A blog post about Dante Alighieri could never possibly do justice to such an important historical figure.
Yet, I try. I must!
So. Where would Dante stand on the issues of today?
Dante Alighieri was more than just a poet. He was a genius who was the first to write in the Italian vernacular. He was the last great Medieval mind before the arrival of the rebirth: Renaissance.
The Inferno is one book that helps give me clarity in dealing with contemporary issues and society. Even if it fails to do so, the book left lasting, stark, frightening images of Hell which can remain plastered in one's mind forever. Those Harpies were one bunch of loonies, eh?
Although his writings were deep in allegorical symbolism, lucid and beautiful, Dante was very much a man of his time. We tend to believe and hope great figures could transcend their era but this is not always the case; nor should it, I gather, be used against them. Yet, his brutal honesty does provide some guidance in our world today. What would Dante have thought of assisted suicide (violence against themselves Circle Seven), legalization of drugs, stem cell, cloning, special interest and lobbyists, terrorism and excessive environmentalism? While some of these are seen as progress, what would it have meant to a mind like Dante?
As if his moral construct and lyrical beauty wasn't enough, Dante was very much engaged in the rich tapestry of Florentine politics in the 14th century - a place where diplomacy and the idea of balance of power was born. Florence was divided along Guelphs and Ghibellines. The Guelphs eventually won but two factions. Blacks and Whites - emerged. Dante was a 'White Guelph" a rural party (described as the liberal democrats of their time. Yet The Inferno feels like a book for conservatives) which sought (ironically given Dante's piousness. Though he didn't reject the Pope) more freedom from the Vatican. He would eventually be exiled until his death at Ravenna. Some in Italy are looking to overturn his exile (see second link in this paragraph.)
Question: Would a modern liberal democrat dare to ever write something like The Inferno?
I think one of the reasons Dante attracts (less so for relativists no doubt) and why his works have endured is because of his clear understanding of good and evil. It almost reads like a comic book.
The real lesson, among many, in Dante (and one he could never imagine) is how his overall conception of right and wrong; good and evil, remains true. We've lost these conceptions. It's only when we read The Inferno does he force us to look in the mirror and wonder: Are we progressing? Are we on the right track?
What if the issues we deem a priority (abortion, gay marriage, misguided health laws and legalization of various vices etc.) are mere smokescreens preventing us from dealing with other problems (loss of liberty, rehabilitating religion, backward economic policies, confused scientific information, loss in self-confidence and civil respect etc.) we refuse to face? I'll be blogging about this subject shortly.
It seems to me if we can get our moral clarity back, then knowing to do with secondary issues (but important) aforementioned will flow from this.
Please forgive if this seems incomplete or confused. I haven't sat and thought it out. These are just raw conceptions I decided to expose. I prefer to let the halls of opinion as expressed by higher intelligent beings than myself to debate and enlighten.
The Inferno is one book that helps give me clarity in dealing with contemporary issues and society.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post, and I am afraid I’ll be long my own way. I love writings that face big issues. And with classical authors one is never wasting time.
What is magnificent about Dante is in fact this complexity and completeness he displays in portraying an entire civilization - the late Middle ages - 1) as a poetical mystical philosophical holistic unity and 2) in its thousands and thousands of single facts and people. I don't know if anybody ever counted the enormous number of people he depicts in ways both spiritual and realistic.
A world btw not entirely different from ours: commerce, exchanges, urban life etc. which were starting to flourish again in parts of Europe and Italy. So, as you say, Dante can provide guidance in so many things. From his complete vision of man almost in every occasion quotes from Dante are enlightening, something Italians from my father’s generation used to do often (and now not so much any more: now we prefer to quote the morons in Tv).
Dante was very much a man of his time … We tend to believe and hope great figures could transcend their era but this is not always the case.
I agree. But let us not forget his time was at a turning point. So he is the last perfect expression of the Middle Ages – he is a Christian and Catholic author, no doubt, with stern morality and solid character, appealing to a McCain or a conservative, no doubt - but he is also at the edge of a dawning and more secular ‘modern world’.
Petrarca and Boccaccio, almost contemporary, are already humanist intellectuals. Also Dante is a humanist. He has the profundity of a real Roman, superior to all men of his time. He prefers the (Roman Empire) to the Pope (this politically). He is both Medieval and Classical. He synthesizes S. Thomas d'Aquino, but what is S. Thomas? He is a Christian Aristotle.
This is why his Ulysses, or Paolo and Francesca, or Brunetto Latini - all damned in Inferno - are so modern and almost strive to escape from the pitiless moral chains of the Middle Ages ...
(To be continued: I have one daughter arriving at the airport)