Editing Dante Alighieri (section)

===Overview===
[[File:Alighieri - Divina Commedia, Nel mille quatro cento septe et due nel quarto mese adi cinque et sei - 2384293 id00022000 Scan00006.jpg|thumb|upright|''Divina Commedia'' (1472)]]
Most of Dante's literary work was composed after his exile in 1301. {{Lang|it|[[La Vita Nuova]]}} ("The New Life") is the only major work that predates it; it is a collection of lyric poems (sonnets and songs) with commentary in prose, ostensibly intended to be circulated in manuscript form, as was customary for such poems.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.danteonline.it/english/opere.asp?idope=5&idlang=UK|title=New Life|publisher=Dante online|access-date=September 2, 2008|archive-date=25 September 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140925225539/http://www.danteonline.it/english/opere.asp?idope=5&idlang=UK|url-status=live}}</ref> It also contains, or constructs, the story of his love for Beatrice Portinari, who later served as the ultimate symbol of salvation in the ''Comedy'', a function already indicated in the final pages of the {{Lang|it|Vita Nuova}}. The work contains many of Dante's love poems in Tuscan, which was not unprecedented; the vernacular had been regularly used for lyric works before, during all the thirteenth century. However, Dante's commentary on his own work is also in the vernacular—both in the {{Lang|it|Vita Nuova}} and in the {{Lang|it|Convivio}}—instead of the Latin that was almost universally used.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Scott |first=John |date=1995 |title=The Unfinished 'Convivio' as a Pathway to the 'Comedy' |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40166505 |journal=Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society |volume=113 |issue=113 |pages=31–56 |jstor=40166505  |access-date=March 15, 2023 |archive-date=March 31, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230331184706/https://www.jstor.org/stable/40166505 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The ''Divine Comedy'' describes Dante's journey through [[Inferno (Dante)|Hell]] (''Inferno''), [[Purgatorio|Purgatory]] (''Purgatorio''), and [[Paradiso (Dante)|Paradise]] (''Paradiso''); he is first guided by the Roman poet Virgil and then by Beatrice. Of the books, ''Purgatorio'' is arguably the most lyrical of the three, referring to more contemporary poets and artists than ''Inferno''; ''Paradiso'' is the most heavily theological, and the one in which, many scholars have argued, the ''Divine Comedy''{{'s}} most beautiful and mystic passages appear.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Kalkavage |first1=Peter |title=In the Heaven of Knowing: Dante's Paradiso |url=https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2014/08/heaven-knowing-dantes-paradiso.html |website=theimaginativeconservative.org |date=August 10, 2014 |publisher=The Imaginative Conservative |access-date=August 28, 2022 |archive-date=August 28, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220828040956/https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2014/08/heaven-knowing-dantes-paradiso.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Falconburg |first1=Darrell |title=The Way of Beauty in Dante |url=https://www.dappledthings.org/deep-down-things/17487/the-way-of-beauty-in-dante |website=dappledthings.org |publisher=Dappled Things |access-date=August 28, 2022 |archive-date=August 28, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220828040956/https://www.dappledthings.org/deep-down-things/17487/the-way-of-beauty-in-dante |url-status=live }}</ref>

With its seriousness of purpose, its literary stature and the range—both stylistic and thematic—of its content, the ''Comedy'' soon became a cornerstone in the evolution of Italian as an established literary language. Dante was more aware than most early Italian writers of the variety of Italian dialects and of the need to create a literature and a unified literary language beyond the limits of Latin writing at the time; in that sense, he is a forerunner of the [[Renaissance]], with its effort to create vernacular literature in competition with earlier classical writers. Dante's in-depth knowledge (within the limits of his time) of Roman antiquity, and his evident admiration for some aspects of pagan Rome, also point forward to the 15th century.
[[File:Domenico di Michelino - Dante Illuminating Florence with his Poem (detail) - WGA06423.jpg|thumb|left|Dante, poised between the mountain of purgatory and the city of Florence, displays the [[incipit]] ''Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita'' in a detail of [[Domenico di Michelino]]'s painting, Florence, 1465.]]
He wrote the ''Comedy'' in a language he called "Italian", in some sense an amalgamated literary language predominantly based on the regional dialect of Tuscany, but with some elements of Latin and other regional dialects.<ref name="Britannica">{{Britannica|151164|Dante}}</ref> He deliberately aimed to reach a readership throughout Italy including laymen, clergymen and other poets. By creating a poem of epic structure and philosophic purpose, he established that the Italian language was suitable for the highest sort of expression. In French, Italian is sometimes nicknamed ''la langue de Dante''. Unlike Boccaccio, [[John Milton|Milton]] or [[Ludovico Ariosto|Ariosto]], Dante did not really become an author read across Europe until the Romantic era. To the Romantics, Dante, like [[Homer]] and [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]], was a prime example of the "original genius" who set his own rules, created persons of overpowering stature and depth, and went beyond any imitation of the patterns of earlier masters; and who, in turn, could not truly be imitated.{{Citation needed|date=February 2020}} Throughout the 19th century, Dante's reputation grew and solidified; and by 1865, the 600th anniversary of his birth, he had become established as one of the greatest literary icons of the Western world.<ref>{{cite web |title=An Italian Icon |url=https://www.fu-berlin.de/en/featured-stories/research/2021/dante/index.html |website=fu-berlin.de |date=September 14, 2021 |publisher=Freie Universität Berlin |access-date=August 28, 2022 |archive-date=August 28, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220828041311/https://www.fu-berlin.de/en/featured-stories/research/2021/dante/index.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:Rafael Flores - Dante y Virgilio visitando el Infierno.jpg|thumb|upright|Dante and [[Virgil]] visiting Hell, as depicted in ''[[Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]]'', painted by Rafael Flores, 1855]]

New readers often wonder how such a serious work may be called a "comedy". In the [[Comedy#Etymology|classical sense]] the word ''comedy'' refers to works that reflect belief in an ordered universe, in which events tend toward not only a happy or amusing ending but one influenced by a Providential will that orders all things to an ultimate good. By this meaning of the word, as Dante himself allegedly wrote in [[Epistle to Cangrande|a letter to Cangrande]], the progression of the pilgrimage from Hell to Paradise is the paradigmatic expression of comedy, since the work begins with the pilgrim's moral confusion and ends with the vision of God.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.dantesociety.org/publicationsdante-notes/epistle-cangrande-updated|title=Epistle to Cangrande Updated|website=www.dantesociety.org|access-date=June 9, 2021|archive-date=June 9, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210609232053/https://www.dantesociety.org/publicationsdante-notes/epistle-cangrande-updated|url-status=live}}</ref>

A number of other works are credited to Dante. {{Lang|it|Convivio}} ("The Banquet")<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.danteonline.it/english/opere.asp?idope=2&idlang=UK|title=Banquet|publisher=Dante online|access-date=September 2, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080927102913/http://www.danteonline.it/english/opere.asp?idope=2&idlang=UK|archive-date=September 27, 2008|url-status=dead}}</ref> is a collection of his longest poems with an (unfinished) allegorical commentary. {{Lang|la|Monarchia}} ("Monarchy")<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.danteonline.it/english/opere.asp?idope=4&idlang=UK|title=Monarchia|publisher=Dante online|access-date=September 2, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080927104525/http://www.danteonline.it/english/opere.asp?idope=4&idlang=UK|archive-date=September 27, 2008|url-status=dead}}</ref> is a summary treatise of political philosophy in Latin which was condemned and burned after Dante's death<ref>Anthony K. Cassell
[https://web.archive.org/web/20151208162106/http://cuapress.cua.edu/BOOKS/viewbook.cfm?Book=CAMC The Monarchia Controversy]. ''Monarchia'' stayed on the [[Index Librorum Prohibitorum]] from its inception until 1881.</ref><ref>Giuseppe Cappelli, [https://books.google.com/books?id=_ssFAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA28 ''La divina commedia'' di Dante Alighieri], in Italian.</ref> by the Papal Legate [[Bertrando del Poggetto]]; it argues for the necessity of a universal or global monarchy to establish universal peace in this life, and this monarchy's relationship to the Roman Catholic Church as guide to eternal peace.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Lepsius|first=Oliver|title=Hans Kelsen on Dante Alighieri's Political Philosophy|journal=European Journal of International Law|year=2017|volume=27|issue=4|page=1153|doi=10.1093/ejil/chw060|doi-access=free}}</ref> {{Lang|la|[[De vulgari eloquentia]]}} ("On the Eloquence in the Vernacular")<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.danteonline.it/english/opere.asp?idope=3&idlang=UK|title=De vulgari Eloquentia|publisher=Dante online|access-date=September 2, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080927104520/http://www.danteonline.it/english/opere.asp?idope=3&idlang=UK|archive-date=September 27, 2008|url-status=dead}}</ref> is a treatise on vernacular literature, partly inspired by the {{Lang|ca|Razos de trobar}} of [[Raimon Vidal de Bezaudun]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Ewert|first= A.|jstor=3716632 |title=Dante's Theory of Language|journal=The Modern Language Review|volume=35|issue=  3|date=1940|pages= 355–366|doi= 10.2307/3716632| ref=pp. 355–366}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first1=Uc |last1=Faidit |author1-link=Uc de Saint Circ |first2=Raimon |last2=Vidal |first3=François |last3=Guessard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JIoSAAAAIAAJ&q=%22raimon+vidal%22 |title=Grammaires provençales de Hugues Faidit et de Raymond Vidal de Besaudun (XIII<sup>e</sup> siècle) |edition= 2nd |location=Paris |publisher=A. Franck |year=1858}}</ref> {{Lang|la|Quaestio de aqua et terra}} ("A Question of the Water and of the Land") is a theological work discussing the arrangement of Earth's dry land and ocean. The ''[[Eclogues (Dante)|Eclogues]]'' are two poems addressed to the poet Giovanni del Virgilio. Dante is also sometimes credited with writing {{Lang|it|Il Fiore}} ("The Flower"), a series of sonnets summarizing {{Lang|fro|[[Le Roman de la Rose]]}}, and {{Lang|it|Detto d'Amore}} ("Tale of Love"), a short narrative poem also based on {{Lang|fro|Le Roman de la Rose}}. These would be the earliest, and most novice, of his known works.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lansing |first=Richard |title=The Dante Encyclopedia |publisher=Garland |year=2000 |isbn=0815316593 |location=New York |pages=299, 334, 379, 734 |language=en}}</ref> {{Lang|it|[[Le Rime]]}} is a posthumous collection of miscellaneous poems.