DANTEOVA ASTROPOETIKA – PROEMIO „NOVOG ŽIVOTA”

Abstract

In the period when Dante begins to create his works, there is a strong desire in the western world to reconcile the ancient knowledge of the stars with the tenets of the new Christian doctrine. Its folkloric aspect is almost suppressed and, by applying rational methods of the „new” science, astrology becomes the regina scientiarum, capable of interpreting divine providence that reaches humanity through the stars. However, Dante will reshaping these positions according to the needs of his poetic vision. This work aims to provide a general insight into the poet’s youthful astronomical and astrological understandings and to present in more detail how he approaches the process of reshaping these elements. Since this occurs already in his Vita Nova, special attention will be devoted to the first chapter of this work. Through a careful analysis of numerology, dating, and horoscopes we will explore how the poet uses knowledge of the stars primarily in building the characters of young Dante and Beatrice. Although in Vita Nova emerge only the outline of the poet’s later cosmological thought from the Comedy – where the heavens are understood as expressions of divine perfection that bestows form upon matter and the stars as instruments enriched by the virtue they radiate through light – by examining their functions in the work, we will attempt to show how they become a foundation of the text, determining it formally, structurally and in terms of meaning.