Metaphor from the Inferno and Purgatorio to the Paradiso

There are difficulties involved in establishing the chronology of Dante’s development as a lyric poet, but it seems safe to say that after 1296 and the ‘petrose’ (if the astrological allusion that opens ‘Io son venuto al punto de la rota’ does indicate that date, as seems likely), he would never again write poetry with as little metaphor in it as he did in the years of the stil novo. The later doctrinal canzoni are all highly metaphorical, as are the sonnets exchanged with Cino da Pistoia, where the technique of creating bold metaphors by replying ‘per le rime’ is developed in ways that would have been unthinkable at the stage of ‘Com piU vi fere Amor’. 1