The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1886-07-17
DANTE ALlGHIERI.
The sOrrOwful and Cherries Life OF
Italy's Most Famous Poet.

Italy's Most Famous Poet.
Dante Alighieri was born in the city
of Florence in the year 1865. The flu
lure poet was of noble family, and he
Inherited apparently the bravery of his
ancestors, who fought in the crusades.
His education was as thorough as the
facilities of that age permitted. He
studied at the universities of Bologna
and Padua, and perhaps visited Paris
and Oxford, but in his attainment of
learning he never neglected physical
exercise and manly sports.
In his twenty-fourth year Dante had
an opportunity to try his metal in bat
tie. Florence was occupied by two par
ties, the Guelphs and Ghibellines, each
OF which was determined upon the SUI
premacy. By series of complications
which it would require pages to de-
scribe, the Florentines engaged in war
with two neighboring cities, and in these
battles young Dante proved himself
worthy of his sres.
There is a little romance connected
with the early years of the poet which
had marked influence on his life and
writings. When only nine years old he
fell in love with little girl, Beatrice,
who had scarcely grown to be a woman
when she died. Dante never ceased to
worship her ideal as long as he lived,
and she became to him kind of deity.
In the year 1900 a misfortune came to
Dante which changed his career. He
had been elected an official of Florence,
and while in Office he was compelled to
act in a way that offended one party
While Dante was away at Rome this
faction came into power, and immedi-
ately passed a decree of Punishment
against the absent citizen. Thus, like
Cicero, Dante found himself an exile
from the city he so dearly loved. But
not like the great orator was he to be
recalled in a few short months His
was lifelong Punishment, and but for
those long years of sad wandering from
city to city, those weary hours spent in
monastery and chapel, we might never
have had the Divine Comedy.
The death of his young love, the com.
panionship of most ill-tempered wife,
and his Punishment from his native city
conspired to make Dante melancholy
man. But his deeper feelings were
aroused by these misforhnes; they
wrang from the poet song that has
stirred the hearts of men in all succeed
ing ages. 1t was fitting time for a
poet to appear. Religious enthusiasm
was at its height. Chivalry with its
fascinating attributes of courtesy, love
and honor was in its glory, and the
words elderly and democracy were
on everybody's lips.
Dante wrote, before his exile, little
volume in which he tells of his love for
Beatrice, and he published other books
in the Latin language, one on Mon
archy" and another on ''The Vulgar
Tongue" His great work is the Divine
Comedy. This he wrote not in Latin,
but in the vulgar tongue Italian.
Here we find resemblance between
the first great English poet, ChauceT,
and the leader of Italian song Both
discarded the artificial languages o.
polite letters, the Norman and the
Latin, both aimed to reach the heart:
of their countrymen through the simple
everyday language that all coulC
understand, and both hoped to give tn,
common speech higher.place by show
ing its power in poetry.
The plot of the Divine Comedy is sim
pie. In company with Virgil whom
Dante enthusiastically admired, tn
poet visits the lower world. The worl
is divided into three parts which CORE
spond with the three divisions of tn
after-state-hell, purgatory and para
disc. With a terrible earneStness ant
minuteness Dante describes the scene
in the place of torment. He meet
characters well-known in history, an
converses with them, until it all seem
reality. This book is really a gran
review of the world up to the poet
AGE. Men and women of all times pas
in review; future punishment is made
revolving and awful thing, and is cor
trasted with the happiness of paradis
through which the beloved Beatric
conducts the visitor
Try as he NAV Dante can not max
paradise as attractive as purgatory
repulsive. Can we wonder at thi!
when we remember his life of sorro
and misery. The Divine Comedy ws
written during the years of wanderin
from the time of his exile until hi
death at Ravenna in 1921 The ,patro
Of his latter years, Guido Noyello d
Polenta, ahad the poet buried wit
great solemnity, and it is gratifying
Know the Florentines a century latt
did tardy homage to their Distinguish
citizen Vide AUdbe.
Interesting Memoirs.