Why? Let me count the ways. First, it is epic in scope. If you want to present large themes, you need a large story. Second, it is a national epic, which carries more weight for it captures the character of a nation. Third, the language of the work deeply shaped
the formation of the language of his people, and in this case, Italian. Dante’s Tuscan dialect became the official
Italian language. Fourth, the writing,
which in this case is poetry, is of the highest achievement, that is in terms
of eloquence, sound, rhythm, originality, turn of phrase, metaphor. To listen to it, is like listening to
music. Fifth, the characterization is
realistic, natural, and authentic.
Sixth, the themes are profound.
Seventh, the story is emotionally captivating, aesthetically
constructed, and captures the human condition.
Eighth, the work captures the zeitgeist of the author’s time and
place.
Now
one might say that there are many writers who have produced great works that
might meet all those criteria. One can
cite Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton, Melville, Dickens, Joyce, Twain,
Faulkner, Cervantes, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Goethe, and so on. Why is Dante’s work the greatest? Where Dante supersedes the others is that The Divine Comedy does all that and does
it in a way that is integral to each other.
Here’s what I mean. Ttake what I
consider the three central themes of the work: man must be civically
responsible, man must be true to Christian faith, and that divine beauty shapes
the world. Notice how the three
interlock. All divine commandments
reduce down to Christ’s two commandments, love God with all your heart and love
your neighbor as yourself, which are integrated because by doing one you do the
other. Civic responsibility through
Christian values is an act of loving one’s neighbor, which leads to loving God,
and by loving God one is blessed to see the beauty and perfection of God’s
creation, which reflects God Himself, which generates the beauty of one’s
artistic creativity, which enlightens one’s understanding of one’s neighbor,
which leads to civic responsibility.
Three themes which on the surface seem disparate form a comprehensive
vision. Dante arrives to that vision
through his journey where he encounters sin, justice, redemption, beauty, love,
friendship, morality, responsibility, suffering, holiness, virtue, and so
on. One could write a book how all these
concepts address the three central themes in the work but I’ll have to leave it
at that.
In
addition to the thematic integration, there is a high degree of textual
integration. Events and ideas that
happen in one section, say the Inferno,
are balanced and contrasted in other sections, say in Purgatorio or in Paradiso,
or even in other sections of Inferno. An idea or motif typically may be examined in
all three sections from different perspectives.
While it may appear that Dante the character is moving in an episodic,
disjointed way, there is nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, that is
disjointed. It all interlocks. Finally, that thematic and textual
integration is overlaid with what I’ll call visionary integration, but the
Germans have a more precise word in Weltanschauun.
Dante’s understanding of the world is an integration of the classical
with the Judaic that forms the Christian.
The Old Testament events are pre-figures of the New Testament and the
Classical world provided the metaphysical underpinnings that explained
Judaism. Classical, Judaic, and Christian
motifs all relate to each other in some fashion. So to conclude this, what makes The Divine
Comedy exceed all other works of literary art is the complex thematic, textual,
visionary integration, all presented in an aesthetic construct that harmonizes every
detail. That’s all rather abstract, so I
don’t know if I made myself clear. I’ll
try to present examples as I go forward.
I
can’t give a comprehensive overview for someone completely unfamiliar with The Divine Comedy. You’ll have to read up on the various
websites, but I’ll provide the briefest synopsis I can. The poem is told in first person where Dante
the character has returned from a journey through hell (inferno), purgatory
(purgatorio), and heaven (paradise) which occurred during Easter in 1300. The journey starts on Good Friday where Dante
finds himself lost in a wood in mid life trapped by three beasts and unable to
find the way out. Of course that is all
allegory, and through the aid of divine auspice the spirit of the poet Virgil
is sent to lead Dante out, but the way out is to travel through the three realms
of the dead, Inferno (the realm dislocated from God), Purgatorio (the realm of
purification), and Paradisio (the realm of salvation). The journey then is the most fundamental archetype,
of acquiring knowledge, of release through redemption, and ultimately of
assimilation.
Something
should be said about Dante’s poetic form in the Commedia. Each of the three
canticas is divided into cantos, each cantica having 33 cantos except for the
Inferno, which has 34. Actually that
fist canto in Inferno is the introductory canto where Dante is lost in the earthly
woods, so actually the passage through all three supernatural realms requires
33 cantos, thirty-three the age of Christ at His death. And yet the sum of 34 for Inferno, 33 for
Purgatorio, and 33 for Paradisio totals 100, a harmonious and complete
value. There is a lot of numerology
going on through the Divine Comedy. Each
canto is roughly between 120 to 150 lines in terza rima rhyme [A-B-A, B-C-B,
C-B-C…] scheme. The meter is the hendecasyllable, which is an
eleven syllable line that comes from classical sources but once Dante uses it
in his epic, it becomes the principle meter in Italian poetry. The stresses within the hendecasyllable line
tend to be dactyl, but with enough variation so that it doesn’t feel
repetitive. The combination of the hendecasyllable
line with the terza rima rhyme scheme accentuates a sense of forward
motion. Rhyme schemes that circle back
create a sense of stasis; here the sense is progress.
To
get a feel of the Italian, here is a reading of Canto 2, and I’ll just post the
first 24 lines, where Dante standing on the shores of Purgatory sees the
setting sun and the stars and planets in the sky, and then from the corner of
his eye sees a bright light advancing toward him.
1
|
Già era 'l sole a
l'orizzonte giunto
|
|
2
|
lo cui meridian
cerchio coverchia
|
|
3
|
Ierusalèm col suo più
alto punto;
|
|
4
|
e la notte, che
opposita a lui cerchia,
|
|
5
|
uscia di Gange fuor
con le Bilance,
|
|
6
|
che le caggion di man
quando soverchia;
|
|
7
|
sì che le bianche e le
vermiglie guance,
|
|
8
|
là dov'i' era, de la
bella Aurora
|
|
9
|
per troppa etate
divenivan rance.
|
|
10
|
Noi eravam lunghesso
mare ancora,
|
|
11
|
come gente che pensa a
suo cammino,
|
|
12
|
che va col cuore e col
corpo dimora.
|
|
13
|
Ed ecco, qual,
sorpreso dal mattino,
|
|
14
|
per li grossi vapor
Marte rosseggia
|
|
15
|
giù nel ponente sovra
'l suol marino,
|
|
16
|
cotal m'apparve, s'io
ancor lo veggia,
|
|
17
|
un lume per lo mar
venir sì ratto,
|
|
18
|
che 'l muover suo
nessun volar pareggia.
|
|
19
|
Dal qual com'io un
poco ebbi ritratto
|
|
20
|
l'occhio per domandar
lo duca mio,
|
|
21
|
rividil più lucente e
maggior fatto.
|
|
22
|
Poi d'ogne lato ad
esso m'appario
|
|
23
|
un non sapeva che
bianco, e di sotto
|
|
24
|
a poco a poco un altro
a lui uscio.
|
The quoted lines run to 1:17 on the youtube clip. I’ll
provide the Anthony Esolen translation here for you:
To that horizon had the
sun now come,
an arc that circles
both the hemispheres,
whose zenith stands
above Jersualem,
And night below, in
circling the same way,
rose from the Ganges
with those Scales she drops
when length of darkness
conquers length of day,
So that the white and
rosy cheeks of Dawn,
the lovely heavens,
where I was standing, turned
yellowish orange in the
aging sun.
We were still walking
by the sea, as those
who dwell upon the
journey they will make—
the body lingers, while
the spirit goes—
When, look! just as
surprised by morning haze,
through the dense veils
of mist to westward, Mars
sets in the sea with
all its blushing rays,
Such a light now
appeared—ah may I see
that light once
more—surpassing any flight,
so swiftly did it move
across the sea.
And in that moment when
I turned my sight
to ask my guide about
it, glancing back,
I saw it had grown
greater and more bright,
And then from either
side I caught a glow
of something
seeming-white, and gradually
another gleam emerging
from below.
In
order to prepare oneself to read the Divine Comedy, you should briefly familiarize
yourself with the life of Dante Alighieri.
His life and politics of his day run
throughout the work.
Finally
a word on the translations I used. I don’t
think I can say it better than as I said this over in my summary of my reads
for the 2013 year:
I read two different
translations of Purgatorio because
shortly before I started to read the Durling translation I discovered that
Anthony Esolen, a scholar I hold in high regard, recently had come out with a
translation of The Divine Comedy for
Modern Library Classics. I also found out Esolen was a poet as well as a
medievalist scholar, which I hadn’t known before, and so I got his translation
of Dante and decided to read two translations side by side. Plus I realized
that while I have read Dante’s Divine
Comedy before, my readings of Purgatorio
and Paradisio were cursory. I had
read Inferno several times, know it
fairly well, but I had just blazed through the other two once, and mostly just
to say I had read them. One doesn’t typically read the other two unless one is
majoring in medieval lit or Italian lit. I want to understand and know Dante
like I understand Shakespeare, Homer, and Virgil. And it took me over three
months to read them both. I was saturated in Dante. The differences between the
two translations are noteworthy. The Esolen is certainly more poetic and tries
to hold to Dante’s form. The Durling translation also in meter isn’t so
concerned with maintaining Dante’s tercets and will spread out to four lines if
needed for precision. Also Durling’s translation provides extensive notes.
Esolen too provides notes, but I would say Esolen’s notes mostly focus on
understanding the passage at hand while Durling’s notes crisscrosses the entire
work to show the high integration of the Commedia,
and once you appreciate that integration you can fully understand why I (and
many others) consider it the greatest literary work. I might characterize the
differences in translations this way: Esolen’s is for the undergraduate student
while Durling’s is for the graduate student. But then Esolen’s poetry is excellent,
about as good as any of the Dante translations I’ve ever perused. I’m curious
to see what his original poetry is like.
So
in my posts on Purgatorio I’ll draw
from both the Esolen and Durling translations.
I consider both excellent. Wikipedia
has a page just on the history of the English translations, here. Off that page, the one’s I would endorse are
the Mark Musa and the Robert and Jean Hollander. The Hollander is online here at the PrincetonDante Project, which has a lot of other great resources. Others have recommended the Dorothy Sayers
translation, but I have not sampled it to feel comfortable recommending
it. I grew up on the John Ciardi
translation which was very popular when I was young, and
until recently I might have even recommended it. Perhaps it's dated now. In this recent read, while stacking it
against the Esolen and Durling translations, I found it somewhat deficient. It’s good if that’s what you have, but you
can do better. You can find several
translations on the internet, but since the Hollander is provided free, I have
no idea why you would want to try any of the others.
I realize that this sounds cocky, but I would say that The Lord of the Rings matches your criteria for greatest novel. Perhaps we could make a case for it as English's greatest novel, while The Divine Comedy is that in Italian. :-)
ReplyDeleteI've heard that the Sayers translation is not very good, but that it is worth getting because her notes are superb. Just to toss that in the mix. :-)
Not cocky at all. LOTR is a great epic work that I can see how some might consider it the greatest novel. I hold it in high esteem.
DeleteI've never seen the Sayers translation but I used to use the Ciardi translation myself. I think both the ones I mention here are better than the Ciardi. They certainly have better explanatory notes. Thanks for stopping by. :)