No learning came amiss to him. He was born a scholar, as he
was born a poet,--and had he written not a single poem, he would still
be famous as the most profound student of his times. Far as he
surpassed his contemporaries in poetry, he was no less their superior
in the depth and the extent of his knowledge. And this double nature of
his genius is plainly shown in many parts of "The New Life." A youthful
incapacity to mark clearly the line between the work of the student and
the work of the poet is manifest in it. The display of his acquisitions
is curiously mingled with the narrative of his emotions. This is not to
be charged against him as pedantry. His love of learning partook of the
nature of passion; his judgment was not yet able, if indeed it ever
became able, to establish the division between the abstractions of the
intellect and the affections of the heart. And above all, his early
claim of honor as a poet was to be justified by his possession of the
fruits of study.
But there was also in Dante a quality of mind which led him to unite
the results of knowledge with poetry in a manner almost peculiar to
himself. He was essentially a mystic. The dark and hidden side of
things was not less present to his imagination than the visible and
plain.
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