It would be of interest, as contrasted with the later growth
of the sentimental element in literature, which speedily exhibits the
influence of factitious feeling, of self-conscious effort, and of
ambitious display. The sentiment of the "Vita Nuova" is separated by
the wide gulf that lies between simplicity and affectation from the
sentimentality of Petrarch's sonnets. But connected as it is with
Dante's life,--the first of that series of works in which truth,
intensity, and tenderness of feeling are displayed as in the writings of
no other man,--its interest no longer arises merely from itself and from
its place in literature, but becomes indissolubly united with that which
belongs by every claim to the "Divina Commedia" and to the life of
Dante.
When the "Vita Nuova" was completed, Dante was somewhat less than
twenty-eight years old. Beatrice had died between two and three years
before, in 1290; and he seems to have pleased himself after her loss
by recalling to his memory the sweet incidents of her life, and of her
influence upon himself. He begins with the words:--
"In that part of the book of my memory before which little can be
read is found a rubric which says: _Incipit Vita Nova_ ['The New Life
begins']. Under which rubric I find the words written which it is my
intention to copy into this little book,--if not all of them, at least
their meaning."
This introduction, short as it is, exhibits a characteristic trait of
Dante's mind, in the declaration of his intention to copy from the
book of his memory, or, in other words, to write the true records of
experience.
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