Book Description
A study of one of the most talented and troubled literary families in England: Dante, William and Christina Rossetti. ILLUS.

THIS TITLE IS CITED AND RECOMMENDED BY:Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. ... Read more

Book Description
The New Life is the masterpiece of Dante's youth, an account of his love for Beatrice, the girl who was to become his lifelong muse, and of her tragic early death. An allegory of the soul's crisis and growth, combining prose and poetry, narrative and meditation, dreams and songs and prayers, this work of crystalline beauty and fascinating complexity has long taken its place as one of the supreme revelations in the literature of love.

The New Life is published here in the beautiful translation by the English poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, an inspired poetic re-creation comparable to Edward Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and a classic in its own right. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A mythic love
The 'Vita Nuova' is more than anything else a prelude to 'The Divine Comedy'. The Beatrice Dante falls in love with and longs for is on the one hand a figure unattainable, the love- goddess of courtly love. On the other hand she is to become the very essence of the spiritual and to guide Dante later through the Paradiso of the Comedy. The real figure and her life who he falls in love with truly is transformed in myth and mind to a kind of image and essence of Divine Beauty.
As with Petrarch and his Laura the love Dante writes of ' La Vita Nuova' does not somehow strike me and move me in the deepest way, and seems somehow too literary and artificial. Lines of love of Rilke and Kafka sound more authentic to me, but perhaps this is because I am apoor reader and no medievalist.
In any case this is a small classic which is prelude to a far greater one. And the real Beatrice is a small figure beside the mythic one Dante will transform into a literary immortal.

What has never been written of any other woman
Genuine romance and passion is missing from most books, either fiction or nonfiction, and I don't think I've ever come across both in such quantity as there is in "La Vita Nuova" (translation: The New Life), the unsung masterpiece of poet Dante Alighieri (who wrote the classic Divina Comedia).

It is a series of poems centering around the life-changing love of Dante for a young woman named Beatrice. The two first met when they were young children, of about eight. Dante instantly fell in love with her, but didn't really interact with her for several years. Over the years, Dante's almost supernatural love only increased in intensity, and he poured out his feelings (grief, adoration, fear) into several poems and sonnets. During an illness, he has a vision about mortality, himself, and his beloved Beatrice ("One day, inevitably, even your most gracious Beatrice must die"). Beatrice died at the age of twenty-four, and Dante committed himself to the memory of his muse.

I have never in my life read a book overflowing with such incredible love and passion as "La Vita Nuova"; it's probably the most romantic book I have ever seen. It's only a little over a hundred pages long, but it's a truly unique love story. Dante and Beatrice were never romantically involved. In fact, both of them married other people.

But Dante's love for Beatrice shows itself to be more than infatuation or crush, because it never wanes -- in fact, it grows even stronger, including Love manifested as a nobleman in one of Dante's dreams. There is no element of physicality to the passion in "La Vita Nuova"; Dante talks about how beautiful Beatrice is, but that's only a sidenote. (We don't hear of any real details about her) And Dante's grief-stricken state when Beatrice dies (of what, we're never told) leads him to deep changes in his soul, and eventually peace. (And though Beatrice died, because of Dante's love for her and her placement in the "Comedia," she has achieved a kind of immortality)

One of the noticeable things about this book is that whenever something significant happens to Dante (good, bad, or neither), he immediately writes a poem about it. Some readers may be tempted to skip over the carefully constructed poems, but they shouldn't. Even if these intrude on the story, they show what Dante was feeling more clearly than his prose.

It's impossible to read this book and come out of it jaded about love or true passion. Not the sort of stuff in pulp romance novels, but love and passion that come straight from the heart and soul, in a unique and unusual love story. Every true romantic should read this book. ... Read more

Book Description
Provides a popular introduction to these two mystics, with new insights into the influence Blake had on Rossetti. ILLUS.

THIS TITLE IS CITED AND RECOMMENDED BY:Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Art!
My mother loved the BBC radio production of this play, with Imogen Stubbs as Lizzie Siddal; I thought it was very good, but the book is better.

The only thing many people know about William Morris is his wallpaper, andof Rossetti is that he dug up his wife's grave to retrieve poems he'd buried with her (including poems to his mistress). Clever As Paint not only explains how someone could do something like that, but makes it seem like a reasonable thing to do. Siddal's ghost refusing to give him the wording to the poem seems natural as well - what wife would ever give her husband the text to a love poem written to another?

Clever as Paint is beautiful and useful: a very funny black comedy, based on solid historical research. It benefits from being read, and reread, since there are so many levels to the play. It's witty without sacrificing compassion and even though it is very funny, the despair and grief of Rossetti is genuine. The poetry quoted is glorious and the book includes sheet music for Siddal's poems composed by Elizabeth Parker.

This play is a delight for people who know nothing of the Rossettis, and a joy for those who do. ... Read more

Book Description
Hall Claine's famous reminiscences of his friendhip with Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

THIS TITLE IS CITED AND RECOMMENDED BY:Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. ... Read more