Excerpt from Dante

The method followed in this book is sufficiently unusual to justify a few words of explanation. It has been my purpose to present my hero, not as an independent figure, but as the mouthpiece of a great period of the worlds history. I have attempted to trace a portrait of the Middle Ages with Dantes features showing through. At length or in brief according to the degree in which they wore his likeness, various phases of medieval life have been first discust and then illustrated by copious citations from the mighty spokesman. Thus I have hoped to differentiate my study from the many volumes already devoted to the Florentine poet, and, at the same time, to contribute somewhat to the diffusion of knowledge of the interesting but still generally unfamiliar epoch which he represents. For he does represent his time as no other age has ever been represented by any one man. Direct contact with our author is impossible to those ignorant of his language; an approach, however, is afforded by translation. Every passage I have introduced is quoted in English dress. Many of the versions are borrowed from predous translators, but more (all those, in fact, that bear no special label) are my own. In these I have tried to copy the metrical forms of the original as closely as the habits of our tongue permit.

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