Rilke lettore di Dante: Vita nuova, Commedia ed Elegie duinesi

In his early poetic career Rilke was particularly fascinated by Dante and namely by the Vita nuova. He recommends the book to his friend Wilhelm von Scholz in 1898 and later, in his lecture on Modern Lyric, he claims that modern lyric poetry began with the Vita nuova. In Paris, when he met Rodin and saw him working at The Gates of Hell, Rilke immediately identified the link with the Commedia as his book on the French artist reveals. The “memories of Dante” in the Gates of Hell have left traces in Rilke’s poetry. The poetic itinerary described in the Duino Elegies resembles the pilgrim’s journey in the Divine Comedy in that it is a progress from the desperate lament of the first elegy to the jubilation in the tenth elegy