The New Life [Paperback]

The New Lifeis 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,The New Lifeis a work of crystalline beauty and fascinating complexity that has long taken its place as one of the supreme revelations in the literature of love.  

The New Lifeis published here in the beautiful translation by the English poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, an inspired poetic re-creation comparable to Edward Fitzgerald’sRubaiyat of Omar Khayyamand a classic in its own right.“Rossetti made a remarkable translation of theVita Nuova, in some places improving (or at least enriching) the original. He was indubitably the man ‘sent,’ or ‘chosen,’ for that particular job.” —Ezra Pound
 
“[Rossetti’s translation is] the fruit of countless hours of brooding over Italian painting, Italian images, Italian sounds and thoughts.” —John WainDante Alighieri(1265–1321) was born into a noble family in Florence. He fought as a cavalryman, served in a variety of civic and diplomatic positions, and in 1300 attained a preeminent place in the administration of his native city. Florence was at the time caught in a bitter struggle between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines—as well as between contending factions within those political parties—and in 1301, having been sent on an embassy to the Pope in Rome, Dante learned that his enemies had come to power. He was never to see Florence again, and was later banished from the city and sentenced to death. After years of a wandering and uncertain life, Dante finally settled in Ravenna in 1318. Celebrated as a poet from his youth, when he was among those whose writings in Italian werl³+