A totally unique poetic treatise, La Vita Nuova is an elaborately and symbolically patterned selection of Dante's early poems, interspersed with his own incisive prose commentary.

The poems themselves tell the story of his undying love for Beatrice, from their first meeting at a May Day party, through Dante's sufferings and his attempts to conceal the true object of his devotion, to his overwhelming grief at her death, and ending with the transformative vision of her in heaven. These are some of the richest love poems in literature and the movement from self-pitying lament to praise for his beloved's beauty and virtue illustrate the elevating power of love.