Dante's emotions: Tears and smiles between time and eternity

Dante’s Emotions: Tears and Smiles between Time and Eternity reveals the centrality of tears and smiles in the development of Dante’s poetics and in his theological reflection, suggesting, for the first time, the paramount role which Dante played within the history of emotions.

Starting from the Vita Nuova, this study shows that the representation of tears marks the gradual passage from Dante’s total adherence to the tradition of love poetry to his detachment from it, through the conversion...