La Vita Nuova

Dante's young book of Beatrice: thirty-one poems interleaved with the prose of a converted heart.

Specifications & Metrics

author

Dante Alighieri

type

Prosimetrum (prose and poems)

era

Medieval Florence (c. 1294)

language

Tuscan vernacular

verse form

Mixed — sonnets, canzoni, ballata

cantos count

31

Core Principles & Analysis

• Written around 1294, assembling Dante's early love poems with commentary.
• Beatrice's greeting and death structure its 31 poems.
• Its vernacular experiment cleared the road to the Divine Comedy.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Vita Nuova