Beyond the Sphere: A Dialogic Commentary on the Ultimate Sonetto of Dante's Vita Nuova

Revolutions: The turning movement through the images of this sonetto involves several eddying, (micro)cosmic motions. We begin already beyond the widest sphere, then penetrate it from this side via love's weeping in a motion that is virtually re-initiated from the heart in a kind of syntactic time-warp. Then comes the thought-sigh's arrival before the lady and its getting lost in the epicycles of honor and splendor and gazing. Then his subtle retelling of the gaze caused by a secondary motion of the heart that first moved it. Then the mystical understanding of the pensero's unintelligible speech through the apophatic anamnesis of the beloved's name. Finally, a gracious love-boast gently expanding towards those who have understanding of love. Con-sider our commentary a love-driven constellation, a double star (binary or optical?) gravitationally caught within these motions, like the subtle turnings of an ungraspable celestial tress.