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The first great master of the new world was Dante, but not the Dante of the exquisite sentiment but artificial form of the Vita Nuova, but the great imaginative realist of the Divine Comedy, the artist who could portray the passion and pain of Francesca and her lover, and with equal power the masterful figure of Farinata, whose dauntless soul not hell itself could quell; who could pass from the vivid drama of the fierce contemporary life of Italy to the infinite peace of those to whom 'la sua voluntade è nostra pace'. For indeed it is this which places Dante among the supreme poets of the world, that there is no aspect of the reality of human life and experience which is strange to him, and which the greatness of his imagination cannot make living to us.
Advancing thus through the gamut of human experience he might have closed the scene with the immortal line loved of all poets: "In sua voluntade e nostra pace." Thus indeed, reviewing Longfellow's life as a whole, we discern his days to be crowded with incident and experience.
I do not say greedy enjoyment, voluntade, but I write it with a p, voluptate, that is, delight or pleasure free from pain; and therefore between pleasure and pain no mean was placed. He said that pleasure was no other than no pain; as Tullius seems to say in the first chapter De Finibus.
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