Here ends this homily! Longvill and Zoe, and Emmeline King-ours, that the representative and the also to Kelsall, whom I beg to look at my creative faculties are closely allied. MSS. and print or not as he thinks fit. I The nature of their alliance may be ought to have been among other things a sought in that law which has detergood poet. mined that it is only by truly realizing what is that we can rightly aspire to what may be; that it is only by our faithfulness to the real that the glory of the ideal can dawn upon us. Now a great deal of poetry does not rise to the range of this law, for there are many true poets who are in no sense repreIT has been truly said that "men of sentative. We may be sure at once genius are commonly at once repre- that they have had no power over their sentative and creative. They embody age; they have delighted, yet have not and reflect the tendencies of their time, inspired, the hearts of men. When but they also frequently materially we read them we are shut up within modify them, and their ideas become the chamber of their fancy; we do not the subject or the basis of succeeding breathe the wide, open air of high imdevelopments.” agination. But the "Divina Comme From Blackwood's Magazine. This is especially true of poets, and dia" has exercised a power greater the greatest poets are the best exam- than any other single poem we know ples of the truth. Take Shakespeare of. It has raised a literature, it has and Dante. The many-sided Eliza- inspired art, it has swayed theology. bethan age is reflected for us in every aspect but one, from the plays of Shakespeare. They are indeed The abstracts and brief chronicles of the time, What Chaucer's " Canterbury Tales" did for the English language, Dante's "Commedia” did for the Italian. Such a painter as Botticelli expended his genius on illustrating this poem, and never on any other. The number as he prophetically wrote. And the is legion of those minor artists who, Florentine life of the Trecento, that through the length and breadth of intense, narrow, combative life, we can Italy, painted the walls of churches realize more vividly from the lips of with frescoed scenes from the "InDante's men and women than even ferno" and the "Paradiso," set over from the friendly pages of old Dino against each other as warnings to the Compagni. Now the Englishman and faithful.2 The history of medieval the Italian were as unlike each other Italy could not, in fact, be written as birth could make them. Shake- without some account of the influence speare was the poet of man. Dante of the great "Commedia " on the was the poet of the soul. But they minds of men. were equally "representative" of their respective ages; and they were both, though not equally, "creative" spirits. The creative function of the poet is more than recognized in the Italian saying, "Non merita nome di creatore se non Iddio ed il poeta." (Only God and the poet deserve the name of creator.) We shall find in the case of Dante, as in that of all poets whose creations had power over their own times and have kept their power until 1 Cronaca Fiorentina. Mr. Lecky, in his work dealing with human beliefs, has remarked, with the measured eloquence peculiar to him, that "the poem of Dante was the last apocalypse. It exercised a supreme ascendancy over the imagination at a time when religious imagery was not so much the adjunct as the essence of belief, when the natural impulse of every man was to convert intellectual conceptions into palpable forms, and ? The work of the brothers Orcagna in a chapel of Sta Maria Novella at Florence is a good example of this. temporary readers towards the "Commedia," so far is it removed from our own. Amongst ourselves no work of any degree of imaginative power would be received with solemnity of spirit. The keenest literary appreciation, the most judicious criticism, would be given to it; but no thanks would be offered for it in our churches, though, if fortunate, it might be preached against. when painting was in the strictest | lost in the depth of its meaning, A sense the normal expression of faith." 1 comparison with the inspired writings No doubt the mental condition of is almost inevitable here, if we would Italy was exactly such as the great understand the mental attitude of conpoem produced in its midst was calculated to influence most strongly. The Italian imagination was both facile in exercise and material in conception; passionate in its admiration of beauty, and passionate in its susceptibility to fear. If it seems to us that the imagery of "Inferno" attained an extraordinary power over the minds of contemporary readers far beyond that exercised by the later parts of the And while considering the very seripoem, we may remember how much ous power which the "Commedia " more universal is the instinct to fear held over its first readers, it should be than the impulse to trust. The very remembered that the same qualities horror of Inferno" would have an which derogate from its perfection in excitement wanting to the pictures of our eyes only tended to strengthen its contemplative beatitude that succeed ascendancy over medieval minds. The each other in "Paradiso" and to violence, the grotesqueness, the dogthe undisciplined mind excitement is matism, above all, the fearful implacaattractive. However great the "Com- bility, which revolt us in the poem, media "" may appear to a nineteenth- would have been thoroughly sympacentury reader, it is great mainly as thetic to the spirit of its age. They a poem to him; it does not directly would even have recommended themmould his belief. But to the reader selves to many who were incapable of of the fourteenth century the "Com-attraction by the beauty of the poem, was not only or chiefly a poem, by its music, or scope, or majesty. it was an exposition of stupendous the- The French saying, "On a les défauts ological truths. He trembled before it. de ses qualités," applies to poetical as The name Dante gave to his work was well as to personal character; and the "La Commedia," but the name his defects are not seldom admired by Countrymen gave it was "La Divina those whom the qualities are powerless Commedia." to strike. Now Dante lived in an age of dogmatic enmities, of grotesque contrasts, of passionate convictions, when, if men differed one from another, they differed with violence. In a Tuscan city the final result of a political difference was that the weaker party of the moment was thrust outside the walls. The members became the hapless fuor” usciti, media "" Probably there were few that shared the belief of the simple-hearted women of Verona who, when they saw the sad-browed poet walking through their streets, whispered to each other that this man had been in hell, and the Smoke of its fires had made his face swarthy and blackened his hair. But certainly there were many who, though they did not believe in the poet's pilgrimage as a supernatural event, yet regarded the poem as a work of supernatural insight, and revered it as sacred. They felt towards it something of what we feel towards the Book of Job; when the beauty of its language is most transcendent, that beauty is 1 Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe, vol. L., chap. iii. the "men outside," - whose lives were bitter to them, until by force or stratagem they could win their way back inside those walls, and banish their banishers in turn. Whether the city was Florence, Pistojn, or Siena, outside its gates there was no happiness for its citizen. In exile the light of the sun was dark to him, the grapes of life were dry. Imagine how, to the hearts of men who had suffered 1 this exile, the awful, hopeless exile of able truth, he freed his heart of the "Inferno" would strike home! How burden of a love that was too great to they would realize that aching for news deceive, too genuine to be recognized of the place so beloved while love was for love. Florence was not likely to alive-that longing that even their forget such words as: shameful names, if nothing else of Godi, Firenze, poi che se' sì grande them, might be spoken once more in the city which now hated or forgot them! When his "Inferno" was written, Dante had already tasted the bitterness of exile, but not its hopelessness. He trusted, as the fuor' usciti always did, that some alliance or some accident would bring fortune to their side, and open the fast-closed gates of Florence, "la ben guidata." But the poet had another hope; it was founded on that "Commedia" in which he believed so deeply that he could not but think it would move the hearts of his countrymen to decree his recall. Se mai continga che il poema sacro, Al quale ha posto mano e cielo e terra, Si che m'ha fatto per più anni macro, Vinca la crudeltà che fuor mi serra Del bello ovile, ov' io dormii agnello, Ritornerò poeta, ed in sul fonte That hope was never fulfilled. The one thing which the "Commedia" had not power to do was to open the gates of the beloved city to its poet. It opened the gates of other cities to him Bologna and Verona received him with honor. But Florence remained implacable as himself; and Dante died in exile. He had indeed taken a strange way to win the favor that was refused him. By hot reproaches, by bitter sarcasms, by accusations edged with unpardon 1 If e'er it happen that the poem sacred Che per mare e per terra batti l' ali, E per l' inferno il tuo nome si spande.2 (Inf. xxvi. 1-3.) She could no more forget them than she could understand them. Are there such reproaches, even with the help of many now who can read the love in the lines that follow them? For the E se già fosse, non saria per tempo. The pathos of these lines is the heavy, 66 That famous quarrel of Florence with Dante! At this day its vicious complications are like a tangled dream to us; and still our hearts take the poet's side, while our tongues confess that in the matter of patriotism we can see little to choose between Ghibellins and Guelfs, and the Neri seem to have been about as just as the Bianchi were scrupulous. We have not perhaps a very clear conception of that "Cæsar" whom Dante so passionately invoked to visit and pacify his Italy. Possibly we may suffer from some mental confusion between the different French Carlos, whose mission now as in life seems to be the making confusion To which both heaven and earth have set their worse confounded in the field of Italian hand, So that it many a year hath made me lean, O'ercome the cruelty that bars me out From the fair sheepfold, where a lamb I slumbered, An enemy to the wolves that war upon it, With other voice forthwith, with other fleece, Poet will I return, and at my font Baptismal will I take the laurel crown. (Par, xxv. 1-9.) politics. Certainly we have not unrav 2 Rejoice, O Florence! since thou art so great 3 And if it were now, this were not too soon. elled the intricate web of civil discus- | between the deep moral beauties and sions in which the Tuscan cities were the inevitable moral limitations of the enmeshed. That were a task before great" Commedia." which the hardiest intellect might If we take the three parts of the quail. The local allusions, the partial poem in order, the "Inferno" claims interests, the trenchant condemnations attention first. That it frequently that made the "Commedia "such vivid claims attention last, and longest too, reading to its contemporaries, have is a fact which has been much noticed suffered the fate of things local and and deplored, perhaps a little unnecespartial; that is to say, they have fallen sarily. Mr. Ruskin compares the fame a prey to the poetical specialist. They of the "Inferno" to the fame of Miare swept away into that great and chael Angelo's "Last Judgment" in nameless waste where the lone lec- Rome, while the comparative neglect turer wanders seeking his material, and of the "Paradiso" he likens to the the examiner picks up an occasional equal neglect of Tintoretto's "Paraweapon of offence. diso" in Venice. He reverses the Of all the forms of the drama, tragedy is that which has appealed most inwardly to human sympathy. If the common instinct has been wrong here, it has been wrong in accordance with the advice of a weighty counsellor, to submit our emotions to the purifying influences of fear and pity. Now the But if we would find the secret of general verdict, and draws his usual that power with which Dante sways moral about human turpitude and the his readers of to-day, even as he vulgarity of error. Now if we have swayed those of the Quattrocento, we courage to confine Mr. Ruskin to his shall find it not in any part or charac- proper sphere of pictorial art, and to teristic of the poem, but in the poem side with the vulgar in their opinion, as a whole. The "Divina Commedia " we must have some reason to show for is without doubt one of the greatest the faith that is in us; and that reason conceptions that was ever formed in must take the oft-condemned form of the mind of man-some would say comparison. For after all, the science without hesitation, the greatest concep- of criticism is mainly an enlightened tion. For it embodies not one single system of comparison. aspect of life but the whole of life, and Bot from the human point of view but from the superhuman. It is no less than the drama of the soul. Whether we condemn or applaud the courage of the poet who attempted to involve eternity within the lines of his verse, we cannot deny to the very magnitude of his conception that reverence which is its due. Dante's aim was the highest that has ever drawn a poet's eyes from earth to heaven. His mortal realization of it was a failure so glorious that DO achievement has ever seemed to us so great. The critic who sits in judgment on Dante sits like the wren on the head of the eagle that soared and stared at the sun; and he would indeed be a fatuous critic who shared the Wren's delusion that he was exalted over the eagle from the accident of his position. Only with the significance of that position thoroughly impressed on his mind can the critic attempt to investigate and distinguish between the varying elements of greatness and what may be called the temporal traits, Inferno" is the most terrible tragedy that ever was conceived. Its characters are dead, yet living- ruined forever in a world of ruin. For each of them the ruling motive has become the ruling fate, — inexorable, appalling. Yet against that fate character survives; and passion, though but an impotent. recollection, is never extinct. How great are the materials for tragedy here! how great the use that was made of them ! But the moral conditions of the poem impose a severer restriction on the human interest in proportion as the souls are purified. In "Purgatorio" the souls remember indeed their earthly course, but remember it as a dream when one awaketh." Now it concerns 46 them only in its consequences. One yearns towards the majesty of wisdom, single passion claims every soul in the hero remembers the sweet taste of Purgatorio" alike—the passion of danger. Here, in depths of wickedrepentance. When Dante rises to Pa- ness where the name of God may not radiso, he finds the unanimity of feel- be spoken, some nobleness is kept alive ing among the blessed to be one of the by the force of individual character. conditions of blessedness. Here they It is when this tragical virtue surneither vary, nor purpose, nor venture mounts for a moment the depravity of anything of their own motion. The surrounding conditions, and speaks in will has no initiative; and each soul clear accents through the din and deis but a glad reflection of the divine spair of Inferno-it is then that the charity. This is made clear to Dante power of the "Commedia” most deeply by the lips of Piccarda de' Donati, the penetrates us. We hear the lamenfirst of the blessed souls who speaks to table sweetness of Francesca's voice; him from her place : it thrills with a piercing beauty through the tempestuous, sorrow-laden sphere : Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona, Mi prese del costui piacer sì forte, Che, come vedi, ancor non m' abbandona. Amor condusse noi ad una morte.2 Frate, la nostra volontà quieta (Par. iii. 70-72.) ment: (Inf. v. 103-106.) Come avesse lo inferno in gran dispitto. If we sought to characterize by a single phrase each of the three afterWe hear the steady voice of Farinata worlds of the "Commedia," we might the noble, as he rises from his fiery call Inferno the world of fatal passions, tomb with brows unwrung by torPurgatorio the world of contrite peace, Paradiso the world of adoring charity. Having said this, we cannot fail to see that the first world, in spite of its fiendish horrors and cruelties, is the world where we can best draw human breath, suffering the pain of sympathy with those great ones who, in the midst of their death and darkness of spirit, are still undefeated by fate, and can keep both the love and hatred of old to season the memories of their day under the sun. By one of those strange paradoxes which result from some contradiction between the heart and mind, Dante has given us in "Inferno," and not in “Paradiso,” his most touching conceptions of the power of love. The love between a man and a woman, between a father and his son, between a teacher and his pupil, or a leader and his followers, still binds the lost soul with Lo vincol d' amor che fa natura. In the dark world the poet still loves the harmony of verse, the philosopher 1 Brother, our will is quieted by virtue Of charity, that makes us wish alone For what we have, nor lets us thirst for more. (Par. iii. 70-72.) The fate of his people is still nearer to his heart than the flames to his limbs. The day that he saved Florence is more to him than this age-long night of Inferno : Ma fu' io sol colà, dove sofferto Fu per ciascun di torre via Fiorenza, (Inf. x. 91-93.) Across the stern questioning of Farinata breaks that sharp cry of Cavalcante for his son Guido : Mio figlio ov' è, e perchè non è teco ? son. Then, in the dark pit where thick as fireflies in a Tuscan valley the souls are 2 Love, which lets none that's loved forbear from Took me so captive in delight of him, (Hell, v. 103-106.) 3 But I was all alone there where each man (Hell, x. 91-93.) |