The Figure Of Beatrice

This study of Dante is intended to pay particular attention to the figure of Beatrice and to the relation which that figure bears to all the rest. That figure is presented at the beginning of Dante's first book, for Dante is one of those poets who begin their work with what is declared to be an intense personal experience. That experience is, as such, made part of the poetry; and it is not only so, with Dante, at the beginning, but also when, in his later and greater work, the experience is recalled and confirmed. He defined the general kind of experience to which the figure of Beatrice belongs in one of his prose books, the Convivio (IV, XXV). He says there that the young are subject to a 'stupor' or astonishment of the mind which falls on them at the awareness of great and wonderful things. Such a stupor produces two results-a sense of reverence and a desire to know more. A noble awe and a noble curiosity come to life. This is what had happened to him at the sight of the Florentine girl, and all his work consists, one way or another, in the increase of that worship and that knowledge.