The Divine Comedy III: Paradiso

Paradiso (Anchor Books, 2007)
by Dante Alighieri [translated from the Italian by Robert Hollander and Jean Hollander]
Ravenna, 1321

Paradiso.  While I still have Her Fearful Symmetry, a Neil Gaiman book, and, what the hell, another Margo Lanagan YA opus to get around to someday, I finally finished reading the similarly-hyped The Divine Comedy last night.  And all kidding aside, I'm sort of sorry to have to let the poem go.  Although the Paradiso was easily the least intrinsically interesting of all three cantiche in terms of the reading entertainment to be found therein, I thought its flaws as a narrative were more than compensated for by its success as an abstruse, often mystical disquisition on the nature of divinity and eternity.  A vision with scholastic teeth at that.  Description of heaven as a succession of glittering spheres?  Meh.  Interrogation of why all those otherwise virtuous people--whose only failing in life is that they don't know Christ--must suffer in the hereafter?  Priceless.  Even though various aspects of Dante's doctrinal-heavy theology will forever trouble me, I have to say that I thought it was kind of cool to run across folks like Roland, Adam, and Mary in Dante's heaven (no wonder one of my favorite professors once referred to the Commedia as a summa of medieval culture).  And The Song of Roland stuff aside, I have to admit that I was so dazzled by Dante's intellect and the scope of his cosmological vision that I felt both pumped up and humbled at the same time.  Not at all the reaction I was expecting from this third and concluding canticle but just one of many reasons I look forward to wrestling with the poem again.  Hopefully in Italian next time.

Odds and ends.  Thanks to the intrepid few souls (two, three?) who participated in the full readalong with me, all those who joined along for Inferno, and those who commented and/or proffered bibliographical assistance (Amateur Reader, take a bow) along the way.  I had a fun time even though I'm now convinced that it could take a lifetime to get to know this poem properly (not a bad thing if you have the time, I guess).  For just one exceedingly small sliver of the complexity of the full poem's internal structure, see the Hollanders' notes to Paradiso VI where they explain that "the sixth canto in each cantica, as has often been appreciated, is devoted to an increasingly wide political focus: first to Florentine politics, then to Italian politics, and now to Dante's theologically-charged imperial politics" (156).  Other "whoa" moments not involving numerology: each canticle ends with a Barry Seaman-like reference to stelle or stars as the very last word of that section in the poem.  Etc., etc.  I enjoyed all three of the different translators I read and wouldn't hesitate to recommend Pinsky, Merwin or the Hollanders to someone scoping out bilingual editions of the text, readability in English, and so on.  However, even though all the editions I used had helpful footnotes, the Hollanders had the best critical apparatus by far in terms of the volume and the complexity of the notes (a series of pages attached to the end of each canto) and the recommended reading provided.  Will likely be searching out their copies of Inferno and Purgatorio at some point to add to the collection.  (http://www.anchorbooks.com/)

Ritratto di Dante by Luca Signorelli

(Capella di San Bruno, Il Duomo, Orvieto)

Other posts of mine on The Divine Comedy
Inferno
Purgatorio #1, #2 and #3

Other readalong links on Dante
Amanda (Simpler Pastimes)
Inferno
Purgatorio
Paradiso

Avid Reader (The Avid Reader's Musings)
Inferno

Bellezza (Dolce Bellezza)
Inferno

Claire (kiss a cloud)
Inferno

E.L. Fay (This Book and I Could Be Friends)
Inferno, Cantos 1-8
Inferno, Cantos 9-17
Inferno, Cantos 18-26
Inferno, Cantos 27-34
Purgatorio, Part One
Purgatorio, Part Two
Paradiso

Iris (Iris on Books)
Inferno

Rebecca (Rebecca Reads)
Inferno

The Divine Comedy II: Purgatorio #3

Quali i beati al novissimo bando

surgeran presti ognun di sua caverna,

la revestita voce alleluiando,

cotali in sua la divina basterna

si levar cento, ad vocem tanti senis,

ministri e messagier di vita etterna,

Tutti dicean: "Benedictus qui venis!"

e fior gittando e di sopra e dintorno,

"Manibus, oh date lilïa plenis!"

[As the blessèd, when the last trumpet sounds,

will rise from the tomb, eagerly each one,

"Hallelujah" in each voice put on again,

so, over the holy hooded chariot,

at the voice of so great an elder, a hundred

messengers and ministers of eternal life

were, all of them, saying, "Blessèd is He who comes,"

scattering flowers upward and around them,

saying, "Oh with full hands give lillies."]

(Purgatorio XXX, 13-21, pp. 292-293, in the bilingual original and as translated by W.S. Merwin)

Although I think almost everybody in our readalong group agreed that the Inferno made for far more scintillating reading than the Purgatorio, I'm not sure that the writing really explains the difference in the reception of the two works.  In fact, I think that the second canticle might be even better-written than the first in some ways.  In the snippet above, for example, we see a "typical" example of Dante's brilliance at work.  Setting up the moving scene where Virgil departs from the poem, Dante breaks from his Florentine Italian to boldly mix in some Latin verse.  While Dante does this sort of thing throughout the poem with astonishing regularity and fluidity, W.S. Merwin explains that line 21 ("Oh with full hands give lillies") is "a line freighted with allusions.  It is translated from a famous line of elegy and farewell from Virgil's Aeneid (book 6, 967-886 [sic]), Manibus, oh, date lilia plenis, and serves as both a welcome from the angels and a farewell to Virgil" (Purgatorio, notes to Canto XXX, 356).  In other words, this is a homage to Virgil the character written as a "cut and paste" from Virgil the poet's own words from over a thousand years before.  I find that pretty spectacular on Dante's part.

Elsewhere, Dante highlights the ambitiously interactive nature of his poetry via his choice of other languages and the use of featured poets as "characters" within his narrative.  In Canto VI, Dante and Virgil meet Sordello, "one of the Italian poets who wrote in Provençal, continuing the tradition and conventions of the troubadours" in the words of Merwin's footnote (337).  In Canto XXI, the Roman poet Statius, born long after Virgil's death in the real world, praises the genius of the Aeneid to Virgil and Dante before realizing he's actually in the Mantuan's presence in the poetic sphere.  A discussion about poetry naturally ensues.  In Canto XXIV, a soul that Dante meets in Purgatory questions him on an early poem Dante had written and then mentions the "dolce stil novo" that he is hearing (XXIV, 57, pp. 234-235).  And finally in Canto XXVI,  the 12th-century troubadour Arnaut Daniel responds to a question posed to him in Italian with eight lines of "dialogue" rendered in the Old Occitan of his day.  While Dante never connects the dots quite so heretically himself, it's tempting to view this elevation of poets, poetry, and language as something akin to a secular religion on the poet's part.  At least, it is for me anyway.

In any event, you don't have to be a language geek or a heretic to appreciate these sorts of things--nor need you know Latin or Occitan to appreciate Dante's Italian in Merwin's English!  But the level of precision in the Purgatorio's poetry is often amazing.  To cite just one more example, let's return to Canto XXX and the specific verses that deal with Virgil's departure (XXX, 43-57, pp. 294-295, with the English translation again by W.S. Merwin):

volsimi a la sinistra col respitto

col quale il fantolin corre a la mamma

quando ha paura o quando elli è afflitto,

per dicere a Virgilio: "Men che dramma

di sangue m'è rimaso che non tremi:

conosco i segni de l'antica fiamma."

Ma Virgilio n'avea lasciatti scemi

di sé, Virgilio dolcissimo patre,

Virgilio a cui per mia salute die'mi:

né quantunque perdeo l'antica matre,

valse a le guance nette di rugiada

che, lagrimando, non tornasser atre.

"Dante, perché Virgilio se ne vada,

non pianger anco, non piangere ancora;

che pianger to conven per altra spada."

[I turned to the left with the confidence that

a little child shows, running to its mother

when something has frightened it or troubled it,

to say to Virgil, "Not even one drop

of blood is left in me that is not trembling;

I recognize the signs of the old burning."

But Virgil had left us, he was no longer there

among us, Virgil, most tender father,

Virgil to whom I gave myself to save me,

nor did all that our ancient parent

had lost have any power to prevent

my dew-washed cheeks from running dark with tears.

"Dante, because Virgil leaves you, do

not weep yet, do not weep even yet, for you

still have another sword you must weep for."]

Taken out of context like this, it may be difficult for someone who hasn't experienced the poem to understand how touching a farewell this is at this late stage in Purgatorio.  But pay attention to the shift in perspective of the speakers and the repetition of the name Virgil to see how Dante's poetic gifts enhance the emotion of the moment.  With a post on Paradiso upcoming next weekend, I'll let Merwin have the last word here because the way he explains the Canto XXX farewell is rather mindblowing to me:

"The farewell to Virgil and his disappearance is a moment of great symbolic and personal significance.  It is formalized by numerological designs: Virgil is named five times, first once, then three times in one tercet, then again once.  The echo, several commentators have pointed out, recalls in turn lines of Virgil's in Georgic IV, 525-527, where Orpheus' voice, calling the lost Eurydice, is echoed down the stream" (notes to canto XXX, 356).

The Divine Comedy II: Purgatorio #2

And we had not gone far in that direction

when the lady turned around toward me

saying, "My brother, look and listen."

And all at once there was a shining

that raced through the great forest on all sides,

making me wonder whether it was lightning,

but whereas lightning is gone as swiftly

as it comes, this stayed, shining brighter and brighter,

and in my mind I kept saying, "What can this be?"

And running through the luminous air was

a sweet melody, so that a good zeal

led me to blame Eve for her recklessness,

that there, where the earth and Heaven were obedient,

a woman, alone, and who had just been made,

could not bear to be veiled by anything.

If only she had stayed devoutly under

hers, I could have tasted these pleasures

beyond words earlier, and for longer.

While I walked on among so many

first fruits of eternal happiness,

enraptured, and longing for still greater joys,

the air under the green boughs before us

came to be like a fire blazing

and we could hear that the sweet sound was singing.

Oh most holy virgins, if I have endured

fasting, cold, and vigils for you ever,

need drives me now to ask for the reward.

Now is the time for Helicon to brim over

and Urania to help me with her choir

to put into verse things hard to hold in thought.

(Purgatorio XXIX, 13-42, p. 283-285 [translated by W.S. Merwin])

With apologies both for the long quote and for the sudden interruption of the Don Quixote readalong, I'd like to send a shout-out to any unicorn-loving lurkers out there with this quick post on Dante and the ladies.  Whatever you make of the real life Dante's lifelong crush on Beatrice dei Portinari, his choice of her as a heavenly symbol throughout The Divine Comedy is just fascinating to me in terms of the psychology at play in the poem.  In the excerpt above, for example, you'll note that Dante trots out that old "Eve is the mother of sin" trope that was already hoary even in the poet's day and age.  It's not mean by medieval standards and it's definitely not anywhere near as weird as Bernard of Clairvaux's fetishistic obsession with the Virgin Mary's breast milk or anything along those lines, but then again it's not the kind of attitude you might expect from a man who's chosen to elevate a secular woman to the status of idealized spiritual heroine of his poem.  Not having started Paradiso until today and not having done as much secondary reading on the Commedia as a whole as I would have liked anyway, I'm not really sure what role Beatrice will play as the poet and the muse make their platonic way through the third canticle's heavens.  I'd like to think that Dante gives us a hint in the final line of the excerpt above--i.e. that Beatrice's status as an idealized woman might provide some sort of a link between the "secular" inspiration necessary for creating verse and the "religious" raptures that seem to dominate the Divine Comedy's themes--but that's only guesswork and potentially really off the mark guesswork at that.  In the meantime, more on Purgatorio later or maybe not (covering all my bases with the full knowledge that laziness sometimes interferes with my psychic predictive powers).

P.S. As much as Beatrice interests me for what she tells us about Dante's conflicted attitudes towards women, she's not actually all that happening on her own merits.  In contrast, Juan Ruiz' Trotaconventos from the Libro de buen amor and Chaucer's Wife of Bath from the Canterbury Tales are two deliciously complex female characters that would absolutely wipe the floor with Beatrice for anyone looking at approaching any of these three 14th-century classics from a gender studies perspective.  Not sure if the fact that Trotaconventos and the Wife of Bath would have been more likely to end up in Inferno than Purgatorio has anything to do with it, but you get the picture.

The Divine Comedy II: Purgatorio #1

Purgatorio (Alfred A. Knopf, 2001)
by Dante Alighieri [translated from the Italian by W.S. Merwin]
Verona, 1315

Per correr miglior acque alza le vele

omai la navicella del mio ingegno,

che lascia dietro a sé mar sì crudele;

e canterò di quel secondo regno

dove l'umano spirito si purga

e di salire al ciel diventa degno.

To course on better waters the little

boat of my wit, that leaves behind her

so cruel a sea, now raises her sails,

and I will sing of that second kingdom

in which the human spirit is made clean

and becomes worthy to ascend to Heaven.

(Dante, Purgatorio I, 1-6, w/English translation by W.S. Merwin)

Welcome back to our little Divine Comedy Readalong, amici!  Will you allow me a confession?  Although I'm not really sure where I got the idea, I had this longstanding notion that Purgatorio would showcase a completely different style of poem than Inferno and that Paradiso would spotlight a completely different style of poem than Purgatorio in accordance with their subject matter and themes.  While that turned out to be at least partially true in regards to the first two canticles when all was said and done, it still took me a while before I could put my finger on the specific types of differences in play.  For whatever this observation is worth then, suffice it to say that Purgatorio opens as a continuation of the quest narrative found in Inferno.  Sans the accounts of people being buried alive, the depictions of rivers of shit, the grisly scenes of cannibalism, etc., the actual movement of the characters on their journey towards Mount Purgatory still affords Dante and Virgil plenty of opportunities to run into historical and mythical personalities on their physical and spiritual ascent.  That being said, there seemed to be an increasingly evident shift in tone between the Commedia's first two canticles as time went on.  Where the Inferno was nightmarishly flashy in tone, Purgatorio seemed to exude more of a subdued, even an instructive vibe--as if now that Dante had shown us the horrors of hell, it was time for him to show us the way out of it (or perhaps how to avoid it in the first place).  Repeated references to both singing and weeping, the latter accompanying the expiation of sin in purgatory according to Dante's extra-biblical theology of purification, call attention to the alternately joyous and sorrowful score that's omnipresent in this second stage of the narrator's journey.  I won't dwell on it here, but mention of this singing reminds me that Dante's concern with language and the poetic arts remains one of the most fascinating continuities in the poem for me.  Psalms from the Bible, the works of the pagan poets, and the verses of the Provenzal troubadours all receive props in the Purgatorio, almost (and this is a big almost, of course) as if Dante were struggling to reconcile the poetic with the divine in anticipation of Renaissance humanism. Towards the end of this middle section of the Commedia, though, the angelic Beatrice enters the poem and the father-like figure of Virgil exits it.  To highlight the momentousness of the occasion, Dante the poet aggressively ups the narrative ante with some startling vision poetry that pays homage to the Old Testament prophets and the Book of Revelation.  Whatever you make of Dante's theology in particular or allegorical poetry requiring an exegetical interpretation in general, it's hard not to be impressed with his imagination and brio.  While the visual flair of the Inferno is pretty hard to beat to my way of thinking, I have to admit that the Purgatorio might have even more to offer from a poetic or a psychological perspective.  In any event, I have a couple of follow-up posts planned to touch on some issues (gender, language, W.S. Merwin) I ran out of time to mention today.  Hope you'll stay tuned but will understand if you don't, ha ha!  Ciao.

Dante and Beatrice

More on Purgatorio

Amanda (Simpler Pastimes)

E.L. Fay (This Book and I Could Be Friends), Part One

E.L. Fay (This Book and I Could Be Friends), Part Two

The Divine Comedy I: Inferno

The Inferno of Dante [Inferno] (The Noonday Press, 1997)
by Dante Alighieri [bilingual edition with a verse translation from the Italian by Robert Pinsky]
Verona, 1314

While reading poetry in translation is easily the compromise of all compromises, I have nothing but good things to say about how well Robert Pinsky's free verse translation of the Inferno flows (i.e. I can't speak for how accurate the translation is, but it reads like a thing of beauty terza rima or not).  Of course, it helps that the Inferno itself is so freaking good!  Since you can find better summaries of Dante's Virgil-led journey through the nine circles of hell elswhere, I'll merely mention a few of the things that made reading this so involving for me.  First up, there's that unresolved tension between Dante the poet and Dante the character in the poem.  While it takes a rather large amount of moxie to write yourself into history as the sixth world class poet in a continuum of "giants" including Homer, Horace, Lucan, Ovid, and Virgil (Canto IV, 70-87), Dante the poet's apparent hubris is lessened by the amount of times Dante the character is literally cowering in fear throughout his journey through the underworld.  In addition, there's something all too human, if not very forgiving from a Christian point of view, about Dante's reactions to particular shades he meets in hell: "and death to your family line," he angrily tells off one already-suffering victim late in the poem (Canto XXVIII, 100).  Although these "two Dantes" combine to form a fascinating character study, both poet and pilgrim at once, a second thing that's no less arresting from a psychological point of view is the Inferno's novel conception of the underworld.  Heroes from antiquity, various clerical and lay figures from recent history in the Italian city states, and even figures from literature and myth all vie for the reader's attention, forming an underworld cosmos that's like a hall of fame of the pagan, Christian, and schismatic damned.  While Dante's visceral descriptions of the punishments that are meted out are well worthy of his fame, I was actually more wowed by how you might run into Minos one minute and Saladin or a troubadour holding his decapitated head in his hands in the next.  Truly inventive.  Finally, Dante's own prowess as a poet is undeniable even in translation.  Whether providing a simple description (Canto II, 45-46: "her eyes out-jeweled the stars in splendor"), a provocative metonym (hell is described as "sorrow's hospice" in Canto V, 15), using repetition and contrast in close order (Canto XIII, 66-68: "My mind, in its disdainful temper, assumed/Dying would be a way to escape disdain,/Making me treat my juster self unjustly"), or trotting out a Homeric simile updated for the 14th century ("Like those who shake,/Feeling the quartan fever coming on--/Their nails already blue, so that they shiver/At the mere sight of shade--such I was then," we read in Canto XVII, 75-78), the poet is always up to the challenge, always in charge of his métier as a craftsman.  Amazing stuff, no?  Ha, what a surprise!

Dante by Botticelli

Although I kind of rushed through the Inferno this past week to be able to post on it in time for this weekend's readalong kickoff, I look forward to discussing it all month long if any stragglers care to join in on the fun.  Please let me know what you thought about it!

More on Dante's Inferno

Amanda (Simpler Pastimes)

Avid Reader (The Avid Reader's Musings)

Bellezza (Dolce Bellezza)

Claire (kiss a cloud)

E.L. Fay (This Book and I Could Be Friends), Cantos 1-8

E.L. Fay (This Book and I Could Be Friends), Cantos 9-17

E.L. Fay (This Book and I Could Be Friends), Cantos 18-26

E.L. Fay (This Book and I Could Be Friends), Cantos 27-34

Iris (Iris on Books)

Rebecca (Rebecca Reads)

The Divine Comedy Readalong

"Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,

che la diritta via era smarrita."

(Dante, Canto I of Inferno)

One of my biggest regrets from my college days is never having signed up for one of those semester- or year-long surveys on Dante that would have taken me all the way through The Divine Comedy with a Trecento specialist as my guide.  Another thing I could look back and complain about is not yet having pursued Italian beyond the one (marvelous) year I studied it in a night class not so very long ago.  To help make up for these two, how shall I say, distinctly nerdy tragedies, I've decided to host a Dante group read/readalong July through September this year.  If any of you are interested in joining me for any or all of the "program," please get in touch as it would be great to have a lot of minds/opinions weighing in on this medieval poetry classic.  The target dates for discussion posts of The Divine Comedy (all timed to coincide with the first weekend of each month) are as follows:

July 2-4: Inferno

August 6-8: Purgatorio

September 3-5: Paradiso

I'll leave a list of projected participants below, but please don't hesitate to forward me any questions if you have any.  Also,  any recommendations on a translation that you're particularly keen on would be very welcome (I'll prob. be using Pinsky's Inferno and W.S. Merwin's Purgatorio since I already have them at home, but I'm not sure what the consensus top translation choice is these days).  Finally, feel free to join in on any of the discussions whether you have time to read along with us or not...and post whenever it's convenient for you should you choose to read along with us.  Should be fun!

Other Readers

Allie (A Literary Odyssey)

Amanda (Simpler Pastimes)

Avid Reader (The Avid Reader's Musings)

Bellezza (Dolce Bellezza)

Claire (kiss a cloud)

E.L. Fay (This Book and I Could Be Friends)

Iris (Iris on Books)

Lynda (Lynda's Book Blog)

Mel U (The Reading Life)

Michele (A Reader's Respite)

Rebecca (Rebecca Reads)

Tea (I Love to Read)

Thomas (My Porch)