STIL NOVO. — Also *dolce stil novo*, an expression that Dante, *Purg.*, XXIV, 57, puts into the mouth of Bonagiunta Orbicciani, to indicate a new poetic manner different from that followed by the notary Jacopo da Lentini, by Guittone d'Arezzo, and by Orbicciani himself.
It was Guido Guinizelli who had initiated this new poetic manner in Bologna, whom Dante calls (*Purg.*, XXVI, 97-99): «the father / of me and of the others who are better than I, who ever / used sweet and graceful love-rhymes». Certainly not without intention, Dante brings Bonagiunta into the discussion, since it was he himself who, in a famous sonnet to Guinizelli (cf. *Rimatori siculo-toscani del Dugento*, 1st series, edited by G. Zaccagni - A. Parducci, Bari 1915, p. 79), reproaches him for having «changed the manner / of the pleasing sayings of love, / of form, of being, where it was, / to surpass every other troubadour».
This means that the Bolognese poet had delved deeper than his predecessors into the nature of amorous passion and the subject in which it resides, as Guido Cavalcanti would later attempt in his famous obscure canzone *Donna me prega*. In doing so, Guinizelli began to employ subtle philosophical concepts drawn from Aristotelian psychology and a language unusual for earlier poets. For this reason, Orbicciani accused him of obscurity and excessive «subtlety», not to mention of wanting «to force a song through the strength of writing». The Bolognese replied to the Lucchese poet: «Birds fly through the air in different ways / and have diverse operations, / nor do they all have the same flight or the same ardor. / God and nature and the world placed them in order / and made their senses and understandings different». It seemed, then, that there was only one «maternity of poetry»; Guinizelli, however, believed that there were as many «manners» as there are «senses and understandings» of men, whom God made unequal. As for «subtlety», «obscure speech», and «forcing a song through the strength of writing», he reminds us that among birds there are not only sparrows and finches, nightingales and larks, but also hawks and eagles: «nor do they all have the same flight or the same ardor». Every poet «must guard his state and his nature», for each poet has his own poetic world, in accordance with his spiritual interests, his education, and his culture.
The «manner» that Bonagiunta reproaches the Bolognese poet for having changed is that of the Notary and Guittone. The uniform and tedious repetition of certain obligatory motifs («love is desire that comes from the heart...», the cruelty of the beloved woman, the hope for «mercy» or «reward», and so on) constituted the «manner» of the poets dear to the Lucchese gourmand. And to express these trite concepts, they used a rough and labored language, replete with archaisms and dialectal forms that jarred the ear of a generation educated in the polished forms of Florentine speech and the harmony of the verse of «the other Guido» and Dante. That there were true poets among the adherents of the old «black manner», and that some of their rhymes still possess the freshness of a clear spring of living water, only proves that poetics is one thing and poetry another. This, however, does not prevent the rise, alongside poetry, of poetic styles or «manners» of composing poetry from time to time, from that of the Sicilians to Petrarchism, Marinism, Romanticism, and Hermeticism. The *dolce stil novo* is a reaction, in the name of poetry, against one such poetic fashion or «manner»; without this reaction, Dante would probably have remained bound to Guittone. And Dante himself, responding to Bonagiunta, affirms that the novelty of his rhymes, beginning with his first great canzone of the *Vita Nuova*: «Donne ch'avete...», consists in his having given expression to the feelings of the inspired soul, without too much concern for the «manner» of the Notary da Lentini or Guittone; for true art of composition does not draw its nourishment from the imitation of models, however excellent, but from inner inspiration, not stifled by technique: «I am one who, when / Love breathes within me, takes note, and in that way / which is dictated within, I strive to express it» (*Purg.*, XXIV, 52-54). To some, this rule of composition seems so little new that they find it all too obvious, in any case sufficient to distinguish true poetry of all times from what is not. But even if this is true, it is no less true that this simple rule has all too often been forgotten before and after Dante, and it was necessary to recall II. And Orbicciani recognizes its relevance for himself as for the Notary and Guittone: «I see well how your pens / follow closely after the manner of composition, / which certainly did not happen with ours. / And whoever looks more closely / sees no further from one style to the other» (ibid., 58-61).
Many modern critics have «looked more closely» and have ended up seeing no longer the knot that secures the substantial difference «from one style to the other»; they have sought it in the content of Stilnovist poetry: now in a certain mysticism, more or less philosophical, more or less Abruzzi-style, Platonic, Franciscan, or Cistercian, and now in a certain «sensistic and averroistic rationalism», traces of which would even be found in the *Vita Nuova*, indeed more in this than in the *Convivio*! And certainly the poetic world of the two Guidos, and even more that of Dante, is far richer and more complex than that of the Sicilians, the Lucchese, and the Aretine, although in Guittone’s poetry motifs already resound that are echoed in the philosophical rhymes of Alighieri. But this greater complexity and richness of content could not have flowed into the forms of Stilnovist poetry unless the «manner» had been changed and the freedom of poetry had been affirmed, nourished by what Love «dictates within» and by all that stirs the soul, from feminine beauty to the horror of the storm, from the trill of the lark to the most inward philosophical meditation.
Understood thus, the *dolce stil novo* was certainly not a school, at least not in Guinizelli, Cavalcanti, and Dante, since each of the three had his own poetic world and his own particular way of expressing II. And if it begins to resemble a school in some of the lesser figures, this is due to the influence exerted by these three masters and to the formation of habits or «manners», as had happened in Sicilian poetry and as was bound to happen with the *dolce stil novo*, until Petrarch infused into it «the weeping of his heart», without, however, preventing a new «manner» from taking its name from him for more than two centuries. The Stilnovist poet, when Love breathes, takes note; and in observing closely the movements of his own soul, he approaches the inexhaustible source of all true poetry. By noting them, he gives form to his own feelings, to his own thoughts, and thus builds his own poetic world, truly his own, because it reflects the aspirations, the spiritual interests, and the problems of his
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creator: a world of moral aspirations in Guinizelli, who discovered the identity of love with nobility and worth, and who, to express this identity, gathers the culture amassed in the schools of philosophy; a world trembling with passion in Guido Cavalcanti, yet veiled in melancholy, in the certainty that amorous seduction, destined to vanish, often diverts the mind from the perfect good and is a cause of death; a world of violent contrasts in Dante and of superhuman harmonies. Dante begins as a Stilnovist under the influence of both Guidos; but soon he introduces into their manner a new motif: the death of the beloved woman. Hence the love for the virginal phantom of Beatrice develops into love for philosophy, first celebrated in allegorical songs that still permit the use of the "sweet rhymes of love" adapted to the "most beautiful and most virtuous daughter of the Emperor of the universe" (Conv., II, XV, 12). This second series of amorous rhymes in praise of philosophy forms what some have called a second *dolce stil novo*. But suddenly Dante interrupts these allegorical songs and, now master of the vernacular, begins to treat philosophical and moral subjects with "harsh and subtle rhyme"; harsh, because stripped of every rhetorical adornment; subtle, because entirely pervaded by the *subtilitas* proper to the art of placing and distinguishing. In his mind, the art of dictation of the Bolognese is being replaced by a more complex poetics, that of the regulated style of the canzone, whose justification is sought in the *De vulgari eloquentia*. Yet even this new poetics proves insufficient when, from the fervor of his all-powerful imagination, arises the idea of the "sacred poem," in which Virgilian humanism fuses with the prophetic and apocalyptic spirit of the Bible.