“Because you know you’re young in beauty yet”
By: Dante Alighieri
Summary of Introduction (pg 70)
World Literature – An Anthology of Great Short Stories, Poetry, and Drama
The introduction talks about the history of Dante. Dante is best known for the ‘Divine Comedy’, a work that many consider to be the greatest poem of the Middle Ages and for making Italian a literary language.’ Dante was born in Florence, Italy into a noble family. He received a fine education in the classics. In 1302, while visiting Rome, Dante was wrongly convicted in Florence, which resulted in him never being able to return to Florence. Nineteen years later he died in Ravenna, Italy, and became famous and an honored writer.
An important element in his poetry is courtly love, a tradition that developed and also flowered in European poetry of the twelfth century. Given Dante’s stature as a poet, the role of women in most of his poetry contributed to the development. Most of his poems deal with some aspect of love.
One of Dante’s greatest works was the ‘Divine Comedy’. Here is a long summary of what’s it about - http://www.enotes.com/divina-commedia
“Because you know you’re young in beauty yet”
By: Dante Alighieri
Because you know you’re young in beauty yet
And stir the mind to Love you once look toward,
With pride like stone your maiden heart is barred.
You turn a proud and stonelike face to me
Because you feel my death is worth a try:
I think that you have done it just to see
Whether by force of Love a man can die.
But though you find none loves you more than I,
For grief I bear, you show me no regard.
Love take you then, and let his rule be hard!
Questions:
1. What attitude does the speaker accuse the woman of having toward him? Is he correct in his analysis of why she has rejected him? What other possible reasons could she have for her actions?
· A stonelike uncaring face. Yes. She’s married, or waiting for a special someone to come back to her.
2. Why does the speaker persist in loving someone who does not love him?
· He wants to maybe change her sense of reasoning, to grieve for him and his future death. He thinks he’s the only one who loves her the most. Excerpt from the poem “But though you find none loves you more than I.”
3. What is the speaker’s state of mind? How do his emotions affect his actions?
· Lovesick. Heading for his self inflicted suicide from love, maybe?
4. Should the woman treat the speaker with greater sympathy and understanding? Why or why not?
· No, it seems like she hardly knows him. He just one day stared at her, and thought ‘true love’ but she might not think it is.
Analyzing
1. What does Dante’s use of apostrophe achieve in the poem?
· To get to the next line of thought.
2. What is the central image in the poem? How does the image work to convey the speaker’s emotions?
· A girl who doesn’t love the main character guy back and she want to see him die.
3. Examine the structure of his poem. What happens in each stanza? How do the two stanzas relate to each other?
· (1) Talking about a young girl’s beauty and love for her. (2) Talking about how the girl turns to look at him and he shows her love, but she doesn’t return it.
Writing
1. The poem is leaning more towards the courtly love of sorrow.
2. As I turn and stare at the man
Who seems so love longing towards me
To tell by my expression
I pity him, and a look of lost daze
Shone in his eyes
To tell him the truth,
I love someone else
· Assonance The repetition of vowel sounds in non-rhyming words (ship in distress)
o Ex: Me, See. (long vowel sound) Regard, Hard. (Long vowel sound) Try, I. (Long vowel sound) Like in the poem of “You turn… to me… I think… just to see.”
· Connotation The attitudes and feelings associated with a word. These associations can be negative or positive, and have an important influence on style and meaning.
o Ex: Death; Love. One of the examples from the poem is “Because you feel my death is worth a try… Whether by force of Love…”
· Denotation The literal or dictionary definition of a word.
o Ex: Pride like stone. “Like pride like stone your maiden heart is barred.”
· Diction An author’s choice of words based on their correctness, clarity, or effectiveness.
o Ex: Stonelike. “You turn a proud and stonelike face to me.”
· Metaphor A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things that are basically different but have something in common. Unlike a simile, a metaphor does not contain the words like or as.
o Ex: Maiden, Man. Heart, Love. Look, See. Turn, Toward.
· Onomatopoeia The use of a word whose sound suggests its meaning (e.g. clang, buzz, twang).
o Ex: There are no examples of onomatopoeia in the poem.
SOUTH DAKOTA 12TH GRADE READING STANDARDS FULFILLED
12th Grade12.R.1.1 (Synthesis) Students can interpret the meaning of unfamiliar words using context clues to extend vocabulary.
Barred: context clue of ‘banned’ near this word helps to define what barred means.
12th Grade
12. R.2.1 (Evaluation) Students can evaluate how style affects the meaning of text.
The style of Dante’s poem ‘Because you know you’re young in beauty yet.’ Gives the image of a guy looking at a maiden with eyes full of love for her, but she doesn’t feel the same way.
12th Grade
12.R.3.1 (Analysis) Students can analyze text for the authors’ style.
The author’s style is using assonance to create an overall image in few words
12th Grade
12.R.4.1. (Evaluation) Students can evaluate the depiction of human experience in literary works from diverse cultures, locations, and time periods.
The time period that was used, and he was born in was the 1300’s.