The literary movement of the 13th century in Italy - "the sweet new style"

This is the third influential lyrical school in medieval Western European poetry, after the Provencal and Sicilian, which originated in Bologna at the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century. It is easy to find out that the poets of this school draw inspiration from the exquisite love confessions that predominate in the intimate lyric of the troubadours. As a lyrical tendency, the "sweet new style" is the result of the dynamic development of mental attitudes and intellectual insights that have formed in the bosom of Provencal school. The poetry created by the "Sweet New Style" is strongly influenced by the concepts and pictorial techniques developed in the late medieval Sicilian lyrical school.

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"Sweet new style" is considered in Italian early-Renaissance poetry as an important stage in the process of deepening psychological analysis in European intimate lyrics. The zealous entanglement of the loved one comes into the forefront of the Sicilian poetic school that was born in the first half of the 13th century. It is formed by a circle of poet poets, sheltered in the courtyard of Friedrich II Schwabsky, which defends the palace's knightly ideal of love. Today, the notion that the word "sweet style" ) does not define either a distinct Italian school or a single strand in the European intimate lyric. The uplifting to the perfection of heavenly love through the inspiration received by the beloved lady is achieved by each poet who has joined the circle, so that in this urge to the ideal the stylists could not be regarded as participants in a unified school. In fact, their circle can be defined as a school solely on the basis of their united pursuit of formal perfection of the lyrical expression, ie. on the basis of their zealous effort to achieve the "sweet style" in expressing their love aspirations. According to the Italian literary critic Gabriele Balde (1919-1969), it would be more accurate to speak of "sweet and fine poems" (rime dolci e leggiadre, see song XXVI of "Purgatory") than to accept the expression "sweet new style "by which Dante describes only his own poetic style, not the style of the whole poetic circle.

As a founder of the poetic circle "The sweet new style, Guido Guinitseli is honored. From Florence to the stylistic community, Cavalcanti, Dante Alighieri,Gianni, Alphani, Frescobaldi are included. Stylists build their intellectual superiority over the acquired individual culture, which, in their life experiences, accumulates alone. They live with the self-confidence of free intellectuals who are not tied to a particular princely court and prove themselves in the context of a more liberal urban environment. Hence, their notion of love is not bound by the rules of palatial gallantry, but is inspired by antique and medieval philosophical doctrines studied at the University of Bologna. The poets of the sweet new style New Circle are committed to defining the origin and nature of the love experience and to explain its various manifestations - grief, joy and passionate longing, as the states of the loving individual's consciousness. In the study of human consciousness, they are influenced by the philosophic doctrine of St. Bonaventure, the father of the medieval mystic, referred to as "metaphysics of light" . According to this doctrine, light is a manifestation of the spiritual power of the Higher Being, whose energy is transformed by angel spirits into a heavily driven and intellectually elevated people.