The Project Gutenberg eBook, Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI, by John
Lord

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI

Author: John Lord

Release Date: December 24, 2003 [eBook #10532]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME
VI***

E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

Editorial note: Project Gutenberg has an earlier version of this work,
which is titled Beacon Lights of History, Volume III,
part 2: Renaissance and Reformation. See E-Book#1499,
http://www.gutenberg.net/etext98/32blh10.txt or
http://www.gutenberg.net/etext98/32blh10.zip
The numbering of volumes in the earlier set reflected
the order in which the lectures were given. In the
current (later) version, volumes were numbered to put
the subjects in historical sequence.

LORD'S LECTURES

BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME VI

RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION.

BY JOHN LORD, LL.D.,

AUTHOR OF "THE OLD ROMAN WORLD," "MODERN EUROPE,"
ETC., ETC.

CONTENTS.

DANTE.

RISE OF MODERN POETRY.

The antiquity of Poetry
The greatness of Poets
Their influence on Civilization
The true poet one of the rarest of men
The pre-eminence of Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, and Goethe
Characteristics of Dante
His precocity
His moral wisdom and great attainments
His terrible scorn and his isolation
State of society when Dante was born
His banishment
Guelphs and Ghibellines
Dante stimulated to his great task by an absorbing sentiment
Beatrice
Dante's passion for Beatrice analyzed
The worship of ideal qualities the foundation of lofty love.
The mystery of love
Its exalted realism
Dedication of Dante's life-labors to the departed Beatrice
The Divine Comedy; a study
The Inferno; its graphic pictures
Its connection with the ideas of the Middle Ages
The physical hell of Dante in its connection with the Mediaeval doctrine
of Retribution
The Purgatorio; its moral wisdom
Origin