INFLUENCE OF ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT BOOKS--THE EXILED
FLORENTINE'S POEM HAS COLORED THE LIFE AND WORK OF MANY
FAMOUS WRITERS.
Some of the world's great books are noteworthy for the profound
influence that they have exerted, not only over the contemporaries of
the writers, but over many succeeding generations. Some there are which
seem to have in them a perennial stimulus to all that is best in human
nature; to stretch hands across the gulf of the centuries and to give to
people today the flaming zeal, the unquestioning religious faith, the
love of beauty and of truth that inspired their authors hundreds of
years ago. Among the small number of these transcendently great books
stands Dante's _Divine Comedy_, one of the greatest poems of all ages
and one of the tremendous spiritual forces that has colored and shaped
and actually transformed many lives.
History is full of examples of the vital influence of Dante's great work
only a few years after it was given to the world. Then came a long
period of neglect, and it was only with the opening of the nineteenth
century that Dante came fairly into his own. The last century saw a
great welling up of enthusiasm over this poet and his work. The _Divine
Comedy_ became the manual of Mazzini and Manzoni and the other leaders
of New Italy, and its influence spread over all Europe, as well as
throughout this country. Preachers of all creeds, scholars, poets, all
acclaimed this great religious epic as one of the chief books of all the
ages. In it they found inspiration and stimulus to the spiritual life.
Their testimony to its deathless force would fill a volume.
[Illustration:
PORTRAIT OF DANTE
BY GIOTTO DI BONDONE]
Yet in taking up the _Divine Comedy_ the reader who does not know
Italian is confronted with the same difficulty as in reading the Greek
or Latin poets without knowledge of the two classical languages. He must
be prepared to get only a dim appreciation of the beauties of the
original, because Dante is essentially Italian, and the form in which
his verse is cast cannot be reproduced in English without great loss. On
this subject of translating poetry George E. Woodberry, one of the
ablest of American literary critics, says:
"To read a great poet in a translation is like seeing the sun through
smoked glass. * * * To understand a _canzone_ of Dante or Leopardi one
must feel as an Italian feels; to appreciate its form he must know the
music of the form as only the Italian language can hold and eternize it.
Translation is impotent to overcome either of these difficulties."
This is the scholar's estimate; yet Emerson, who saw as clearly as any
man of his time and who grasped the essentials of all the great books,
favored translations and declared he got great good from them. At any
rate, the average reader has no time to learn Italian in order to
appreciate Dante. The best he can do is to read a good translation and
then help out his own impressions by the comment and appreciation of
such lovers of the great poet as Ruskin, Carlyle, Lowell and Longfellow.
The best translation is Cary's version, which was revised and brought
out in its present form in 1844, just before the translator's death. It
is written in blank verse, easy and melodious.
To understand even an outline of the _Divine Comedy_ one must know a few
facts about the life of Dante and the experiences that matured his mind
and found expression in this great poem. Dante was born in Florence in
1265, of a good Italian family, but reduced to poverty. At eighteen he
wrote his first poems, which were recognized by Cavalcanti, the foremost
Italian poet of his day. He became a soldier and he was involved in the
petty wars between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. In 1290 Beatrice, the
woman whom he adored and who served as the inspiration of all his
poetry, died, and soon after he gathered under the title _Vita Nuova_,
or _New Life_, the prose narrative, studded with lyrics, which is one of
the great love songs of all ages. This is the highest essence of
romantic love, a love so sublimated that it never seeks physical
gratification. Praise of his lady, contemplation of her angelic beauty
of face and loveliness of mind and character--these are the forms in
which Dante's love finds its exquisite expression. And this same love
and adoration of Beatrice will be found the chief inspiration of the
_Divine Comedy_.
For ten years after the death of Beatrice Dante was immersed in
political conflicts. He took a prominent part in the government of
Florence, but in 1302 he was sentenced with fifteen other citizens of
that city to be burned alive should he at any time come within the
confines of Florence. For three years the poet hoped to succeed in
regaining his power in Florence, but when these hopes finally failed he
turned to the expression of his spiritual conquests, to let the world
know how the love of one woman and the desire to "keep vigil for the
good of the world" could transform a man's soul. So in poverty and
distress, wandering from one Italian city to another, Dante wrote most
of his great epic. His final years were spent in Ravenna, where many
friends and disciples gathered about him. The _Divine Comedy_ was
completed only a short time before Dante's death, which occurred on
September 14, 1321.
This great poem waited nearly six hundred years before its merits were
fully appreciated. In form it was drawn directly from the sixth book of
Virgil's _AEneid_, and to make this likeness all the stronger Dante
makes Virgil his guide on the imaginary journey that he describes
through hell and purgatory. Yet though everything on this journey is
pictured in minute detail, the whole is purely symbolical. Dante depicts
himself carried by Virgil, who represents Human Philosophy, through the
horrors of hell and purgatory to the abode of happiness in the _Earthly
Paradise_.
This narrative is full of allusions to the life of Italy of his day. His
Inferno is really Italy governed by corrupt Popes and political leaders,
and he shows by the torments of the damned how the souls of the
condemned suffer because they have elected evil instead of good. In the
Purgatory we have the far more cheerful view of man, removing the vices
of the world and recovering the moral and intellectual freedom which
fits him for a blessed estate in the _Earthly Paradise_.
[Illustration:
PAGE FROM "DANTE'S INFERNO"
PRINTED BY NICOLO LORENZO NEAR THE
CLOSE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY--THE VOLUME
IS ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS ON COPPER BY
BALDINI AND BOTTICELLI]
In these two parts of his poem Dante shows how love is the transfiguring
force in working the miracle of moral regeneration. And this love is
without any trace of carnal passion; it is the supreme aspiration, which
has such power that it makes its possessor ruler over his own spirit and
master of his destiny. What power, what passion resided in the mind of
this old poet that it could so charge his words that these should
inspire the greatest writers of an alien nation, six hundred years after
his death, to pay homage to the moving spirit of his verse. In all
literature nothing can be found to surpass the influence of this poem of
Dante's, struck off at white heat at the end of a life filled with the
bitterness of worldly defeats and losses, but glorified by these visions
of a spiritual conquest, greater than any of the victories of this
world.
Little space is left here to dwell on the most remarkable feature of
Dante's great poem--its influence in fertilizing minds centuries after
the death of its author. Florence, which once drove the poet into exile,
has tried many times to recover the body of the man who has long been
recognized as her greatest son. And the New and United Italy, which was
ushered in by the labors of Mazzini and others, regards Dante as the
prophet of the nation, the symbol of a regenerated land. All the great
modern writers bear enthusiastic testimony to the influence of Dante.
Carlyle said of him: "True souls in all generations of the world who
look on this Dante will find a brotherhood in him; the deep sincerity of
his thoughts, his woes and hopes, will speak likewise to their
sincerity; they will feel that this Dante was once a brother."
Lowell, who attributed his love of learning to the study of the
Florentine poet, says: "It is because they find in him a spur to noble
aims, a secure refuge in that defeat which the present day seems, that
they prize Dante who know and love him best. He is not only a great
poet, but an influence--part of the soul's resources in time of
trouble."
This tribute to the greatness of Dante cannot be ended more effectively
than by referring to the sonnets of Longfellow. Our New England poet
found solace in his bitter grief over the tragic death of his wife in
translating the _Divine Comedy_ in metrical form. Six sonnets he wrote,
depicting the comfort and peace that he found in the study of the great
Florentine. The last sonnet, in which Longfellow eloquently describes
the increasing influence of Dante among people in all lands, is among
the finest things that he ever wrote and forms a fitting end to this
brief study of Dante:
O star of morning and of liberty!
O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines
Above the darkness of the Apennines,
Forerunner of the day that is to be!
The voices of the city and the sea,
The voices of the mountains and the pines,
Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines
Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!
Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,
Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,
As of a mighty wind, and men devout,
Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,
In their own language hear thy wondrous word,
And many are amazed and many doubt.