SOURCE: Radcliff-Umstead, Douglas. “Love in the Italian Sweet New Style.” In Innovation in Medieval Literature: Essays to the Memory of Alan Markman, pp. 63-75. Pittsburgh, Pa.: Medieval Studies Committee, University of Pittsburgh, 1971.

In the following essay, Radcliff-Umstead examines Guinizelli's contribution to the development of the style Dante called “Dolce Stil Nuovo” (“Sweet New Style”) and explains how Guinizelli broke with poetic tradition when he spoke of a lady in divine terms in his work.

Among the enduring ‘innovations’ of the Middle Ages, the cult of romantic love is perhaps the most controversial of all. Scholars have engaged for years in a continuing polemic about the arising of domnei (man's vassalage to a superior lady) in Provence toward the close of the eleventh century. None of the theories which so far have been advanced—the influence of amorous Arabic poetry, the poetic adoration of the Virgin, a misinterpretation of...