h his
spiritual life was enacted, and for showing the conditions under which
his work was done, and by which its character was largely determined.

III

No poet has recorded his own inner life more fully or with greater
sincerity than Dante. All his more important writings have essentially
the character of a spiritual autobiography, extending from his boyhood
to his latest years. Their quality and worth as works of literature are
largely dependent upon their quality and interest as revelations of the
nature of their writer. Their main significance lies in this double
character.

The earliest of them is the 'Vita Nuova,' or New Life. It is the
narrative in prose and verse of the beginning and course of the love
which made life new for him in his youth, and which became the permanent
inspiration of his later years, and the bond of union for him between
earth and heaven, between the actual and the ideal, between the human
and the divine. The little book begins with an account of the boy's
first meeting, when he was nine years old, with a little maiden about a
year younger, who so touched his heart that from that time forward Love
lorded it over his soul. She was called Beatrice; but whether this was
her true name, or whether, because of its significance of blessing, it
was assigned to her as appropriate to her nature, is left in doubt. Who
her parents were, and what were the events of her life, are also
uncertain; though Boccaccio, who, some thirty years after Dante's death,
wrote a biography of the poet in which fact and fancy are inextricably
intermingled, reports that he had it upon good authority that she was
the daughter of Folco Portinari, and became the wife of Simone de'
Bardi. So far as Dante's relation to her is concerned, these matters are
of no concern. Just nine years after their first meeting, years during
which Dante says he had often seen her, and her image had stayed
constantly with him, the lady of his love saluted him with such virtue
that he seemed to see all the bounds of bliss, and having already
recognized in himself the art of discoursing in rhyme, he made a sonnet
in which he set forth a vision which had come to him after receiving his
lady's salute. This sonnet has a twofold interest, as being the earliest
of Dante's poetic composition preserved to us, and as describing a
vision which connects it in motive with the vision of the 'Divine
Comedy.' It is the poem of a 'prentice hand not yet mast