Guido Cavalcanti
Encyclopedia
Guido Cavalcanti was a Florentine poet, as well as an intellectual influence on his best friend, Dante
. His poems in their original Italian are available on Wikisource here.
was beginning its economic, political, intellectual and artistic ascendancy as one of the leading cities of Renaissance
. The disunited Italian peninsula was dominated by a political particularism
that pitted each city-state one against the other, often with this factionalism contributing the fractious and sometimes violent political environments of each comune. The domination of medieval religious interpretations of reality, morality and society were challenged by a rise of new urban culture across Europe
that gradually supplanted rural, local, ecclesiastical and feudal ways of thinking. There was an accompanying return to study, interpret and emulate the classics, known as a revival of antiquity. New secular views laid the foundations for modern life in the Western Civilization. As Jacob Burckhardt
, Swiss historian and author of the classic The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
described, “It was not the revival of antiquity alone, but its union with the genius of the Italian people which achieved the conquest of the western world.” In sum, Cavalcanti lived during and helped shape this time of great innovation that was spurred on by a desire to explore, create and experiment with new things.
, a Guelph
whom Dante condemns to torment in the sixth circle of his Inferno
, where the heretics are punished. Unlike Dante, he was an atheist. As Giovanni Boccaccio
(Decameron, VI, 9) wrote during the generation after Cavalcanti’s death, “Si diceva tralla gente volgare che queste sue speculazioni erano solo in cercare se trovar si potesse che Iddio non fosse” (People commonly said his speculations were only in trying to find that God did not exist).
During his lifetime, Florence was politically torn by the struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines
, factions
supporting, respectively, the Pope
and the Holy Roman Emperor
in central and northern Italy during the 12th and 13th centuries. Although the struggle for power between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire had originally arisen with the Investiture Conflict of the 11th century, it was subsequently fed by a desire of either the Papcy or Holy Roman Emperor either to share in or to control the economic boom that was taking place in the leading cities of northern Italy during this time.
The division between Guelphs and Ghibellines
was especially important in Florence, although the two sides frequently rebelled against each other and took power in many of the other northern Italian cities as well. Essentially the two sides were now fighting either against German influence (in the case of the Guelphs), or against the temporal power of the Pope (in the case of the Ghibellines). In Florence and elsewhere the Guelphs usually included merchants and burghers, while the Ghibellines tended to be noblemen. After the Guelphs finally defeated the Ghibellines in 1289 at Campaldino and Caprona
, Guelphs began to fight among themselves. By 1300 Florence was divided into the Black Guelphs and the White Guelphs. The Blacks continued to support the Papacy, while the Whites were opposed to Papal influence,
As part of a political reconciliation between the Blacks and Whites, two factions of Guelphs, Guido married Beatrice the daughter of Ghibelline party leader Farinata degli Uberti. In June 1300, when the Florentines had become tired of brawling between the Ghibellines and the Guelphs, the leaders of both factions were exiled and Cavalcanti was amongst them. He was sent to Sarzana, where, after only a few months he decided to try to return to Florence. He died of fever (probably malaria
) in August of the same year on his journey home.
It is interesting to note that Guido's marriage
to Beatrice degli Uberti should not be seen in the context of modern relationships where people marry each other for love, but rather in the context of his own age, when marriage was often motivated by business and/or political interests. As such, Guido's poetry, which dwells on love, should be seen as a philosophical exploration of love and not as that of a husband bound into and seeking satisfaction outside a marriage made for political purposes.
(Sweet New Style), whose members are referred to by their Tuscan name, the stilnovisti. The formative influences on the stilnovisti came from two main sources.
First, there was the poetry of the troubadour
and trobairitz
, who began the tradition of courtly love
, known by its then contemporary terms, as fin'amor, in the ducal and princely courts of Aquitaine
, Provence
, Champagne
and ducal Burgundy, at the end of the eleventh century. Based on the Occitan language of south France, which produced this poetry, which was a part of Occitan literature, this courtly poetry spread throughout all European cultivated circles in the 12th and 13th centuries. (Many of its poets can be found here in this list of troubadours and trobairitz.)
Second, the poetry of the Sicilian School
, which was a small community of Sicilian, and to a lesser extent, mainland Italian poets gathered around Frederick II
, most of them belonging to his court, the Magna Curia
. Headed by Giacomo da Lentini
, they produced more than three-hundred poems of courtly love
between 1230 and 1266, the experiment being continued after Frederick's death by his son, Manfredi
. This school included Enzio
, king of Sardinia, Pier delle Vigne, Inghilfredi, Stefano Protonotaro, Guido and Odo delle Colonne, Rinaldo d'Aquino, Giacomino Pugliese, Arrigo Testa, Mazzeo Ricco, Perceval Doria
, and Frederick II himself.
The poets of Stilnovismo included the early forerunner Guido Guinizelli
, Guido Cavalcanti and Dante
, plus Cino da Pistoia
, Lapo Gianni
, Gianni Alfani, and Dino Frescobaldi. Far from being a derivative school of poetry that mimicked its French and Sicilian poetic ancestors, Stilnovismo brought an originality to and completely transformed the poetry of courtly love in that: 1) It was an urban poetry of the Tuscan commune, not of an aristocratic court. 2) It explored the philosophical, spiritual, psychological and social effects of love. 3) It championed the Tuscan vernacular
. 4) It did all this while expressing the heart and mind of the poet in original verse that utilized the sonnet
, ballata
and canzone
forms of poetry. Cavalcanti was a central part of this accomplishment.
In this simple, but beautiful sonnet, we have, then, both something emblematic of the best poetry of the Dolce stil novo
, while at the same an example of Cavalcanti's poetic idiom that is at once powerful, persuasive and, here, mellifluous.
The crowning achievement of Cavalcanti’s poetic youth is his canzone Io non pensava che lo cor giammai in which he embodies his philosophical thoughts in a vernacular masterpiece. An analysis of two passages from this fifty-six line poem reveals his core ideas on love.
Influenced by Averroës
, the twelfth century Islamic philosopher who commented on Aristotle
, Cavalcanti saw humans with three basic capacities: the vegetative, which humans held in common with plants; the sensitive, which man shared with animals; and, the intellectual, which distinguished humans from the two lower forms. Averroës maintained that the proper goal of humanity was the cultivation of the intellect according to reason. Further, Averroës maintained that the intellect was part of a universal consciousness that came into the body at birth and returned to the universal consciousness after death. As such, it meant there was no afterlife, and, as well, the thing that gives an individual his or her identity was not the intellect, but the sensitive faculty, the appetites and desires of the body. Hence, the goal for Averroës and Cavalcanti was the perfection of the sensitive capacity through reason in order to achieve a balance between the body’s physical desires and the intellect. This balance was considered the buon perfetto, the "good perfection." Guido thought this balance could not be achieved, which is why he speaks of “tormented laments” that makes his soul cry, that make his eyes dead, so he can feel “neither peace nor even rest in the place where I found love and my Lady.”
This passage explains the conflict between the sensitive and intellectual, as Guido’s heart shivers as his “our lowly minds couldn’t sustain what our intellects saw.” All this is driven by the lofty beauty of his lady.
Cavalcanti is best remembered for belonging to that small but influential group of Tuscan poets that started what is now known as Dolce Stil Novo
, to which he contributed the following (note: translations provided in parentheses do not match the titles by which are widely known in English manuals but are meant to be a more literal rendering of the Italian originals): "Rosa fresca novella" (New, Fresh Rose), "Avete in vo' li fior e la verdura" (You Are Flowers in the Meadow), "Biltà di donna" (A Woman's Beauty), Chi è questa che vèn (Who's This Lady That Comes My Way), "Li mie' foll'occhi" (My Crazy Eyes), "L'anima Mia" (My Soul), "Guido Orlandi", "Da più a uno" (From Many to One), "In un boschetto" (In A Grove), "Per ch'io no spero" (Because I Do Not Hope), "Voi che per gli occhi mi passaste il core" (see below), and "Donna me prega" (A Lady's Orders), a masterpiece of lyric verse and a small treatise on his philosophy of love. Starting from the model provided by the French
troubadour
s, they took Italian poetry
a step further and inaugurated the volgare illustre, that higher standard of Italian language
that survives almost unchanged to the present day. The founder of this school, Guido Guinizzelli, a law professor at Bologna
’s University wrote the first poem of this kind, a poem whose importance does not so much lie in its literary merits but in outlining what would the fundamentals of the Stil Novo program, which was further perfected by a second generation of poets, including Dante
, Cino da Pistoia
, Lapo Gianni
, and Guido himself. As Dante wrote in his De Vulgari Eloquentia, I, XIII, 4:
"Sed quanquam fere omne Tusci in suo turpiloquio sint obtusi, nunnullos vulgaris excellentiam cognovisse sentimus, scilicit Guidonem, Lapum, et unum alium, Florentinos et Cynum Pistoriensem (...) (“Although most Tuscans are overwhelmed by their bad language, we think that someone has experimented with the excellence of high vernacular, namely Guido, Lapo and another [i.e: Dante himself], all from Florence, and Cino da Pistoia”.
Scholars have commented on the Dolce stil novo with Dante as probably the most spiritual and platonic in his portrayal of Beatrice (Vita Nuova
), but Cino da Pistoia is able to write poetry in which “there is a remarkable psychological interest in love, a more tangible presence of the woman, who loses the abstract aura of Guinizzelli and Guido’s verse” (Giudice-Bruni), and Guido Cavalcanti interprets love as a source of torment and despair in the surrendering of self to the beloved. An example in kind, and one of Guido’s most widely read lyrics
is a sonnet entitled Voi che per gli occhi mi passaste il core (Transl. You, Whose Look Pierced through My Heart), dedicated, to his beloved Monna (lady) Vanna
:
Although there are many poems that exemplify Cavalcanti’s poetic maturity, Certe mie rime a te mandar vogliendo is unparalleled in its originality, for here Guido adapts his medium of love to speak of his inner psychological state and the uncertainty of Dante’s reaction in this example of occasional poetry
. This is creativity at its highest, for Cavalcanti transforms the medium into a unique response to a real world problem.
Guido tells Dante of how desire, how “wanting” has ruined his heart. He dramatically reinforces his condition through the appearance of Love—the medieval and Renaissance view of Love as Cupid
matured into a grown man—in the guise of death, as if Guido is indeed on the verge of leaving this world. Love then warns him not to send this poem to Dante, who is not ready to deal with Guido’s condition, given the depth of friendship Dante feels for him. Love also acknowledges that what he makes humanity suffer is “unjust,” In sum, because of the love he has felt in life, Guido is ruined, and because of the depth of friendship Dante holds for him, Guido fears he may be ruined as well, seeing him in such a state.
, and perhaps due to his native temperament, Cavalcanti held the pessimistic view that humans were limited in the sort of ultimate attainment they could achieve. The intellect could never be brought into a harmony based on reason with bodily desires. This affinity for the ideas of Averroës would have lent to his reputation that he was an atheist.
The crowning achievement of Guido’s poetic career is his masterpiece, the philosophical canzone
Donna me prega (A woman asks me). It is a full fledged treatise of his personal thoughts and beliefs on love. Through it, he transforms all that came before him and influenced him: courtly love
, the troubadours, the Sicilian School
and his peers of the Dolce stil novo
.
Guido says he was prompted to write it by his mistress, according to a formula very widespread in the tradition of love poetry. As such, Guido's doctrine draws on the greatest medieval poets or scholars, such as Chrétien de Troyes
and Brunetto Latini
. There are several hints to the Roman de la Rose
, then considered the "Bible" of courtly love. For example in the famous line "a man who does not experience it [love] cannot picture it", a common axiom variously quoted from the troubadours to Dante's Vita Nuova
. "Donna me prega", a remarkable anatomy of love, is divided into five stanzas of fourteen variously rhymed lines of eleven syllables each. The subject is divided into eight chapters dealing with
In short, the sensitive, like the rational soul
is located in the brain
, but does not produce love-feelings unless the eye
s meet those of a particular woman who has exclusive affinity to him. This complies with Aristotle
's theory of cause and effect, whereby no effect can proceed from an object if the object has not the potential to accomplish it. When a woman's look meet the eyes of a man, the potential for love grows into passion, a spirit or fluid that possesses all his faculties. Such a passion needs more and more love to satisfy its ever-growing appetite, until (when desire outstrips human limits) he is led to insanity
and death
.
This highly philosophical canzone was extremely influential, and it was commented upon by authors including Dino del Garbo, pseudo-Giles, Giles of Rome
, Marsilio Ficino
, Pico della Mirandola, Iacopo Mini, and Fracesco de Vieri (see Enrico Fenzi, La canzone d'amore di Guido Cavalcanti e i suoi antichi commenti, Melangolo, 1999).
While this has very little to do with modern psychology
, Guido's philosophy
of spiritelli was part of the guiding principles of Arabic medicine, considered very advanced at Dante's times. The merit of such philosophy in Cavalcanti's verse
is its ability to describe what goes through the poet’s mind in a very detailed, personal manner, creating sensuous, autobiographic poetry. This is revolutionary compared to the rhetoric and academic-seeming manner of the Sicilian
and Neo-Sicilian Schools that had preceded the Dolce Stil Novo and, perhaps, a sign of the changing times.
: Dante calls him "mentor". In the Commedia he says through Oderisi da Gubbio that "...ha tolto l'uno a l'altro Guido / la gloria de la lingua" (Purgatory XI, 97-8): the verse of the latter, younger Guido (Cavalcanti) has surpassed that of the former, (Guido) Guinizzelli, the founder of Dolce Stil Novo
. Dante sees in Guido his mentor: his meter, his language deeply inspire his work (cfr. De Divina Eloquentia), though Guido's esthetic materialism
would be taken a step further to an entirely new spiritual, Christian vision of the gentler sex
, as personified by Beatrice whose soul becomes Dante's guide to Paradise
.
Guido's controversial personality and beliefs attracted the interest of Boccaccio
, who made him one of the most famous heretical characters in his Decameron, helping popularise the belief about his atheism
. Cavalcanti would be studied with perhaps more interest during the Renaissance
, by such scholars as Luigi Pulci
and Pico della Mirandola. By passing to Dante's study of the Italian language, Guido's style has influenced all those who, like cardinal Pietro Bembo
, helped turn the volgare illustre into today's Italian language
.
Cavalcanti was to become a strong influence on a number of writers associated with the development of Modernist poetry in English
. This influence can be traced back to the appearance, in 1861, of Dante Gabriel Rossetti
's The Early Italian Poets, which featured translations of works by both Cavalcanti and Dante.
The young Ezra Pound
admired Rossetti and knew his Italian translations well. quoting extensively from them in his 1910 book The Spirit of Romance. In 1912, Pound published his own translations under the title The Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti and in 1936, he edited the Italian poet's works as Rime. A reworked translation of Donna me prega formed the bulk of Canto XXXVI in Pound's long poem The Cantos
. Pound's main focus was on Cavalcanti's philosophy of love and light, which he viewed as a continuing expression of a pagan
, neo-platonic tradition stretching back through the troubadours and early medieval Latin lyrics to the world of pre-Christian polytheism
. Pound also composed a three-act opera titled Cavalcanti at the request of Archie Harding, a producer at the BBC
. Though never performed in his lifetime, excerpts are available on audio CD
.
Pound's friend and fellow modernist T. S. Eliot
used an adaptation of the opening line of Perch'i' no spero di tornar giammai ("Because I do not hope to turn again") to open his 1930
poem Ash Wednesday
.
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
. His poems in their original Italian are available on Wikisource here.
Historical background
Cavalcanti was born in Florence at a time when the comuneComune
In Italy, the comune is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.-Importance and function:...
was beginning its economic, political, intellectual and artistic ascendancy as one of the leading cities of Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
. The disunited Italian peninsula was dominated by a political particularism
Political particularism
Political particularism is the ability of policymakers to further their careers by appealing to narrow interests rather than the wider interests of the country...
that pitted each city-state one against the other, often with this factionalism contributing the fractious and sometimes violent political environments of each comune. The domination of medieval religious interpretations of reality, morality and society were challenged by a rise of new urban culture across Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
that gradually supplanted rural, local, ecclesiastical and feudal ways of thinking. There was an accompanying return to study, interpret and emulate the classics, known as a revival of antiquity. New secular views laid the foundations for modern life in the Western Civilization. As Jacob Burckhardt
Jacob Burckhardt
Carl Jacob Christoph Burckhardt was a historian of art and culture, and an influential figure in the historiography of each field. He is known as one of the major progenitors of cultural history, albeit in a form very different from how cultural history is conceived and studied in academia today...
, Swiss historian and author of the classic The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy is an 1860 work on the Italian Renaissance by Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt. Together with his History of the Renaissance in Italy it is counted among the classics of Renaissance historiography.English translation by S. G. C...
described, “It was not the revival of antiquity alone, but its union with the genius of the Italian people which achieved the conquest of the western world.” In sum, Cavalcanti lived during and helped shape this time of great innovation that was spurred on by a desire to explore, create and experiment with new things.
The Politics of Florence
Cavalcanti was the son of Cavalcante de' CavalcantiCavalcante de' Cavalcanti
Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti was a Florentine Epicurean philosopher and father of Guido Cavalcanti, a close friend of Dante Alighieri.Cavalcanti was a wealthy member of the Guelph faction of Florentine aristocrats...
, a Guelph
Guelphs and Ghibellines
The Guelphs and Ghibellines were factions supporting the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, respectively, in central and northern Italy. During the 12th and 13th centuries, the split between these two parties was a particularly important aspect of the internal policy of the Italian city-states...
whom Dante condemns to torment in the sixth circle of his Inferno
Inferno
Inferno means "Hell" in both Italian and Portuguese, so this word may refer to:*Hell*Conflagration, a large uncontrolled fire.-Literature:* Inferno , the first part of Dante's Divine Comedy...
, where the heretics are punished. Unlike Dante, he was an atheist. As Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...
(Decameron, VI, 9) wrote during the generation after Cavalcanti’s death, “Si diceva tralla gente volgare che queste sue speculazioni erano solo in cercare se trovar si potesse che Iddio non fosse” (People commonly said his speculations were only in trying to find that God did not exist).
During his lifetime, Florence was politically torn by the struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines
Guelphs and Ghibellines
The Guelphs and Ghibellines were factions supporting the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, respectively, in central and northern Italy. During the 12th and 13th centuries, the split between these two parties was a particularly important aspect of the internal policy of the Italian city-states...
, factions
Political faction
A political faction is a grouping of individuals, such as a political party, a trade union, or other group with a political purpose. A faction or political party may include fragmented sub-factions, “parties within a party," which may be referred to as power blocs, or voting blocs. The individuals...
supporting, respectively, the Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
and the Holy Roman Emperor
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...
in central and northern Italy during the 12th and 13th centuries. Although the struggle for power between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire had originally arisen with the Investiture Conflict of the 11th century, it was subsequently fed by a desire of either the Papcy or Holy Roman Emperor either to share in or to control the economic boom that was taking place in the leading cities of northern Italy during this time.
The division between Guelphs and Ghibellines
Guelphs and Ghibellines
The Guelphs and Ghibellines were factions supporting the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, respectively, in central and northern Italy. During the 12th and 13th centuries, the split between these two parties was a particularly important aspect of the internal policy of the Italian city-states...
was especially important in Florence, although the two sides frequently rebelled against each other and took power in many of the other northern Italian cities as well. Essentially the two sides were now fighting either against German influence (in the case of the Guelphs), or against the temporal power of the Pope (in the case of the Ghibellines). In Florence and elsewhere the Guelphs usually included merchants and burghers, while the Ghibellines tended to be noblemen. After the Guelphs finally defeated the Ghibellines in 1289 at Campaldino and Caprona
Caprona
Caprona is a genus of skipper butterflies . They belong to the tribe Tagiadini of subfamily Pyrginae.-Species:*Caprona adelica Karsch, 1892*Caprona agama *Caprona alida...
, Guelphs began to fight among themselves. By 1300 Florence was divided into the Black Guelphs and the White Guelphs. The Blacks continued to support the Papacy, while the Whites were opposed to Papal influence,
As part of a political reconciliation between the Blacks and Whites, two factions of Guelphs, Guido married Beatrice the daughter of Ghibelline party leader Farinata degli Uberti. In June 1300, when the Florentines had become tired of brawling between the Ghibellines and the Guelphs, the leaders of both factions were exiled and Cavalcanti was amongst them. He was sent to Sarzana, where, after only a few months he decided to try to return to Florence. He died of fever (probably malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
) in August of the same year on his journey home.
It is interesting to note that Guido's marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
to Beatrice degli Uberti should not be seen in the context of modern relationships where people marry each other for love, but rather in the context of his own age, when marriage was often motivated by business and/or political interests. As such, Guido's poetry, which dwells on love, should be seen as a philosophical exploration of love and not as that of a husband bound into and seeking satisfaction outside a marriage made for political purposes.
Dolce stil novo
Cavalcanti was a part of the Tuscan poetic movement known as the Dolce stil novoDolce Stil Novo
Dolce Stil Novo , or stilnovismo, is the name given to the most important literary movement of 13th century in Italy. Influenced by both Sicilian and Tuscan poetry, its main theme is Love . Gentilezza and Amore are indeed topoi in the major works of the period...
(Sweet New Style), whose members are referred to by their Tuscan name, the stilnovisti. The formative influences on the stilnovisti came from two main sources.
First, there was the poetry of the troubadour
Troubadour
A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....
and trobairitz
Trobairitz
The trobairitz were Occitan female troubadours of the 12th and 13th centuries, active from around 1170 to approximately 1260. The word trobairitz was first used in the 13th-century romance Flamenca. It comes from the Provençal word trobar, the literal meaning of which is "to find", and the...
, who began the tradition of courtly love
Courtly love
Courtly love was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility. It was also generally not practiced between husband and wife....
, known by its then contemporary terms, as fin'amor, in the ducal and princely courts of Aquitaine
Aquitaine
Aquitaine , archaic Guyenne/Guienne , is one of the 27 regions of France, in the south-western part of metropolitan France, along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain. It comprises the 5 departments of Dordogne, :Lot et Garonne, :Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes...
, Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
, Champagne
Champagne, France
Champagne is a historic province in the northeast of France, now best known for the sparkling white wine that bears its name.Formerly ruled by the counts of Champagne, its western edge is about 100 miles east of Paris. The cities of Troyes, Reims, and Épernay are the commercial centers of the area...
and ducal Burgundy, at the end of the eleventh century. Based on the Occitan language of south France, which produced this poetry, which was a part of Occitan literature, this courtly poetry spread throughout all European cultivated circles in the 12th and 13th centuries. (Many of its poets can be found here in this list of troubadours and trobairitz.)
Second, the poetry of the Sicilian School
Sicilian School
The Sicilian School was a small community of Sicilian, and to a lesser extent, mainland Italian poets gathered around Frederick II, most of them belonging to his court, the Magna Curia. Headed by Giacomo da Lentini, they produced more than three-hundred poems of courtly love between 1230 and 1266,...
, which was a small community of Sicilian, and to a lesser extent, mainland Italian poets gathered around Frederick II
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick II , was one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. His political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching through Italy to Germany, and even to Jerusalem, were enormous...
, most of them belonging to his court, the Magna Curia
Magna Curia
Magna Curia or The Bethlen Castle is a palace located in Deva, Romania.-History:In 1582 the hungarian captain Ferenc Geszty, in charge with the Deva Castle's garrison, erected a house at the foot of the citadel hill...
. Headed by Giacomo da Lentini
Giacomo da Lentini
Giacomo da Lentini, also known as Giàcumu da Lintini and Jacopo Notaro, was an Italian poet of the 13th century. He was a senior poet of the Sicilian School and was a notary at the court of the Holy Roman emperor Frederick II...
, they produced more than three-hundred poems of courtly love
Courtly love
Courtly love was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility. It was also generally not practiced between husband and wife....
between 1230 and 1266, the experiment being continued after Frederick's death by his son, Manfredi
Manfredi
Manfredi is a surname of Italian origin. The name refers to:Manfredi family of Faenza, Italy*See Manfredi familyPersons*Antonio Manfredi Manfredi is a surname of Italian origin. The name refers to:Manfredi family of Faenza, Italy*See Manfredi familyPersons*Antonio Manfredi Manfredi is a surname of...
. This school included Enzio
Enzio
Enzio may refer to* Enzio of Sardinia, illegitimate son of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor.* Enzio, legitimate son of Manfred of Sicily by his wife Helena; he was confined to prison his entire life....
, king of Sardinia, Pier delle Vigne, Inghilfredi, Stefano Protonotaro, Guido and Odo delle Colonne, Rinaldo d'Aquino, Giacomino Pugliese, Arrigo Testa, Mazzeo Ricco, Perceval Doria
Perceval Doria
Perceval Doria was a Genoese naval and military leader in the thirteenth century. A Ghibelline, he was a partisan of the Hohenstaufen in Italy and served the Emperor Frederick II and Manfred of Sicily as vicar of Romagna, the March of Ancona, and the Duchy of Spoleto.He was probably a member of...
, and Frederick II himself.
The poets of Stilnovismo included the early forerunner Guido Guinizelli
Guido Guinizelli
Guido Guinizzelli , born in Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, was an Italian poet and 'founder' of the Dolce Stil Novo...
, Guido Cavalcanti and Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
, plus Cino da Pistoia
Cino da Pistoia
Cino da Pistoia was an Italian jurist and poet.He was born in Pistoia, Tuscany. His full name was Guittoncino dei Sinibaldi de Candia Pistoia or, Latinised as Cinus de Sighibuldis, his father was from a noble man from the House of Sinibaldi and his mother a noble lady of the House of Candia Pistoia...
, Lapo Gianni
Lapo Gianni
Lapo Gianni was an Italian poet who lived in Florence in the 13th-14th centuries. He was a member of the Florentine circle of the Italian movement called Dolce Stil Novo, and was probably a notary....
, Gianni Alfani, and Dino Frescobaldi. Far from being a derivative school of poetry that mimicked its French and Sicilian poetic ancestors, Stilnovismo brought an originality to and completely transformed the poetry of courtly love in that: 1) It was an urban poetry of the Tuscan commune, not of an aristocratic court. 2) It explored the philosophical, spiritual, psychological and social effects of love. 3) It championed the Tuscan vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
. 4) It did all this while expressing the heart and mind of the poet in original verse that utilized the sonnet
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
, ballata
Ballata
The ballata is an Italian poetic and musical form, which was in use from the late 13th to the 15th century. It has the musical structure AbbaA, with the first and last stanzas having the same texts. It is thus most similar to the French musical 'forme fixe' virelai...
and canzone
Canzone
Literally "song" in Italian, a canzone is an Italian or Provençal song or ballad. It is also used to describe a type of lyric which resembles a madrigal...
forms of poetry. Cavalcanti was a central part of this accomplishment.
Early Poetry
In one of his earlier poems, Guido transforms the imagery of fin’amor, with its beautiful ladies and armed knights, into an idea that love has a philosophical component related to human intelligence and moral purity by equating it with a wise heart. He then proceeds to create a series of images of nature’s serene beauty, which he then explains are all transcended by his lady’s beauty, grace and noble heart; i.e., her emotions that are pure, based on wisdom, something he is incapable of.
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In this simple, but beautiful sonnet, we have, then, both something emblematic of the best poetry of the Dolce stil novo
Dolce Stil Novo
Dolce Stil Novo , or stilnovismo, is the name given to the most important literary movement of 13th century in Italy. Influenced by both Sicilian and Tuscan poetry, its main theme is Love . Gentilezza and Amore are indeed topoi in the major works of the period...
, while at the same an example of Cavalcanti's poetic idiom that is at once powerful, persuasive and, here, mellifluous.
The crowning achievement of Cavalcanti’s poetic youth is his canzone Io non pensava che lo cor giammai in which he embodies his philosophical thoughts in a vernacular masterpiece. An analysis of two passages from this fifty-six line poem reveals his core ideas on love.
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Influenced by Averroës
Averroes
' , better known just as Ibn Rushd , and in European literature as Averroes , was a Muslim polymath; a master of Aristotelian philosophy, Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki law and jurisprudence, logic, psychology, politics, Arabic music theory, and the sciences of medicine, astronomy,...
, the twelfth century Islamic philosopher who commented on Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, Cavalcanti saw humans with three basic capacities: the vegetative, which humans held in common with plants; the sensitive, which man shared with animals; and, the intellectual, which distinguished humans from the two lower forms. Averroës maintained that the proper goal of humanity was the cultivation of the intellect according to reason. Further, Averroës maintained that the intellect was part of a universal consciousness that came into the body at birth and returned to the universal consciousness after death. As such, it meant there was no afterlife, and, as well, the thing that gives an individual his or her identity was not the intellect, but the sensitive faculty, the appetites and desires of the body. Hence, the goal for Averroës and Cavalcanti was the perfection of the sensitive capacity through reason in order to achieve a balance between the body’s physical desires and the intellect. This balance was considered the buon perfetto, the "good perfection." Guido thought this balance could not be achieved, which is why he speaks of “tormented laments” that makes his soul cry, that make his eyes dead, so he can feel “neither peace nor even rest in the place where I found love and my Lady.”
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This passage explains the conflict between the sensitive and intellectual, as Guido’s heart shivers as his “our lowly minds couldn’t sustain what our intellects saw.” All this is driven by the lofty beauty of his lady.
Poetic Maturity
Dolce Stil Novo
Dolce Stil Novo , or stilnovismo, is the name given to the most important literary movement of 13th century in Italy. Influenced by both Sicilian and Tuscan poetry, its main theme is Love . Gentilezza and Amore are indeed topoi in the major works of the period...
, to which he contributed the following (note: translations provided in parentheses do not match the titles by which are widely known in English manuals but are meant to be a more literal rendering of the Italian originals): "Rosa fresca novella" (New, Fresh Rose), "Avete in vo' li fior e la verdura" (You Are Flowers in the Meadow), "Biltà di donna" (A Woman's Beauty), Chi è questa che vèn (Who's This Lady That Comes My Way), "Li mie' foll'occhi" (My Crazy Eyes), "L'anima Mia" (My Soul), "Guido Orlandi", "Da più a uno" (From Many to One), "In un boschetto" (In A Grove), "Per ch'io no spero" (Because I Do Not Hope), "Voi che per gli occhi mi passaste il core" (see below), and "Donna me prega" (A Lady's Orders), a masterpiece of lyric verse and a small treatise on his philosophy of love. Starting from the model provided by the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
troubadour
Troubadour
A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....
s, they took Italian poetry
Italian poetry
-Important Italian poets:* Giacomo da Lentini a 13th Century poet who is believed to have invented the sonnet.* Guido Cavalcanti Tuscan poet, and a key figure in the Dolce Stil Novo movement....
a step further and inaugurated the volgare illustre, that higher standard of Italian language
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
that survives almost unchanged to the present day. The founder of this school, Guido Guinizzelli, a law professor at Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
’s University wrote the first poem of this kind, a poem whose importance does not so much lie in its literary merits but in outlining what would the fundamentals of the Stil Novo program, which was further perfected by a second generation of poets, including Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
, Cino da Pistoia
Cino da Pistoia
Cino da Pistoia was an Italian jurist and poet.He was born in Pistoia, Tuscany. His full name was Guittoncino dei Sinibaldi de Candia Pistoia or, Latinised as Cinus de Sighibuldis, his father was from a noble man from the House of Sinibaldi and his mother a noble lady of the House of Candia Pistoia...
, Lapo Gianni
Lapo Gianni
Lapo Gianni was an Italian poet who lived in Florence in the 13th-14th centuries. He was a member of the Florentine circle of the Italian movement called Dolce Stil Novo, and was probably a notary....
, and Guido himself. As Dante wrote in his De Vulgari Eloquentia, I, XIII, 4:
"Sed quanquam fere omne Tusci in suo turpiloquio sint obtusi, nunnullos vulgaris excellentiam cognovisse sentimus, scilicit Guidonem, Lapum, et unum alium, Florentinos et Cynum Pistoriensem (...) (“Although most Tuscans are overwhelmed by their bad language, we think that someone has experimented with the excellence of high vernacular, namely Guido, Lapo and another [i.e: Dante himself], all from Florence, and Cino da Pistoia”.
Scholars have commented on the Dolce stil novo with Dante as probably the most spiritual and platonic in his portrayal of Beatrice (Vita Nuova
La Vita Nuova
La Vita Nuova is a medieval text written by Dante Alighieri in 1295. It is an expression of the medieval genre of courtly love in a prosimetrum style, a combination of both prose and verse...
), but Cino da Pistoia is able to write poetry in which “there is a remarkable psychological interest in love, a more tangible presence of the woman, who loses the abstract aura of Guinizzelli and Guido’s verse” (Giudice-Bruni), and Guido Cavalcanti interprets love as a source of torment and despair in the surrendering of self to the beloved. An example in kind, and one of Guido’s most widely read lyrics
Lyric poetry
Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat...
is a sonnet entitled Voi che per gli occhi mi passaste il core (Transl. You, Whose Look Pierced through My Heart), dedicated, to his beloved Monna (lady) Vanna
Vanna
Vanna is a female first name that first appeared in recorded history circa 1294. The Italian medieval name originated in Tuscany, and is particular to Florence, Italy. Though similar in pronunciation to the name Giovanna, and conjectured to be derived from it, Vanna is neither a nickname nor a...
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Although there are many poems that exemplify Cavalcanti’s poetic maturity, Certe mie rime a te mandar vogliendo is unparalleled in its originality, for here Guido adapts his medium of love to speak of his inner psychological state and the uncertainty of Dante’s reaction in this example of occasional poetry
Occasional poetry
Occasional poetry is poetry composed for a particular occasion. In the history of literature, it is often studied in connection with orality, performance, and patronage. As a term of literary criticism, "occasional poetry" describes the work's purpose and the poet's relation to subject matter...
. This is creativity at its highest, for Cavalcanti transforms the medium into a unique response to a real world problem.
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Guido tells Dante of how desire, how “wanting” has ruined his heart. He dramatically reinforces his condition through the appearance of Love—the medieval and Renaissance view of Love as Cupid
Cupid
In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, affection and erotic love. He is the son of the goddess Venus and the god Mars. His Greek counterpart is Eros...
matured into a grown man—in the guise of death, as if Guido is indeed on the verge of leaving this world. Love then warns him not to send this poem to Dante, who is not ready to deal with Guido’s condition, given the depth of friendship Dante feels for him. Love also acknowledges that what he makes humanity suffer is “unjust,” In sum, because of the love he has felt in life, Guido is ruined, and because of the depth of friendship Dante holds for him, Guido fears he may be ruined as well, seeing him in such a state.
Poetic Masterpiece "Donna me prega"
Through his study of AverroësAverroes
' , better known just as Ibn Rushd , and in European literature as Averroes , was a Muslim polymath; a master of Aristotelian philosophy, Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki law and jurisprudence, logic, psychology, politics, Arabic music theory, and the sciences of medicine, astronomy,...
, and perhaps due to his native temperament, Cavalcanti held the pessimistic view that humans were limited in the sort of ultimate attainment they could achieve. The intellect could never be brought into a harmony based on reason with bodily desires. This affinity for the ideas of Averroës would have lent to his reputation that he was an atheist.
The crowning achievement of Guido’s poetic career is his masterpiece, the philosophical canzone
Canzone
Literally "song" in Italian, a canzone is an Italian or Provençal song or ballad. It is also used to describe a type of lyric which resembles a madrigal...
Donna me prega (A woman asks me). It is a full fledged treatise of his personal thoughts and beliefs on love. Through it, he transforms all that came before him and influenced him: courtly love
Courtly love
Courtly love was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility. It was also generally not practiced between husband and wife....
, the troubadours, the Sicilian School
Sicilian School
The Sicilian School was a small community of Sicilian, and to a lesser extent, mainland Italian poets gathered around Frederick II, most of them belonging to his court, the Magna Curia. Headed by Giacomo da Lentini, they produced more than three-hundred poems of courtly love between 1230 and 1266,...
and his peers of the Dolce stil novo
Dolce Stil Novo
Dolce Stil Novo , or stilnovismo, is the name given to the most important literary movement of 13th century in Italy. Influenced by both Sicilian and Tuscan poetry, its main theme is Love . Gentilezza and Amore are indeed topoi in the major works of the period...
.
Guido says he was prompted to write it by his mistress, according to a formula very widespread in the tradition of love poetry. As such, Guido's doctrine draws on the greatest medieval poets or scholars, such as Chrétien de Troyes
Chrétien de Troyes
Chrétien de Troyes was a French poet and trouvère who flourished in the late 12th century. Perhaps he named himself Christian of Troyes in contrast to the illustrious Rashi, also of Troyes...
and Brunetto Latini
Brunetto Latini
Brunetto Latini was an Italian philosopher, scholar and statesman.-Life:...
. There are several hints to the Roman de la Rose
Roman de la Rose
The Roman de la rose, , is a medieval French poem styled as an allegorical dream vision. It is a notable instance of courtly literature. The work's stated purpose is to both entertain and to teach others about the Art of Love. At various times in the poem, the "Rose" of the title is seen as the...
, then considered the "Bible" of courtly love. For example in the famous line "a man who does not experience it [love] cannot picture it", a common axiom variously quoted from the troubadours to Dante's Vita Nuova
Vita Nuova
Vita Nuova Holdings Ltd is a British company based in York that provides technology for embedded systems and distributed applications based upon the unique operating system Inferno. It also distributes the Plan 9 operating system....
. "Donna me prega", a remarkable anatomy of love, is divided into five stanzas of fourteen variously rhymed lines of eleven syllables each. The subject is divided into eight chapters dealing with
- Where love is located in the human body
- What causes it
- What his faculties (virtues) are
- His power (what it can do or cause)
- His essence (what it is made of)
- His motions (or alterations it causes in the human bodyHuman bodyThe human body is the entire structure of a human organism, and consists of a head, neck, torso, two arms and two legs.By the time the human reaches adulthood, the body consists of close to 100 trillion cells, the basic unit of life...
or mindMindThe concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
) - What makes us call it love
- The possibility of probing its effects using our sightVisual perceptionVisual perception is the ability to interpret information and surroundings from the effects of visible light reaching the eye. The resulting perception is also known as eyesight, sight, or vision...
.
In short, the sensitive, like the rational soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
is located in the brain
Human brain
The human brain has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over three times larger than the brain of a typical mammal with an equivalent body size. Estimates for the number of neurons in the human brain range from 80 to 120 billion...
, but does not produce love-feelings unless the eye
Human eye
The human eye is an organ which reacts to light for several purposes. As a conscious sense organ, the eye allows vision. Rod and cone cells in the retina allow conscious light perception and vision including color differentiation and the perception of depth...
s meet those of a particular woman who has exclusive affinity to him. This complies with Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
's theory of cause and effect, whereby no effect can proceed from an object if the object has not the potential to accomplish it. When a woman's look meet the eyes of a man, the potential for love grows into passion, a spirit or fluid that possesses all his faculties. Such a passion needs more and more love to satisfy its ever-growing appetite, until (when desire outstrips human limits) he is led to insanity
Insanity
Insanity, craziness or madness is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity may manifest as violations of societal norms, including becoming a danger to themselves and others, though not all such acts are considered insanity...
and death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
.
This highly philosophical canzone was extremely influential, and it was commented upon by authors including Dino del Garbo, pseudo-Giles, Giles of Rome
Giles of Rome
Giles of Rome , was an archbishop of Bourges who was famed for his logician commentary on the Organon by Aristotle. Giles was styled Doctor Fundatissimus by Pope Benedict XIV...
, Marsilio Ficino
Marsilio Ficino
Marsilio Ficino was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance, an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism who was in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day, and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin...
, Pico della Mirandola, Iacopo Mini, and Fracesco de Vieri (see Enrico Fenzi, La canzone d'amore di Guido Cavalcanti e i suoi antichi commenti, Melangolo, 1999).
While this has very little to do with modern psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, Guido's philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
of spiritelli was part of the guiding principles of Arabic medicine, considered very advanced at Dante's times. The merit of such philosophy in Cavalcanti's verse
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
is its ability to describe what goes through the poet’s mind in a very detailed, personal manner, creating sensuous, autobiographic poetry. This is revolutionary compared to the rhetoric and academic-seeming manner of the Sicilian
Sicilian School
The Sicilian School was a small community of Sicilian, and to a lesser extent, mainland Italian poets gathered around Frederick II, most of them belonging to his court, the Magna Curia. Headed by Giacomo da Lentini, they produced more than three-hundred poems of courtly love between 1230 and 1266,...
and Neo-Sicilian Schools that had preceded the Dolce Stil Novo and, perhaps, a sign of the changing times.
Legacy
Cavalcanti is widely regarded as the first major poet of Italian literatureItalian literature
Italian literature is literature written in the Italian language, particularly within Italy. It may also refer to literature written by Italians or in Italy in other languages spoken in Italy, often languages that are closely related to modern Italian....
: Dante calls him "mentor". In the Commedia he says through Oderisi da Gubbio that "...ha tolto l'uno a l'altro Guido / la gloria de la lingua" (Purgatory XI, 97-8): the verse of the latter, younger Guido (Cavalcanti) has surpassed that of the former, (Guido) Guinizzelli, the founder of Dolce Stil Novo
Dolce Stil Novo
Dolce Stil Novo , or stilnovismo, is the name given to the most important literary movement of 13th century in Italy. Influenced by both Sicilian and Tuscan poetry, its main theme is Love . Gentilezza and Amore are indeed topoi in the major works of the period...
. Dante sees in Guido his mentor: his meter, his language deeply inspire his work (cfr. De Divina Eloquentia), though Guido's esthetic materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
would be taken a step further to an entirely new spiritual, Christian vision of the gentler sex
Sex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
, as personified by Beatrice whose soul becomes Dante's guide to Paradise
Paradise
Paradise is a place in which existence is positive, harmonious and timeless. It is conceptually a counter-image of the miseries of human civilization, and in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment, but it is not necessarily a land of luxury and...
.
Guido's controversial personality and beliefs attracted the interest of Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...
, who made him one of the most famous heretical characters in his Decameron, helping popularise the belief about his atheism
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
. Cavalcanti would be studied with perhaps more interest during the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, by such scholars as Luigi Pulci
Luigi Pulci
Luigi Pulci was an Italian poet best known for his Morgante, an epic story of a giant who is converted to Christianity and follows the knight Orlando....
and Pico della Mirandola. By passing to Dante's study of the Italian language, Guido's style has influenced all those who, like cardinal Pietro Bembo
Pietro Bembo
Pietro Bembo was an Italian scholar, poet, literary theorist, and cardinal. He was an influential figure in the development of the Italian language, specifically Tuscan, as a literary medium, and his writings assisted in the 16th-century revival of interest in the works of Petrarch...
, helped turn the volgare illustre into today's Italian language
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
.
Cavalcanti was to become a strong influence on a number of writers associated with the development of Modernist poetry in English
Modernist poetry in English
Modernist poetry in English is generally considered to have emerged in the early years of the 20th century with the appearance of the Imagists. In common with many other modernists, these poets wrote in reaction to the perceived excesses of Victorian poetry, with its emphasis on traditional...
. This influence can be traced back to the appearance, in 1861, of Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...
's The Early Italian Poets, which featured translations of works by both Cavalcanti and Dante.
The young Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
admired Rossetti and knew his Italian translations well. quoting extensively from them in his 1910 book The Spirit of Romance. In 1912, Pound published his own translations under the title The Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti and in 1936, he edited the Italian poet's works as Rime. A reworked translation of Donna me prega formed the bulk of Canto XXXVI in Pound's long poem The Cantos
The Cantos
The Cantos by Ezra Pound is a long, incomplete poem in 120 sections, each of which is a canto. Most of it was written between 1915 and 1962, although much of the early work was abandoned and the early cantos, as finally published, date from 1922 onwards. It is a book-length work, widely considered...
. Pound's main focus was on Cavalcanti's philosophy of love and light, which he viewed as a continuing expression of a pagan
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
, neo-platonic tradition stretching back through the troubadours and early medieval Latin lyrics to the world of pre-Christian polytheism
Polytheism
Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....
. Pound also composed a three-act opera titled Cavalcanti at the request of Archie Harding, a producer at the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. Though never performed in his lifetime, excerpts are available on audio CD
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
.
Pound's friend and fellow modernist T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
used an adaptation of the opening line of Perch'i' no spero di tornar giammai ("Because I do not hope to turn again") to open his 1930
1930 in literature
The year 1930 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 6 - The first literary character licensing agreement is signed by A. A. Milne, granting Stephen Slesinger U.S...
poem Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday (poem)
"Ash Wednesday" is the first long poem written by T. S. Eliot after his 1927 conversion to Anglicanism. Published in 1930 , this poem deals with the struggle that ensues when one who has lacked faith in the past strives to move towards God.Sometimes referred to as Eliot's "conversion poem",...
.
See also
- Dante AlighieriDante AlighieriDurante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
- Dolce Stil NovoDolce Stil NovoDolce Stil Novo , or stilnovismo, is the name given to the most important literary movement of 13th century in Italy. Influenced by both Sicilian and Tuscan poetry, its main theme is Love . Gentilezza and Amore are indeed topoi in the major works of the period...
- Italian literatureItalian literatureItalian literature is literature written in the Italian language, particularly within Italy. It may also refer to literature written by Italians or in Italy in other languages spoken in Italy, often languages that are closely related to modern Italian....
- FlorenceFlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
- Sicilian SchoolSicilian SchoolThe Sicilian School was a small community of Sicilian, and to a lesser extent, mainland Italian poets gathered around Frederick II, most of them belonging to his court, the Magna Curia. Headed by Giacomo da Lentini, they produced more than three-hundred poems of courtly love between 1230 and 1266,...