Here is my final draft for the poem explication. I forgot to post my rough draft, but that's okay because this one is better.
Guido Guinizelli, the author of the poem “Love and Nobility”, was born around 1230 to an Italian merchant family and died in 1276. Guido was the founder of the organization and poetry movement, the Dolce Stil Nuovo translated as the “sweet new style.” He was one of the first poets to speak of a woman in divine terms, breaking the tradition of the times and turning a new page in poetry. Dante being strongly influenced by Guido, called him his “literary father.” In “Love and Nobility”, Guido addresses love, nobility, virtue, and what the heart should possess in order to obtain a love worthy of the approval of Christ. Guido Guinizelli’s most famous poem, “Love and Nobility”, assesses love and what the heart must have to possess a true love. The literal meaning of the poem is not very obvious since it mostly deals with the philosophical side of love, quickly diving into the metaphorical meaning of the poem. In the last stanza, however, the narrator talks of a hypothetical situation of when he is being judged for his improper love for the woman and his defense. In this hypothetical scenario, the narrator is imagining himself in front of God on Judgement Day, and God is questioning him about his love for this woman, and the man is giving his defense. The narrator of “Love and Nobility” is a man talking about love to the woman he is in love with and what that kind of love should look like. The tone of the poem is didactic and it seems like he is teaching a class, and he even goes so far as to seem pedantic, going into every detail. The mood of the poem, especially in the last stanza in the hypothetical scenario, came off a defensive, like he was justifying his love for the woman.
“Love and Nobility” is a well structured, affecting the rhythm and flow of the poem. Each stanza is ten lines long but the line length varies from long to short, giving the poem rhythm when it is read. The stanzas are also well patterned, affecting the way the poem is read and giving it rhythm and flow when it is read. The second to last line in each stanza is shorter than all the rest and have a rhyming couplet at the end of each stanza. Also, in the first three stanzas, the second line contains a simile, but not in the fourth stanza, making the fourth stanza a transitioning point. The first three stanzas talk more about love and the last three stanzas talk more about nobility, reenforcing the fourth stanza transition. The first five stanzas seem like a lecture but the last stanza breaks the pattern and the narrator starts talking about a hypothetical situation, making it seem more casual and remorseful.
The hypothetical scene in the last stanza of the poem is unlike any of the others. The first five stanzas are talking about the ideals of a noble love, but then the narrator starts talking about being judged for his love of the woman. He knows that his love for the woman is wrong, but he has kept loving her anyway. This is the whole reason that the narrator is talking about love and nobility; because he wants to resolve and fix his love and make it acceptable in the sight of God. He knows that his former love is wrong and he started talking to the woman about changing it and making it acceptable. The last stanza is him talking to God about his love before he had the opportunity to change their love. His defense admits that before he thought abut changing his love, he thought that everything was okay. The last line of the poem says; “What harm occurred if my love in her was placed?” (line 60). This hypothetical scenario was taking place in his mind before his revelation about noble hearts and love, but then he realized the fault in his ways. The first five stanzas display his revelation about nobility and loving in a way that Christ would approve of.
Guido Guinizelli starts off his poem with the simile; “Love always repairs to the noble heart Like a bird winging back into its grove...” (lines 1-2). This first simile in the simile pattern means that love belongs in a noble heart. The second stanza focuses more on how the nobility and love gets inside of the heart. The imagery of the Sun and the newly introduced stars help the author portray the relationship between love and nobility. The Sun is not the objects that bestows the nobility into the heart, but rather what cleanses the heart of all it’s impurities, preparing the heart for nobility. The stars are the objects that bestow nobility into the heart, preparing it for love. “The value does not come down from the stars/ Until the Sun has blenched the stone all pure.”(lines 13-14). The connection between the Sun, the stars and the heart are similar to the relationships between the Father, the Son and humans. The Son came down and purified us from all of our sins, preparing us to be able to face the Father, similarly to the Sun in “Love and Nobility”. The Father is the stars in the poem that inject the heart with nobility. Then Guido compares the love between the Father and humans to the type of love that a woman and man should have. Connecting back the the Bible, the narrator is saying that we should love each other as we love Christ. The love between a man and a woman should mirror the love between the Father and humans. In line 22 Guido says; “...Like a waving flame atop a burning brand” (line 22), meaning that nobility not also belongs in a noble heart, but will stay in a noble heart. It could also convey that if love is used in the wrong way, could end up burning and harming someone in the process. Reenforcing this idea, he says; “Yet a nature which is still debased/ Greets love as water greets fire,/ With the cold hissing against the heat.”(lines 25-27). Like water and fire, love without nobility will never last. Guido also uses imagery to convey the meaning of his poem. In the fourth stanza he uses the images of the “Sun” and the “mud”;
“Sun beats against the mud the livelong day;/
Mud it remains; Sun does not lose its ray;/
The haughty one says: “I am noble by my tribe./”
He is the mud; Sun is the noble power.” (lines 31-34).
In this stanza, the Sun represents nobility in its purest form and the mud represents a man who claims to be noble, but in his heart, he is not sincerely noble. Even though the Sun beat down upon the mud, the mud did not change at all and never became noble, so the mud will never understand or have noble love. In the fifth stanza, Guido returns to talking about how the love between a man and woman should reflect the love of Christ in lines 47 through 49; “In the same way, in all truth, the beautiful lady/ Should behave, for in her eyes reflects the desire/ Of a noble man” (lines 47-49). When he says in the same way, he is referring back to earlier in the stanza when he was talking about God. Reflecting Christian morals, the narrator talks about how the love of a man and woman needs love, virtue and nobility.
In 1 Corinthians 13, known as the “Love Chapter”, talks about love and what virtues should accompany love, like patience and protection. Similarly, “Love and Nobility” talks about the virtues and nobility that should go with love to make it acceptable to Christ. “Love nestles deep inside nobility...For without virtue, heart has no noble worth.” (lines 8 and 38). So, love must have nobility, and nobility must have virtue, so love must also have virtue. In those two lines, Guido sums up the meaning of his poem. Christian virtues and nobility are the two necessities that a heart must have to possess a love that is acceptable to God.
The love in Love and Nobility by Guido Guinizelli portrays what true love should look like and how, in order to have a love approved by God, there must first be a noble heart. Not only that, but the nobility requires virtue. So, the love that is portrayed in Love and Nobility closely mirrors the love that is spoken of in the Bible and how the love requires virtue. Love must dwell in a noble heart, and a noble heart must have virtue, so to have a love that is true and approved by God, the love must be rooted in virtue.
Works Cited
- “Love and Nobility.” The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Sarah Lawall and Maynard Mack. 7th ed. Vol. 1. New York, NY: W. W. Norton &, 1999. 1215-1216. Print.
- Guido Guinicelli. Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. 6th ed. Columbia University Press. 2011.
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