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Dolce Stil Nuovo—The Case of The Opposition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
The student of to-day who wishes to make a study of the dolce stil nuovo is very soon brought face to face with a serious difficulty. As he reads his standard text-books, he finds in them a pretty uniform definition of the originality and characteristics of this school. But, upon looking further and consulting special books, he is confronted with recent work, both industrious and able, taking issue with the definition he has just learned. It is the object of this paper to help that student. We would try to determine what changes, if any, are forced upon the traditional view by the discoveries of the most successful of its opponents.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1910
References
page 657 note 1 Cian: I contatti letterari italo-provenzali e la prima rivoluzione poetica della letteratura italiana, Messina, 1900.
page 657 note 2 Nuora Antologia, Serie iii, vol. v, pp. 581 ff.: Guido Guinizelli e il dolce stil nuovo.
page 657 note 3 Studi Medievali, i, pp. 5 ff. (especially p. 22); Giornale storico d. lett. ital. Supplement i, pp. 82 ff. (especially pp. 16 and 17); also Vita e poesie di Sordello di Goito, Halle, 1896, p. 80.
page 658 note 1 Trovatori e Poeti, Milan-Palermo-Naples (especially p. 19).
page 658 note 2 Littérature Italienne, pp. 55–56.
page 659 note 1 L. Azzolina: Il “ dolce stil nuovo,” Palermo, 1903, p. 41.
page 659 note 2 Note Letterarie, Palermo, 1888; Per il dolce stil nuovo, pp. 12–13.
page 659 note 3 Doktrin der Liebe, Breslau, 1889, p. 26.
page 659 note 4 Azzolina, ibid., p. 65. Borgognoni, ibid., p. 608. Le ant. rime volg., iii, 246.
page 660 note 1 Azzolina, ibid., p. 65.
page 660 note 2 Quoted by Borgognoni, p. 607; Azzolina, p. 65.
page 660 note 3 Savj-Lopez, ibid., pp. 36–37.
page 660 note 4 Quant en bon luec. Mahn, Gedichte, iii, 26.
page 660 note 5 Of course we admit the influence of Provençal writers on Thibaut.
page 660 note 6 De fin amors. Quoted by Savj-Lopez, p. 37.
page 662 note 1 Azzolina, p. 151.
page 662 note 2 Azzolina, p. 94.
page 662 note 3 Azzolina, p. 93.
page 662 note 4 Quoted by Borgognoni from Opere volgari a stampa dei sec. xiii e xiv by F. Zanobrini.
page 662 note 5 Azzolina, pp. 94–95.
page 663 note 1 Folquet de Marselha, Dieus perdona me. … Mahn, Werke, i, p. 335.
page 663 note 2 Azzolina, p. 206. We may be imputing too much to Azzolina: if he does not mean this, he certainly suggests the influence of an æsthetic consideration, and that is equally unnecessary.
page 663 note 3 Chi è questa che ven. … Ercole, Guido Cavalcanti, p. 266.
page 663 note 4 Savj-Lopez, p. 36.
page 664 note 1 Cf. Azzolina, p. 93.
page 664 note 2 Azzolina, p. 93.
page 664 note 3 Yet two of these examples are well worth considering: they are Montanhagol's
“Pero be'us die qu'om mielhs creire deuria
Que sa beutatz de sus del cel partis,
Quar tan sembla obra de paradis
Qu'a penas par terrenals sa conhdia.“
(Non an tan dig. … Coulet's edition. Why
did Savj-Lopez omit the third line?)
And Pons de Capduelh's
“Dieus, que la fes tan belh' e tan prezan
li salv'e'l guart lo ric pretz qu'ilh mante;
que non ha hom tan dur cor qui la ve
no'l port honor. …“
page 664 note 4 Savj-Lopez, p. 26 and note 13.
page 664 note 5 Savj-Lopez, p. 26 and note 12.
page 665 note 1 Savj-Lopez, p. 27. I have not seen the original of this.
page 665 note 2 De totz chaitius, Bartsch, Chrestomathy,5 col. 123. Savj-Lopez quotes this; Salvadori (vita Giovanile di Dante, p. 46) accepts it as having perhaps influenced Dante.
page 665 note 3 Salvadori asserts that Dante's own experience would lead him to connect love and death: and yet, if this first song of the Vita Nuova grew out of the third and so was written (as Azzolina, for instance, believes) after Beatrice's death, Dante's originality would lie merely in having done for a lyric theme what others had done before him in didactic compositions, what he himself was to do so often in The Divine Comedy, viz., make a post-factum prophesy.
page 666 note 1 Vita Giovanile di Dante, p. 271.
page 666 note 2 The passage from the letters reads: “ Quis est generosus? ad virtutem bene a natura compositus. … non facit nobilem atrium plenum fumosis imaginibus. Nemo in nostram gloriam vixit nec quod ante nos fuit, nostrum est. Animus facit nobilem, cui ex quacumque condicione supra fortunam licet surgere ” (Fridericus Haase: L. Annaei Senecae opera, Vol. iii, Ep. v. 3, p. 90). Paget Toynbee has, in his Dante Studies and Researches, p. 156, pointed out Dante's allusion to these letters in Convivio, iv, 12, ll. 82–83.
“Non ver lignaggio fa sangue, ma core;
Ni vero pregio poder, ma vertute.“
(Monaci, p. 184.)
The extract from the letters reads: “. … che molto è Baron grande, uomo che'è grandemente buono; che ver Barone non riccor fae, ma valore.” (Lettera, xxv, Botari's edition, quoted by Pellizzari, v. following note.)
page 667 note 2 The two references are given by Pellizzari in his review of Bertoni's Dolce Stil Nuovo in Bulletin Italien, viii, No. 3, pp. 268 ff. Arnaut de Maruelh sings:
“Et si dirai als gais
De proeza don nais.
Ges no nais ni comensa,
Segun autra naissenza.
Terras pot hom laissar
Et son fils heretar
Mas pretz non aura ja
Si de son cor non l'a.“
(Raynouard, iv, 410.)
page 667 note 3 Azzolina, p. 64.
E. g., “ses douz ris
En vaut miex que vers ne griz
ne letuaire.“
(Jeanroy, Les Chansons de Philippe de Beaumanoir, Romania, xxvi, p. 531.)
Also “. … Quant sanz plus me fet languir
De sa bouche une ouverture
Que j'en riant vi ouvrir
Dont l'odor me vint sesir.“
(ibid., p. 530.)
page 667 note 5 Chançon ferai, car. … Tarbé's edition, p. 21.
“Mais sa beutatz, e'l dols ris
Mi tolon de lor bargainha.“
(Mahn, Werke, p. 322. The second example is in Werke, p. 328.)
“ Et a bon grat e dous rire
ab faitz, ab ditz avinens.“
page 668 note 3 Raynouard, iii, p. 429.
page 668 note 4 Modern Language Notes, February, 1910, p. 39.
page 668 note 5 Vita Giovanile, p. 45.
page 668 note 6 Modern Language Review, i, p. 222.
page 669 note 1 “Così fosse piaciuto a Dio, che quello che domandò il Provenzale fosse stato, che ‘chi non è reda della bontà, perdesse il retaggio dell'avere.‘” (Convivio, iv, 12.)
page 669 note 2 W. P. Ker: Dante, Guido Guinicelli and Arnaut Daniel; Modern Language Review, iv, 145–152 (especially pp. 151–152.)
page 669 note 3 E. g.: “. … tanto è gentile” (Canzone v, stanza 2 of Moore's Dante); “Si è nuovo miracolo gentile” (Sonnet 2); “Però provveggia del mio stato Amore!” (Sonnet 7). Cf. too Lisio's unwitting testimony when dealing (p. 105) with sonnet 21 or (p. 205) with sonnets 11 and 12. (Lisio: L'arte del Periodo nelle opere volgari di Dante Alighieri e del secolo xiii, Bologna, 1902.)
page 669 note 4 The song begins “Sols sui qui sai. …” (v. De Vulg. Eloq., ii, 6). As instances we may take the stanza-ending
“. … Pois l'afans (of her love) m'es deportz, ris e jois,
Car en pensan sui di lieis lees e glotz:
Ai Dieus, si ja'n serai estiers jauzire!“
or the conclusion of the third stanza, where, having said “I have been in many courts, yet here, in her, I find more to praise: Courtesy taught her and instructed her well,” he adds:
“Tant a de si tot faitz desplazens rotz
De lieis no cre rens de bon si adire.“
page 670 note 1 Canello's edition, p. 110.
“. … Cader gli augelli volando per l'a're
E la terra tremare:
Ed uom m'apparve scolorito e fioco,
Dicendomi: che fai? non sai novella?
Morta è la donna tua, ch'era sì bella.“
Cf. also the ending to the second stanza of this same canzone.
page 670 note 3 According to the numbering of Moore's edition.
page 671 note 1 Arnaut's song drops the irrelevant nature-beginning of Peire's composition: it drops also the useless generalities, the disturbing address to the joglar and the second tornado. It substitutes a greater unity and an intense application, developing a mode of presentation not too unworthy to stand by Dante's own.
page 672 note 1 Modern Language Notes, February, 1910, pp. 38–39.
page 672 note 2 Except for the sanctification of the living mistress.
page 672 note 3 Cf. G. Salvadori: Nuova Antologia, 4a serie, vol. 65, p. 386. Also I. della Giovanna: Note letterarie, p. 12.
page 673 note 1 Purgatorio, xxvi, 99.
page 673 note 2 Purgatorio, xxvi, 112.
page 673 note 3 Jos. Anglade: Le troubadour Guiraut Riquier, Paris, 1905, pp. 299–307.
page 673 note 4 Mahn: Werke, iv, No. lxxv, p. 131, ll. 88 ff.
page 674 note 1 I primi due secoli d. lett, ital., Milan, 1880, pp. 169–170.
page 674 note 2 Cf. Gaston Paris: Esquisse historique de la Littérature Française au Moyen Age, p. 196.