SOURCE: An introduction to Dante and His Circle: With the Italian Poets Preceeding Him, edited and translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, revised edition, Roberts Brothers, 1893, pp. 1-24.

In this introduction to his translation of the poem, Rossetti argues that the Vita Nuova laid the foundation for some of the most salient features of the Divina Commedia.

The Vita Nuova (the Autobiography or Autopsychology of Dante's youth till about his twenty-seventh year) is already well known to many in the original, or by means of essays and of English versions partial or entire. It is, therefore, and on all accounts, unnecessary to say much more of the work here than it says for itself. Wedded to its exquisite and intimate beauties are personal peculiarities which excite wonder and conjecture, best replied to in the words which Beatrice herself is made to utter in the Commedia: "Questi fiu tal nella...