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