新GRE写作名人素材

The Italian poet Dante Alighieri wrote The Divine Comedy, the greatest poetic composition of the Christian Middle Ages and the first masterpiece of world literature written in a modern European vernacular.

Dante lived in a restless age of political conflict between popes and emperors and of strife within the Italian city-states, particularly Florence, which was torn between rival factions. Spiritually and culturally too, there were signs of change. With the diffusion of Aristotles physical and metaphysical works, there came the need for harmonizing his philosophy with the truth of Christianity, and Dantes mind was attracted to philosophical speculation. In Italy, Giotto, who had freed himself from the Byzantine tradition, was reshaping the art of painting, while the Tuscan poets were beginning to experiment with new forms of expression. Dante may be considered the greatest and last medieval poet, at least in Italy, where barely a generation later the first humanists were to emerge.

Dante was born in Florence, the son of Bellincione dAlighiero. His family descended, he tells us, from the noble seed of the Roman founders of Florence and was noble also by virtue of honors bestowed on it later. His great-grandfather Cacciaguida had been knighted by Emperor Conrad III and died about 1147 while fighting in the Second Crusade. As was usual for the minor nobility, Dantes family was Guelph, in opposition to the Ghibelline party of the feudal nobility which strove to dominate the communes under the protection of the emperor.