Note 173 — CANTO I.
James Romanes Sibbald translation
The style, etc.: Some at least of Dante’s minor works had been given to the world before 1300, certainly the Vita Nuova and others of his poems. To his study of Virgil he may have felt himself indebted for the purity of taste that kept him superior to the frigid and artificial style of his contemporaries, He prided himself on suiting his language to his theme, as well as on writing straight from the heart.