The pilgrim continues to retreat from the fierce animals but suddenly he is confronted by a shadowy figure While I was fleeing to a lower place When I saw him in that vast wilderness The shade replies revealing that he is the shade of Virgil the great roman poet He answered "Not a man, though once I was. I was born under Julius Caesar (though late in his reign) I was a poet and I sang of that just He asks the pilgrim why he is heading back to the wretched misery of the dark forest rather than climbing the mountain towards paradise "But you, why do you turn back to wretchedness? The pilgrim is overwhelmed with joy at the realisation that this is his hero, the Roman poet Virgil "Are you Virgil that source "You are the glory of all other poets you are my master and my 'author' After commenting on the eventual fate of the three beasts, Virgil reveals that he has been asked to be the pilgrim's guide, first through hell, the place people burn hopelessly, and then through purgatory where they burn hopefully! "Therefore for your sake I think it wise where you shall hear despairing cries And after, you shall see the ones who are content Finally he reveals that he cannot take the pilgrim into heaven (paradise) itself because he has not been counted fit by God. Another (Beatrice) will lead the pilgrim there "Should you desire to ascend to these, For the Emperor who lives on high Everywhere He reigns and there He rules. The pilgrim readily accepts the offer of guidance and help. And I answered: 'Poet, I entreat you. lead me to these realms you speak of Inferno Canto 1:61-87; 112-135 Just as Dante the pilgrim is about to re-enter the dark forest, despairing of ascending the mountain and finding the light of God, a strange, shady form appears in front of him. Amazingly, (since he had been dead for over a thousand years) it is Virgil, the famous Roman poet and Dante's literary hero. In Dante's day Virgil was perhaps the most famous Latin author and it is clear that Dante admired him greatly. He was most famously the author of an epic poem called the Aeneid, the story of the journey of the Trojan hero Aeneas after the destruction of Troy by the Greeks, to Italy where he founded the city of Rome. The book, written in Latin, is written in verse and deals with heroic and epic themes and includes a famous (and hugely influential) visit by the hero, Aeneas, to the underworld, where he sees various characters from mythology and from his own life and the punishments and rewards they experience. And yet although we shouldn't be surprised that Dante employs as his (and our guide) to the afterlife someone who had written so masterfully on such themes before, it is a surprising and 'edgy' choice. Part of the genius of Dante is that time and time again we are challenged morally and intellectually by the choices he makes. The readers of Dante's day would have been surprised that a pagan author would play such a crucial role in the story. Here, right at the beginning Virgil acknowledges his distance from the Christian vision. He says he does not belong in paradise so another must guide Dante the pilgrim through that part of his adventure. He was alive during the time of the false and lying gods (presumably implying his own part in their devotion). He confesses that he was a rebel against His law. So, a man who did not know Christ as saviour and Lord will guide the pilgrim away from the forest of dark ignorance and sin towards the light! Because the poem is so well known we barely bat an eyelid at this choice but at the time it was a remarkable one. Dante could have employed a Christian guide, the Apostle Paul (who had visited paradise while he was alive), a church father such as Augustine whose writings had helped to define church thinking on the afterlife, or even, perhaps, as in earlier tours of hell and heaven, an angel. But he didn't. He chose the pagan poet Virgil. But the reasons for that choice help us to understand his purpose in writing the Commedia and the manner in which he writes it. The stories we tellVirgil's great poetic epic was never intended for human eye. When he died in 19BC he was travelling with the emperor Augustus. The work was unfinished (or at least not finished to his satisfaction) and he ordered that upon his death it should be destroyed. Augustus overruled the wishes of the dead poet and it was duly 'published'. The decision is easy to understand. The poem is a foundation myth for Rome. In the ancient world worth was measured by antiquity and origin. If your civilisation was very old and you could prove some connection with the gods, your civilisation 'counted'. So, for example, although there was prejudice and at times violence against the people from Judea (i.e. the Jews as we now call them) there was also great respect for them because of their antiquity and because of their 'famous lawmaker', Moses, who had clearly been in touch with the gods! Rome, although by then the dominant power in the world, lacked such a mythology. Because of its relative newness as a civilisation, the Romans felt somewhat overshadowed culturally by the Greeks whom they had conquered but who represented for many Romans the pinnacle of civilisation. The Greek language itself was regarded as a 'weightier' language than Latin. And the Greeks had a great myth, not about their origins per se (which were to some extent lost in the mists of time) but about the connection of the early Greek heros with the gods. The works of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, were the 'twin towers' of epic verse. They dealt with the most fundamental aspects of human life. Everything was there; human emotions, war and peace (but mainly war!), friendship and loss, failure and success. The poems examine the relation of mankind to the gods and puzzle over the role the gods play in human life. At one point in the Odyssey (the story of Odysseus's return home after the war ended), he visits the underworld, the first such account in surviving classical literature. Putting on the styleVirgil's genius was that he took the form of this Greek masterwork of civilisation and he wrote a Latin, Roman version. Instead of talking about the journeys of a Greek he chose a Trojan 'survivor' Aeneas as the hero of the story. Like Odysseus he has spectacular adventures, finds love, loses friends, visits the underworld, battles monsters, but since he has no home to go back to (his home had been destroyed by the treacherous Greeks) he eventually arrives in Italy where he founds Rome. The whole work is written in what came to be known as the 'high style' of epic poetry, grave and sonorous, as befitted such serious matter. Romans now had their own great epic, from which they learned that as a people they were descended from the Assyrians perhaps a civilisation even older and greater than the Greeks'! The 'high' classical style of Virgil and other classical writers was highly regarded in Dante's day. Dante himself seems to have greatly admired Virgil's writing. Homer's epics were known but the texts may not have been available in Dante's day, so Virgil was the principal window into that world of classical mythology during the medieval era. His work was the source for much of what people knew about the classical stories of the gods and their relations with mankind. Writers and thinkers in Dante's day knew Virgil, admired his work, drew inspiration from his tales, celebrated the richness of his language, but they knew that this was a pagan writer, whose whole project was embedded in paganism. And yet here, in this thoroughly Christian poem, Dante adopts him as his (and our) guide through hell and purgatory. "My master and my author"His choice of Virgil as the pilgrim's guide through the first two parts of the afterworld clearly reflects his love and admiration for Virgil as a poet. He loves him and as the Commedia unfolds we come to love him too. The Aeneid is referenced in the Commedia more times than any other single book except the Bible. Dante wants to honour the achievement and contribution of Virgil and to reference his great work which serves as the source book for a great deal of what we will discover in this afterworld. Dante's afterworld is a complicated, fascinating blend of Christian tradition mixed with classical ideas. Virgil is the source of many of those. He choses him too, I think, because, as a character, he fits the job of guide perfectly. Because he had written of the underworld in the Aenead, we know, as we travel with him, that we are in safe hands. Our guide is someone who has, through his character Aeneas at least, 'been there, done that'! But he also chooses Virgil to guide us, I think, because Dante thought of his own work as the third great epic of human 'origins'. Homer was the first, Virgil's was the second and, in Dante's mind, the Commedia is the third. This book, this great epic poem he is writing, would, he believed, give to the people of his own day the same sense of their place in the universe that Homer and Virgil had given to the people of their days. Dante believed in poetry and in the power of poetry. It wasn't primarily about entertainment. It was about truth. Poetry conveyed truth and truth changed things. It changed people and it changed society. Dante was engaged in a great project and it went far beyond describing the afterlife. Dante was concerned to bring his civilisation to its senses, to show the world of his day that it could only find its fulfilment through the knowledge of God's justice and love. God's justice and love were revealed most powerfully and strikingly in the afterworld. It was for that reason that he chose this form for his poem. And it was (partly) for that reason that he chose Virgil as his pilgrim's guide: his choice shows what kind of work it is we are reading. It is an odyssey, an epic journey of discovery. Putting Virgil in his placeBut he chooses Virgil too I think because Virgil represents the limits of the understanding that the classical civilisation of ancient Rome and Greece offered. Virgil is not a perfect guide. There are things he does not know and places he cannot go. And of course he can only take Dante the pilgrim so far. He is not allowed to enter paradise. Virgil is there because he has provided such great inspiration for Dante but he is also there because by putting him in the story Dante is able to highlight the limits of a vision such as Virgil's, the vision of the classical world without Christ. One way Dante shows the difference between himself and Virgil by contrasting the style and nature of his work with Virgil's. Virgil's work was essentially a tragedy, the highest and most noble form of writing in the classical world (and so befitting the high style of epic poetry Virgil uses). There is heroism and joy but there is also death and catastrophe. The tragic nature of the poem is the result of the dependance of mankind upon the random uncaring powers that determine the lives of the heros; the fates and the gods. The message of classical tragedy is that life is basically unfair and the gods are fickle. As we identify ourselves with Odysseus or Aeneas we recognise the same cruel injustice in our own lives. With them, we feel cheated by fate and see ourselves as the playthings of the gods. As we read their stories we recognise our own chaotic, random and often unfair world. In contrast Dante called his work a comedy (Commedia). Why? It is, as a friend pointed out to me in perplexity, 'not very funny'. But in the world of classical literature tragedy and comedy were the two opposites of the spectrum of literature and the reference is primarily to subject matte rather than the number of jokes we find! By calling his work a 'comedy', Dante is deliberately saying that his work is different from the works of Virgil and Homer: and what makes it different is that it is not tragedy. In other words, it has a 'happy ending'. His work is about a world in which the divine (the gods) is not arbitrary, and in which divine justice does rule (although of course he has yet to convince us of this!). In the end the true and faithful believer does find the vision of God which is the essence of salvation and in the meantime, as he journeys through the afterlife, he comes to understand that all things make sense as a united whole, within the love of God. Life does have meaning, there is a such a thing as justice and there is hope for the world! And so this is no great classical epic 'tragedy' written in the grand style of classical Latin, but rather it is a Commedia and so written in vernacular Italian in what Dante had called his Sweet New Style of poetry. Loving the alienSo, in one sense Virgil is a foil for the things Dante wants to tell us. He is there because he is wrong! But if the readers of Dante's day might have been surprised and even shocked to see such a prominent role given to a pagan writer from antiquity, the modern reader is perhaps equally shocked by the way Dante treats him. And this points us to the true mastery and genius of Dante - he plays with the emotions of the reader as few other writers can. Dante clearly loves Virgil his teacher, and as the book progresses we come to love him too. It is therefore truly 'tragic' that when in purgatory Virgil, his job done, literally fades out of the picture and is replaced by Beatrice. Virgil we know returns to Limbo at the edge of hell, where the great and good pagan thinkers and writers exist. He is not saved, despite climbing with Dante as far as the summit of purgatory. Dante the pilgrim goes on; Virgil does not, and we grieve for him and wonder why Virgil cannot be saved too. And that is exactly the question Dante wants us to ask because that is (partly) what this great work is all about. It is about God's justice. As he consigns Virgil back to Limbo we are left wondering, questioning and grieving. What is interesting is that other pagans are saved; Cato, Trajan and Ripheus all appear in paradise. It is not then Virgil's lack of knowledge of Christ that sends him back (albeit not to a hell of torment and punishment) but something else, something he represents. His choices have determined his fate. He has told wonderful stories but these stories have been untrue, false, misleading. His writings, and the world of classical learning they represent, have not shown the nature of the real God to the world. At points throughout the journey Virgil will wonder at Dante the pilgrim's apparent lack of credulity in what he had written in the Aeneid. But the pilgrim is right we learn, to have been incredulous, because the Aeneid, wonderful in style and literary technique though it is, cannot reveal the truths of God. And so Virgil must 'fade to grey' and disappear. And with him, says Dante the writer, must fade those tales and stories he told too. As the pilgrim draws nearer to the brilliant, sublime light of God those shadowy tales of heros and gods, we find, have no place. The brilliance of Dante is that as we grieve for Virgil as we contemplate the unfairness of his fate, as we long for it to be different, we find ourselves under judgement. We who read the poem are passing through the judgement of God as we read. We know things, but like Virgil we know them falsely. We question the justice of God even though it is in fact a just God we seek. As Dante leads us through love and loss for his great guide, we come to the point where we understand that before we come to the mountain of salvation, to paradise, we too need a little time in purgatory! Teodolinda Barolini helpfully writes Dante chose to choose a guide whom he would invest with the pathos of the human condition: a condition in which we love not wisely—which would involve loving only the infallible, incorruptible, and divine—but too well. He chose to choose a guide whom he would cause us to love and then to lose, thus forcing us to participate in the hard exchange of that which can be touched with our hands (as the Prince of Lampedusa memorably puts it) for that which cannot fail us. He also chose to invest this problematic with a historical dimension, so that what must be sublimated is not just the guide but the culture that the guide represents: the classical culture Dante simultaneously adores and distrusts. He further chose to make this representative a fellow poet, the better to charge the dramatization with questions of poetic authority. And he chose to make the loss we suffer (we being the pilgrim and the reader whose complicity with the pilgrim has long been assured) more painful by showing us that the possibility of salvation for the likes of his guide does exist: we would prefer to think of the guide’s damnation as inevitable, as in no way tied to a defect of character, but Dante chooses not to allow us so comfortable a solution. Dante and the Origins of Italian Literary Culture p 157_ You may also be interested in . . . .
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April 2016
GalleryThis blog is as much about images as it is about text. Below is a slideshow of the pictures and images used in this blog. Click on any of the pictures to go to the post where that image is featured.
PostsLocating Paradise #1 In a Garden, Far, Far Away
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #5 'Stuck in the Middle With You'
The Resurrection According to Rahner
Today You Will Be With Me in Paradise
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #4 'And Who by Fire'
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #3: Held in the Balance
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #2: Once, Twice, Three Times a Sinner
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #1: The Broad and Narrow Gates
Daily Dante 7: Many Rivers to Cross
Daily Dante 6: 'You Gotta Serve Somebody'
In Hell Everyone Can Hear You Scream. The Vision of Tundale #3
Teeth, Spikes and Cleavers: At the Sharp end of Hell. The Vision of Tundale #2
'No Pain No Gain': The Vision of Tundale #1
'Hellzapoppin':
Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #2 'It's The End of the World as We Know It (and we feel fine)'. Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #1
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #2 Blinded by the Light
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #1: Glorious and Immortal
Daily Dante 5: What the gates said.
Daily Dante 4: When I find myself in times of trouble
Daily Dante 3: I'll take you there
Daily Dante 2: Fierce creatures
Daily Dante 1: If you go down to the woods today
In Seventh Heaven or 'What Enoch Did Next'
A World of Fire and Ice: Heaven according to Enoch
The Power and the Glory: Visions of God as king in the Hebrew bible
The Beautiful Bestiary of Catherine Cleves: Monsters and Demons in detail.
Heaven is for Real: Heaven as a physical space up above the sky
Resurrecting the Dead or Reviving the Flowers? The loss of resurrection faith in Judaism.
The Defeat of Death #1: The promise of resurrection in the Isaiah Apocalypse.
The Defeat of Death #2: Death as a hostile power and promise of God's victory in Isaiah
Scary Monsters and Super Creeps: The 'Last Judgement' according to Stefan Lochner
Hell in the Hospital: The 'Last Judgement' of Rogier van der Weyden in the Beaune altarpiece.
'Hell' in the New Testament #2: The gates of Hades shall not prevail
The Hours of Catherine Cleves: Imagining hell and purgatory in Catherine's prayer book
'On Earth as in Heaven': The kingdom of God as a revelation of heaven
'Hell' in the New Testament #1: Gehenna
Lost in Translation #1: How the King James version got it so wrong about hell
Heaven is not our home
Domes, Depths and Demons: The cosmology of the Hebrew world
A Bigger God
"See you in Sheol" - Sheol, the common destination of all
Heaven, Hell and Christian Hope
BooksBelow are some of the books which have helped me the most in the research and writing for this blog. Click on any image to find out more about that book at its page on Amazon uk.
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