Dante, Vita Nuova; Lovesick fool

My hubby and flatmate are busy watching My Hero Academia, which makes for a lot of background noise while I try and type but, oh well, that's the joy of the lounge being my only work space. My husband has an assessment, for the job he wants, in a couple of weeks, so hopefully he won't be out of work too much longer.

Story
Vita Nuova (The New Life) is mainly a collection of Dante's poems about Beatrice and documenting his infatuation with her. Dante spends a lot of time venerating Beatrice as, above all other ladies. For a short while, he has everyone convinced he is in love with another woman but he is just using it as a cover. Eventually, the truth comes out and everyone knows how he feels about Beatrice. He can not bring himself to speak to her though, or even acknowledge her greeting, and yet he pines after her. Then, suddenly, she dies and he laments this bitterly, even writing two poems for her brother to mourn her with. He starts to get over her and fixates on another woman but eventually he scorns himself for moving on and goes back to morning Beatrice.

Reflections
Dante is a lovesick fool. He pines for Beatrice and yet cannot even bring himself to see her or talk to her. He, in doing so, paints himself as weak and vacillating. We never see him really take charge of the situation and constructively do anything both before and after her death.
This isn't really a story as we will come to expect from later novels but rather a collection of poems written in and around a series of events.

Comparisons
The New life is a book of a young man in foolish love, by comparison Dante's The Banquet is an older man's thinking, with a little love thrown in for good measure. Dante does not lose his high opinion of love, and of his love, but rather it becomes tempered with other things that are greater, or at least, of similar importance.
The new life also gives a bit of background into the veneration of Beatrice that we see in the Paradiso, though neither explains exactly why he believes her to be such a Paragon of virtue.

Have you read The New Life? If so what did you think of it?

Want to read The New Life but haven't? Hopefully this inspires you to take the time to do so.
Get a copy of The New Life.