for Beatrice, the muse he encountered in childhood who continued to influence him long after her marriage and early death. Upon completing this work in 1294, the future author of The Divine Comedy pledged to write of Beatrice "what has never before been written of any woman."
Instructors and students of Italian, as well as anyone interested in the masterworks of world literature, will appreciate this dual-language edition. It features a new English translation, in addition to an informative introduction and helpful notes.
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In that part of the book of my memorybefore which little may be read is found a
rubric which says: 'The new life begins'.
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(@doverpubs, 25 September 2013, e-book, 130 pages, borrowed from @natpoetrylib via @OverDriveInc, #POPSUGARReadingChallenge, a book that features two languages, edited by Stanley Appelbaum)
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I chose The New Life at random after searching for ages to fit the prompt. I've read and enjoyed The Divine Comedy so thought this would be okay. I enjoyed the actual poems in the collection when I could find them. I didn't like the notes surrounding the poems where Dante goes into detail about how the poems came about. I don't mind poets or author talking about their inspiration but the way this collection is structed these notes distracted me from reading the poems and I had to flick through to find the actual poems. The notes would have been better as an afterward to pursue if wanted. I also didn't like the overall structure. I've read dual language books before and the structure is awful with this book. Some of the English versions are cut off half way through a sentence and I had to flick through several pages of Italian to pick up the thread. More thought should have been put into this. I would have preferred a simple book with the notes at the end and the English version of the FULL poem alongside the Italian. Also, the cover is truly awful.