Cavalcanti, Guido
Cavalcanti, Guido
(gwē`dō kävälkän`tē), c.1255–1300, Italian poet; friend of Dante, whose work was greatly influenced by Cavalcanti's style. He belonged to the White faction in the struggle of the Guelphs in Florence and was exiled to Sarzana. There he fell ill with malaria and died soon after his recall. Much of his verse, very little of which remains, is in the Canzone d'amore [song of love]. For translations, see his Sonnets and Ballate (tr. by Ezra Pound, 1912) and Lorna de' Lucchi, An Anthology of Italian Poems (1922).Cavalcanti, Guido
Born 1255 or 1259 in Florence; died there in 1300. Italian poet.
After G. Guinizelli, Cavalcanti became the major poet of the dolce stil nuovo. His canzones and sonnets celebrated sublime love for an idealized woman and attempted to reveal the philosophical meaning of this love. He also composed verses on earthly love, characterized by freshness and spontaneity (for example, his ballad “I Met a Shepherdess in the Woods”).
WORKS
Le rime … edite e inedite. Florence, 1813.In Russian translation:
“Sonety.” In Khrestomatiia po zarubezhnoi literature: Literatura sred-nikh vekov. Compiled by B. I. Purishev and R. O. Shor. Moscow, 1953.