Dolce Stil Nuovo, Medieval Theater, and Medieval Stories

Dolce Stil Nuovo

The Dolce Stil Nuovo, christened by Dante, was a fresh new style of a poetic school of thirteenth-century Italian love, applying philosophical ideas of the time. According to the philosophy of the time, she is a recipient of the virtues that emanate from God, hence the frequent descriptions of angels or stars and spiritualized suffering. Love is no longer a sin, but a tool that brings man to God. Next to love (the single topic of the dolce stil nuovo) appears idealized nature in poems composed entirely of idyllic landscapes: spring, flower meadows... Hendecasyllables verbs are used and new stanzas, most notably the sonnet. The influence of this school was enormous: it included Dante, Petrarch, and Garcilaso de la Vega. The best work was Dante's Divine Comedy, a long poem where he tells his allegorical journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.

Medieval Theater

Medieval theater was born in the Church. In the early eleventh century, in the offices of Easter and Christmas, brief dialogues in Latin began to creep in between celebrants and acolytes. In the twelfth century, these rudimentary and liturgical dramas were held in the atrium of the church and in the vernacular. When comic elements intensified, they were moved to the public square. Then the repertory of works expanded by profanity. Three theatrical genres triumphed in the Middle Ages: two of a religious nature: the mysteries and miracles, and one profane, farces. Also, the Dances of Death were widely disseminated. The mysteries were religious-themed plays, taken from the Bible or the lives of saints. Miracles were rooted in pious legends of hell on sinners saved by the intercession of the Virgin. For its part, farces are intended to entertain the listener. In The Dances of Death, various characters are invited to dance with death, without distinction between rich and poor.

Medieval Stories

The story of the fourteenth century belongs to the three best writers of medieval stories: Don Juan Manuel, Chaucer, and Boccaccio. They move to writing a collection of Oriental stories titled A Thousand and One Nights, the most important of Arabic literature. Embedded in a simple storyline, there are stories of various genres and varied themes. Often the introduction of some other stories, by continuous chains that make life a narrator to another. This type of structure will be used later in many works of literature.