The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1886-07-16
DANTE AllchlERi.

DANTE ALlcHlERI.
The ssrruwfal snd Cheerasss Life %
Italy's Most Famous Poet.
Dante Alighieri was born in the city
of Florence in the year 1865. The fu-
ture poet was Of noble family, and he
inherited apparently the bravery of his
ancestors, who fought in the crusades.
His education was IS 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 te 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 a series of complications
which it would require pages to de-
scribe, the Florentines engaged in war
with two neighboring cities, and in these
UttttcS NOuuS DdutC piONC0 AhAi~OAA
worthy of his sires.
There is a little romance connected
with the early years of the poet which
had a 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 woman
when she died. Dante never ceased to
worship her ideal as long as he lived,
and she became to him a kind of deity.
In the year 1900 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 way that offended one party.
While Dante was away at Rome this
faction came into power, and immedi-
ateIy 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 banishment. 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
partnership 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 misfOrtunes; they
wrang from the poet song that has
stirred the hearts of men in all succeed
ing ayes. 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 ''liberty" 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 1.-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 a resemblance between
the first great English poet, Chaucer.
and the leader of Italian song. Both
discarded the artificial languages OF
polite letters, the Norman and the
Latin. both aimed to reach the hearts
of their countrymen through the simple
everyday language that all could
understand, and both hoped to give the
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, the
poet visits the lower world. The work
is divided into three parts which CORE
spond with the three divisions of the
after-state-hell, purgatOry and para
disc. With terrible earnestness and
minuteness Dante describes the scenes
in the place of torment. He meets
characters well-known in history. and
converses with them. until it all seems
reality. This book is really a grand
review of the world up to the poet
age. Men and women of all times pass
in review; future punishment is made a
revolving and awful thing. and is con-
trastcd with the happiness of paradise
through which the beloved Beatrice
conducts the visitor.
Try as he NAV Dante can not make
paradise as attractive as purgatory is
repulsive. Can We wonder at this.
when VIC remember his life of sorrow
and misery. The Divine Comedy was
written during the years of wandering
from the time of his exile until his
death at Ravenna in 1921. The patron
of his latter years. Guido Novello de
Polenta. had the poet buried with
great solemnity. and it is gratifying to
know the Florentincs century later
did tardy homage to their distinguished
citizen VIII Ac0Ee