[303]. On the individual poet as mouthpiece of the clan, see Posnett, Comp. Lit., pp. 130 ff., and Letourneau, Évolution Littéraire, p. 78.
[304]. Purgat., xxiv. 52 ff.:—
Io mi son un che quando
Amor mi spira, noto, ed a quel modo
Che ditta dentro, vo significando.
But it must be read with what precedes and what follows.
[305]. It is almost impertinent to remind the reader of Dante’s famous verses, Purgat., viii. 1 ff. Perhaps Hugo remembers his Dante here. Compare Section iv. of this same Chant.
[306]. The emancipation of woman as an individual begins here in Italy. See M. de Vogüé’s study of the Sforza (in Histoire et Poésie), and the general statement of Burckhardt, Cult. Ital. Ren., I. 144, note 3.
[307]. “Ego velut in confinio duorum populorum constitutus simul ante retroque prospicio,” a saying of Petrarch, would apply better to Dante. The Vita Nuova has psychological analysis enough for ten moderns; but the mediæval in it all conquers the modern, as one feels the moment one turns to Petrarch’s correspondence. Perhaps Norden, Antike Kunstprosa, II. 732, lays too much stress on Petrarch’s backward gaze; he did look backward to the classics, but he was not mediæval. See the charming extracts given in Robinson and Rolfe’s Petrarca.
[308]. Hardly borrowed from the classics, as Gautier hints in general, and asserts for Old French epic. See Benezé, Das Traummotiv in der mhd. Dichtung bis 1250, und in alten deutschen Volksliedern, Halle, 1897, pp. 53 ff.