SOURCE: "Dante's Concept of Love," in High Points in the History of Italian Literature, David McKay Company, Inc., 1958, pp. 53-67.

The following essay looks at love in its various forms in Vita Nuova, Convivio, and the Divina Commedia.

The aim of this essay is to study Dante's love concept as revealed in the Vita Nuova (New Life), the Convivio (The Banquet), and the Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy).

We shall be guided by what Dante tells us in each of his three works, and we shall not allow ourselves to be influenced by any preconceived conclusions concerning his love concept. It is a simple matter to reduce a man to a formula, but, actually, it is inhuman, abstract, and often useless to do so. It is preferable to see the poet's ideas as an integral part of his life, a solution, or an attempt at a solution, of particular...