The verb means both to wander, bodily, and to err. It is worth noticing that here Dante gives a concrete spatial significance to the verb «to wander» («errare»), exploiting its polysemia. 5 The most striking example is to be found in chapter XXIII, where Dante evokes his premonitory dream about Beatrice's death: «While my imagination was wandering like this, I came to the point where I no longer knew where I was». The expression «I no longer knew where I was» («io non sapea ove io mi fosse») is another recurrent expression in the Vita Nuova (it occurs in two chapters). Moreover, the paranormal states of consciousness that Dante as protagonist experiences in his libello are often accompanied by a modification in his perception of space, which can result in a complete loss of spatial consciousness. This creates in the reader's mind an oneiric impression, well in keeping with the importance of dreams and visions in the Vita Nuova. 4īut a precise location for the various «mansions» of the moral drama are missing as well. Thus Dante follows his genuine bent of mind, which is, as Frederic Ozanam says in his well known essay on Dante and Catholic philosophy, «a bold, and naturally metaphysical turn of thought, placing itself from the outset in the invisible world, beyond the limits of time and of this earth». This amounts to saying that the poet intends to obliterate such elements of his biographical data as are accidental or atypical _ in order to broaden his own moral drama to a universal dimension. It is my intention to copy into this little book the words I find written under that heading _ if not all of them, at least the essence of their meaning. This must be related to the words of his Proem: However, Florence is frequently alluded to through a periphrasis: as if Dante wanted his text to retain an intermediate position between mere autobiography and moral parable. In fact, the name of the city, the beautiful evocative name, Firenze, is never mentioned. It is also true that, by this negative approach he has achieved something positive, a suggestion of universality: this city in which a moral drama is unfolding could be any city belonging to any time (and the lover could be Everyman). it must be because this world has no significance for the story. If Dante has cut out the sensuous details of his environment. The fact that we do not see, not even once, the name of Florence in what is supposed to be a book of memory, is by no means casual: on the contrary. It echoes the tone of the whole book, which is one of semi-secrecy: this Bildungsroman is an ambiguous and fascinating synthesis of revelation and dissimulation. Dante refers to this place as «the aforementioned city» («la sopradetta cittade») and this little expression functions throughout the narrative as a kind of leitmotiv. Observe that the poet-narrator-glossator never mentions the name of the city that constitutes the evanescent scenery of the story. The contents of the Vita Nuova are presented as autobiographical, and yet precise details are missing _ especially topological indications _ to place the events in the real world. Indeed, if everyone admits that the treatment of space, especially symbolic topology, is central to an understanding of the Comedy, there is no reason for neglecting this element in the Vita Nuova: not only is Dante's treatment of space in this book very complex and elaborate, it is also directly related to his major spiritual concerns. Renewing a Platonic theme, Gaston Bachelard in La Poétique de l'espace argues that «the deepest metaphysics are.
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