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Or again, contrast his world with Dante's, where the profoundest imagination and sensibility project themselves into a phantasmagoria. In the change to Shakspere we are tempted to say that we have lost heaven and escaped hell, but have taken fresh hold on earthly life and found in it unmeasured richness and significance.
They do not, however, give us so extraordinary an impression of the strength and keenness of Dante's powers of observation as many a passage in the Divine Comedy in which Ravenna and the rude and fierce world of the Romagna of that day live for ever. It is in answer to the inquiries of the great Guido of Montefeltro that Dante speaks of Romagna in the Inferno.
Yet in the scene of those who "go down quick into hell," there is an invention about the fire taking hold on the upturned soles of the feet, which proves that the design is no mere translation of Dante's words, but a true painter's vision; while the scene of the Centaurs wins one at once, for, forgetful of the actual circumstances of their appearance, Botticelli has gone off with delight on the thought of the Centaurs themselves, bright, small creatures of the woodland, with arch baby face and mignon forms, drawing tiny bows.
And so the river bore me on, past the alien face of antique civilizations and the familiar wonders of Greece, till I swam upon the fiercely rushing tide of the Middle Ages, with its swirling eddies of passion, its heaven-reflecting pools of poetry and art; I heard the rhythmic blow of the craftsmen's hammers in the goldsmiths' workshops and on the walls of churches, the party-cries of armed factions in the narrow streets, the organ-roll of Dante's verse, the crackle of the fagots around Arnold of Brescia, the twitter of the swallows to which St.
So Dante's boyhood was not spent like that of some other poets, in the midst of books alone, or in the quiet seclusion of school and college. He was thrown neck and heels into the midst of the fiery Italian politics of an age when one could poniard his enemy on the streets and go unpunished, providing he had power or influence. And it is probable that he saw many wild doings.
The love poetry of Tottel's Miscellany is polished and artificial, like the models which it followed. Dante's Beatrice was a child, and so was Petrarch's Laura. Following their example, Surrey addressed his love complaints, by way of compliment, to a little girl of the noble Irish family of Geraldine.
They were mounted upon fancy-colored and spotted horses, which they prize above all others. One day we met an Spokane Indian, of very striking appearance, with a face like Dante's, but with a happier expression.
Greater; and also, if we compute strictly, as we did in Dante's case, more successful.
Brandan's isle, in distant, unattainable seas; or as Dante's mountain of Purgatory, a very solid mountain indeed, yet which, for some mysterious and unquestioned reason, people never stumbled upon except after death.
All the arts poetry, painting, sculpture, and music were alike dear to him. We believe it to be the happiest version of one of Dante's minor poems that exists in our language, and every student of the poet will recognize the success with which very great difficulties have been overcome.
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