One
of the points I wish to point out in these cantos is the culmination of all the
poets in Canto XXVI, where we get more of Dante’s poetic “fathers,” Guido
Guinizzelli and Arnaut Daniel. We have
seen quite a few poets up to now. In
Inferno there was Bertran de Born and Brunetto Latini. Though he was still alive we heard of Dante’s
friend and fellow poet, Guido Calvancanti when we met his Guido’s father in Inferno’s sixth circle. In Limbo, where Virgil resides, we met some
of the great Latin poets of Ovid, Horace, and Terrance. Of course there is Virgil, who has been
Dante’s guide. On the lower regions of
purgatory we met Casella, who not exactly a poet, set poetry to music, and we
met Sordello, a Troubadour poet from northern Italy. In the middle regions of the purgatorial
terraces we met Statius, an ancient Roman pagan poet, but Dante the author
re-writes his biography to now include a Christian conversion. On the terrace of gluttony we met Date’s
friend and cousin-in-law, Forese Donati who as an amateur poet traded farcical
poems with Dante. Forese points out
Bonagiunta de Lucca, whose poetry Dante had once criticized. And now we come to the terrace of lust where
Dante meets two masters of love poetry he greatly admired. The intensity and frequency of poets
encountered seem to be accelerating.
What
to make of it? As I’ve mentioned, there
are three major themes that are at the center of the Commedia, the journey for the formation of one’s soul to be in
harmony with the divine, the proper organization and authority of governing
society and the church, and the formation of poetic work and language to
reflect the beauty of God’s creation. I’ve
also tried, perhaps not very well, to point out that these three themes are
also integrated, though on the surface they may appear disparate. The secular and church authority are there to
shape the lives of the citizens so that they can through their free will attain
harmony with God. Poetry is there to
instruct men toward the divine as well as praise God and His creation.
Since
these poets in purgatory are all undergoing their respective corrective
penances, it suggests that their poetry failed to live up to the high order of
worthiness that would reflect God. With
Statius we know it’s not his poetry but his lack of courage to declare himself
a Christian that held him back. But with
Bonagiunta, Guinizzelli, and Arnaut we are dealing with poets of courtly love,
though perhaps all in different styles.
Dante too is a poet of courtly love.
This exchange between Dante and Bonagiunta in Canto XXIV is most
fascinating. He asks Dante if he is the
one who wrote a particular poem in the New Style.
'But tell me if I see
before me
the one who brought forth
those new rhymes
begun with Ladies that have intelligence of love.'
And I to him: 'I am one
who, when Love
inspires me, take note
and, as he dictates
deep within me, so I set
it forth.'
'O my brother,' he said,
'now I understand the knot
that kept the Notary,
Guittone, and me
on this side of the sweet
new style I hear.
'I clearly understand
that your pens follow
faithfully whatever Love
may dictate,
which, to be sure, was
not the case with ours.
'And he who takes the
next step sees in this
what separates the one
style from the other.'
Then, as though with
satisfaction, he was silent. (Purg. XXIV. 49-63)
As
Hollander points out in his commentary, these lines are a bit allusive and what
they mean is controversial. Let me give
you what I think.
Uncertain
of who is before him, Bonagiunta asks Dante if he is the poet who wrote in the
new style, especially that poem beginning with “Ladies that have intelligence
of love.” Dante confirms it and goes on
to say he wrote of love that came from deep within him. Bonagiunta confirms the difference in style
and understands that Dante’s pen followed whatever love might dictate. Bonagiunta wrote of typical courtly love,
while Dante’s poetry was more philosophic in nature.
Then
in Canto XXVI Dante meets the “father” of that new style, Guido Guinizzelli,
and Guido is in the terrace of lust.
Also in Canto XXVI we meet Arnaut Daniel, also undergoing penance in the
terrace of lust, and Arnaut is known for writing in the vernacular language. Dante too is known for writing in his Tuscan
Italian, which makes Arnaut also a poetic father. Both poetic fathers are in the terrace of
lust, or perhaps more accurately the terrace of disordered love.
Let’s
return to Statius because he was a poet who was able to reach salvation. Statius considered Virgil his “mama” because
he showed him how to write poetry, but it was Virgil’s Eclogue coupled with
meeting Christians that led Statius to reach faith. Pagan philosophy could only go so far. Indeed in Virgil’s discourse on love to
Dante, Virgil was able to outline the philosophic arguments but could not
complete the dissertation because philosophy could only go so far and faith was
needed to complete the understanding. The
philosophic argument aligns with the Cardinal Virtues while what is needed are
what one learns from the Christian Virtues.
Indeed, there is a tension between the limits of the Cardinal Virtues
and the Christian Virtues throughout Purgatorio.
One
other thing to look back to before I pull this all together into a thesis, and
that is Dante’s second dream of the Siren.
We see the Siren, through her mellifluent voice and song seducing
Dante. Though she starts out as an ugly
creature, she begins to look more beautiful as the seduction takes root. Her beauty is an illusion that arises out of
Dante’s mind.
So
if Dante says to Bonaguinta hat he wrote of love that came from “deep within
him,” and this love was based on philosophic learning and therefore limited,
can we now surmise that this love, just as the Siren was distorted because he
reformulated her image from within himself, was also distorted? Can we now surmise that his early poetry
spoke of a disordered love because it lacked the Christian Virtues of faith,
hope and charity? It is this realization
that leads to Dante’s the character’s growth.
The fullness of this realization will occur shortly when he meets
Beatrice.
I
don’t know if this is the correct reading, but it’s how I read it.
###
Here
are some random thoughts on these cantos.
So
where is the proper role of the poet shown?
Well, we still have Paradisio,
and can consider the beauty and instruction of that last cantica to be the
culmination of Dante the poet developing into a divine artist, one that shows
humanity the proper way to live with God and to praise God with sublime
beauty. But we do get an early inkling
at the beginning of Canto XXVIII where Dante begins to explore Earthly
Paradise.
Eager to explore the
sacred forest's boundaries
and its depth, now that
its thick and verdant foliage
had softened the new
day's glare before my eyes,
I left the bank without
delay
and wandered oh so slowly
through the countryside
that filled the air
around with fragrance.
A steady gentle breeze,
no stronger than the
softest wind,
caressed and fanned my
brow.
It made the trembling
boughs
bend eagerly toward the
shade
the holy mountain casts
at dawn,
yet they were not so much
bent down
that small birds in the
highest branches
were not still practicing
their every craft,
meeting the morning
breeze
with songs of joy among the
leaves,
which rustled such
accompaniment to their rhymes
as builds from branch to
branch
throughout the pine wood
at the shore of Classe
when Aeolus unleashes his
Sirocco. (Purg. XVIII. 1-21)
Now
that he is in earthly paradise the language does get prettier, and it sounds
even better in his gorgeous Italian.
What also catches my attention are the bird’s songs of joy, and he links
them to poetry by referring to their lines as rhymes. They are singing in heavenly praise, and this
is the role of the poet. Consider that
the only musical note in hell was a demon’s fart and we will see in Paradisio how the heavens themselves
create celestial music. Music gets more
sublime as the journey heads toward God.
One can consider the Commedia
as a Bildungsroman where Dante the character learns the true nature of poetry.
Do
you think it’s an accident that the canto prior to entering the terrace of lust
is where Dante the author has Statius describe how sexual intercourse leads to
the begetting of people and their souls?
If you’ve learned anything by now, there is nothing that is an accident
in this work. Of course it isn’t.
There
are three nights spent on purgatory and each night Dante has a dream. These dreams occur in the ninth, eighteenth
(carrying over into the nineteenth), and the twenty-seventh cantos. So every ninth canto. Your annotations probably explain that Dante
in real life met Beatrice when he was nine years old, again when he was
eighteen, and then completes his great poem of her, La Vita Nuova, at age
twenty-seven. This nine year pattern is
part of the intricate and complex numerology of the entire work, which I can’t
say I completely understand. Finally
Beatrice first appears to Dante in Canto XXX, a multiple of ten, which is a
number of perfection.
Let’s
compare the three dreams. The first
dream is of an eagle that carries Dante away.
As it turns out when he awoke, St. Lucy had carried him up from Ante-Purgatory
to Purgatory proper, where the terraces begin.
The second dream is of the siren who attempts to seduce Dante but St.
Lucy appears and has Virgil reveal her true nature, all inside the dream. The third dream has Leah from the Old
Testament appear gathering flowers in a meadow and refers to her sister Rachel
staring into a mirror fixed on her own eyes.
Is there any coordinating pattern to these dreams? Women seem to be at the center of each of
them, but it’s hard to find anything else.
Each
of the dreams do have particular motifs that get carried forward outside the
dream. Rachel’s eyes highlights the eyes
motif that comes up frequent, especially in these recent cantos. Beatrice’s eyes are her distinguishing
feature, and we will see that when she finally meets Dante she will have them
veiled along with the rest of her face.
But it is her eyes that Dante recalls frequently throughout. It is interesting to note that St. Lucy is
the patron saint of eyesight. As a
martyred woman in the fourth century, she had her eyes plucked out.
Matelda
in Canto XXVIII is a rather curious character.
She is there only to guide Dante about Earthly paradise. One would have expected Beatrice here, or,
perhaps, St. Lucy, who has been frequently popping up to assist the journey, but
Dante the author introduces a new character.
Hollander cites some of the debate on her role. He says that she represents the unfallen
Eve. Also, just as Leah and Rachel are
opposites in the active life and the other in contemplative, Matelda is the
active to Beatrice the contemplative.
I’m not entirely convinced by that.
Beatrice has so much more weight in the story, that the balance between
active and contemplative would be distorted.
Finally
the tension that Dante the author creates in having Dante the character hang
fire from entering the purgatorial fire is immense. What tension.
Is the fire from the terrace of lust this same fire that one has to
pass? Hollander seems to imply so, but
to me that last fire seems separated from the terraces. This final fire is one that all souls must
pass, whether they needed to purify from lust or not. It seemed that the path up the mountain
reached a dead end at this fire, and to go forward one has to pass through
it. This is the only place where Dante
the character has to undergo penance throughout the pilgrimage. He didn’t have to carry that boulder in the
terrace of pride or be forced to run in the terrace of sloth. But here he has to pass this fire, which is
another reason why I think it is separate from the terrace of lust.
I
should note that this final fire that all have to pass through is the only
Catholic dogma (as per 1 Cor 12-15) concerning purgatory in the entire
Purgatorio. The rest is all out of
Dante’s imagination.
