In Dante's Wake

Reading from Medieval to Modern in the Augustinian Tradition

John Freccero, Danielle Callegari, Melissa Swain

• Publisher: Fordham University Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780823264292
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Medieval & Early Modern Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Waking to find himself shipwrecked on a strange shore before a dark wood, the pilgrim of the Divine Comedy realizes he must set his sights higher and guide his ship to a radically different port. Starting on the sand of that very shore with Dante, John Freccero begins retracing the famous voyage recounted by the poet nearly 700 years ago.Freccero follows pilgrim and poet through the Comedy and then beyond, inviting readers both uninitiated and accomplished to join him in navigating this complex medieval masterpiece and its influence on later literature. Perfectly impenetrable in its poetry and unabashedly ambitious in its content, the Divine Comedy is the cosmos collapsed on itself, heavy with dense matter and impossible to expand. Yet Dante's great triumph is seen in the tiny, subtle fragments that make up the seamless whole, pieces that the poet painstakingly sewed together to form a work that insinuates itself into the reader and inspires the work of the next author. Freccero magnifies the most infinitesimal elements of that intricate construction to identify self-similar parts, revealing the full breadth of the great poem.Using this same technique, Freccero then turns to later giants of literature— Petrarch, Machiavelli, Donne, Joyce, and Svevo—demonstrating how these authors absorbed these smallest parts and reproduced Dante in their own work. In the process, he confronts questions of faith, friendship, gender, politics, poetry, and sexuality, so that traveling with Freccero, the reader will both cross unknown territory and reimagine familiar faces, swimming always in Dante's wake.

Notes

SHIPWRECK IN THE PROLOGUE

1. György Lukács, The Theory of the Novel (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1971), 29–39. The principal pages dedicated to Dante, paraphrased or cited here, are found on 68–70 and 80–3.

2. Ibid., 68.

3. See David Thompson, Dante’s Epic Journeys (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1974); and Winthrop Wetherbee, The Ancient Flame: Dante and the Poets (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008).

4. On this see also John Freccero, The Poetics of Conversion, 136–51.

5. Phillip Cary, Augustine’s Invention of the Inner Self: The Legacy of a Christian Platonist (Oxford: Claredon Press, 2000).

6. On this see also Charles S. Singleton, Dante Studies 2: Journey to Beatrice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), Chapter 3.

7. Erich Auerbach, Dante, Poet of the Secular World, trans. Ralph Mannheim (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961).

8. Charles S. Singleton, “In Exitu Israel de Aegypto,” in Dante: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. John Freccero (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1965), 102–21.

9. Robert Lamberton, Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).

10. Augustine, Confessions, ed. James O’Donnell, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 2:95–8.

11. Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953).

12. Hans Blumenberg, Shipwreck with Spectator: Paradigm of a Metaphor for Existence, trans. Steven Rendall (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996), 10.

13. See George Poulet, “Bergson et le thème de la vision panoramique des mourants” in Revue de theologie et philosophie 3, 10:1 (1960): 23–41.

14. Felix Buffière, Les mythes d’Homère et la pensée greque (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1956), 454–5.

15. Giovanni Reale, Agostino: Amore assoluto e “terza navigazione” (Milan: Bompiani, 2000). The volume contains the text and translation of the commentary In epistolam Ioannis ad Parthos and of In Ioannis evangelium tractatus, Tractatus II.

16. Translation in Giovanni Reale, Agostino, 495.

17. “The Delphic Oracle Upon Plotinus,” written in August 1931, in The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (London: Wordsworth Editions, 2000), 230.

18. These remarks summarize a previous work of mine (see John Freccero, Poetics of Conversion, 15–28). Giorgio Padoan was the first critic to underscore the importance of De beata vita for Dante’s portrayal of Ulysses: “Ulisse ‘Fandi Fictor’ e le vie della Sapienza,” Studi danteschi 37 (1960): 21–61.

19. Jean Pepin, “The Platonic and Christian Ulysses,” in Odysseus/Ulysses, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1991).

20. Robert J. O’Connell, Soundings in St. Augustine’s Imagination (New York: Fordham University Press, 1992), 176–7.

21. Translation in Giovanni Reale, Agostino, 503.

22. For a survey of “distinguished scholarly” discussions of the simile, see Herbert D. Austin and Leo Spitzer, “Letargo (Par. 33.94),” Modern Language Notes 52, no. 7 (1937): 469–75; and Peter Dronke, “Boethius, Alanus and Dante,” Romanische Forschungen 78 (1966): 119–25. For a more literary interpretation, see Georges Poulet, Le Point de départ (Paris: Editions de Rocher, 1964) and Les Metamorphoses du cercle, trans. Carley Dawson and Elliott Coleman (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966).

THE PORTRAIT OF FRANCESCA: INFERNO 5

1. For the kiss, see Nicolas J. Perella, The Kiss Sacred and Profane: An Interpretive History of Kiss Symbolism and Related Religio-erotic Themes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969).

2. For a reading of Dante’s construction and Boccaccio’s “elaboration” of the figure of Francesca, see Teodolinda Barolini, “Dante and Francesca da Rimini: Realpolitik, Romance, Gender,” Speculum 75, no. 1 (January 2000): 1–28.

3. The popular theme of the Annunciation in medieval and renaissance visual art is taken from Luke 1:26–38, in which the Angel Gabriel appears to the Virgin Mary to announce the forthcoming incarnation of Christ. In the later medieval visual tradition following St. Bernard’s textual gloss as well as other popular theological writings of the time, the Virgin is often depicted as having been interrupted in the act of reading. In some instances, the text of Isaiah is reproduced in the image (Isaiah 7:14, “behold, a virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel”).

4. See Patricia Parker, “Dante and the Dramatic Monologue,” Stanford Literature Review 2, no. 2 (Fall 1985): 165–83.

5. See René Girard, To Double Business Bound: Essays on Literature, Mimesis, and Anthropology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978).

6. See Peter Dronke, “Francesca and Héloïse,” Comparative Literature 27, no. 2 (Spring 1975): 113–35.

7. See György Lukács, The Theory of the Novel.

8. Cranes in the poem are associated with writing and its inspiration. In Purgatorio, after Dante’s definition of his poetry, Bonagiunta says: “io veggio ben come le vostre penne / di retro al dittator sen vanno strette / che de le nostre certo non avvenne” (24.58–60). There follows a simile of cranes, suggested by the word “penne” (“quills”) and the words “sen vanno strette.” The allusion is possibly to a poem by Guido Guinizelli, addressed to Bonagiunta, in which different poets are said to be as varied as species of birds. Two cantos later, a particularly contrived “hypothetical” simile of migrating cranes represent the penitent lover-poets, homosexual and heterosexual: “Poi, come grue ch’a le montagne Rife / volasser parte, e parte inver’ l’arene, / queste del gel, quelle delle del sole schife …” (Purg. 26.43–5).

9. Sky-writing is described in the heaven of Justice (Par. 18–20), where Dante executes spectacular variations on a theme from Lucan: the successive tracing and undoing of letters formed by cranes.

10. See Leo Spitzer, “The Poetic Treatment of a Platonic-Christian Theme,” Comparative Literature 6, no. 3 (Summer 1954): 193–217.

11. See René Girard, To Double Business Bound.

12. See Malcolm Bowie, Lacan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991), 185.

13. Hannah Arendt, Love and Saint Augustine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 21.

14. See John Freccero, Poetics of Conversion, 226.

15. Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, ed. and trans. William H. Stahl (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952), 132–3.

16. See also Marcelle Thiebaux, The Stag of Love: The Chase in Medieval Literature (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1974), and Giorgio Bàrberi Squarotti, Selvaggia Dilettanza: La caccia nella letteratura italiana dalle origini a Marino (Venice: Marsilio, 2000).

17. See Renato Poggioli, “Tragedy or Romance? A Reading of the Paola and Francesca Episode in Dante’s Inferno,” PMLA 72, no. 3 (1957): 313–58.

18. Jacques Derrida, The Politics of Friendship, trans. George Collins (London: Verso, 2005), 186.

19. Quoted by O’Donnell in Augustine, Confessions, ed. James O’Donnell, 2.232, along with other citations.

20. See the commentary ad. loc. by A. W. Price, Love and Friendship in Plato and Aristotle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 87, who notes the resemblance to Narcissus.

21. Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), 99.

22. See Frederick Goldin, The Mirror of Narcissus in the Courtly Love Lyric (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1967).

23. See John Freccero, “Moon Shadows: Paradiso III” in Studies for Dante: Essays in Honor of Dante Della Terza, ed. Franco Fido et al. (Fiesole: Cadmo, 1998), 89–101.

24. See Leo Spitzer, “The Poetic Treatment of a Platonic-Christian Theme.”

25. Gianfranco Contini, ed., Poeti del dolce stil novo (Milan: Mondadori, 1991), 87.

26. I take the phrase from Georges Poulet’s Études sur le temps humain, II: La distance intérieure (Paris: Plon, 1965).

27. See Philip Cary, Augustine’s Invention of the Inner Self, 125ff. The reference to John Locke is Cary’s.

28. See Peter Dronke, “Francesca and Héloïse.”

29. Peter Abelard, Historia calamitatum. The story of my misfortunes: An autobiography, trans. Henry A. Bellows (Saint Paul, Minn.: T. A. Boyd, 1922), 14.

30. One can imagine what a “Romance of Paolo” might have been, before his damnation: brothers, thinking that they love each other, gradually become consumed with mimetic envy, vying for the hand of the fair Francesca, who is simply a pawn. Gianciotto wins, but is ultimately defeated by the adulterous love of his wife for the dashing Paolo. Together, the lovers kill Gianciotto. Such a plot would correspond to Cervantes’s novella contained within the Quixote, “El curioso impertinente,” as read by René Girard in Deceit, Desire, and the Novel. Girard’s first chapter deals with “external mediation” in Don Quixote.

31. Augustine, Confessions, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin (New York: Penguin Books, 1961), 37.

32. John Freccero, Poetics of Conversion, esp. 1–5.

33. See René Girard, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel.

34. These remarks are a synopsis of the theme as represented in Book 1 of the Confessions.

EPITAPH FOR GUIDO

Decades ago I wrote on the subject of Guido’s disdain and now realize that my efforts were incomplete and, in some respects, seriously flawed. I should like to thank some of my friends and colleagues for their constructive criticism and gentle correction, which helped me to write what I hope is this more complete and satisfactory reading of canto 10: Maria Luisa Ardizzone, Peter Hawkins, Robert Hollander, Rachel Jacoff, Anthony Oldcorn, and Beatrice Sica.

1. For these and other early essays, see the bibliography of Charles S. Singleton, “Inferno X: Guido’s Disdain,” ML...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Author’s Acknowledgments
• Editors’ Acknowledgments
• Shipwreck in the Prologue
• The Portrait of Francesca: Inferno 5
• Epitaph for Guido
• The Eternal Image of the Father
• Allegory and Autobiography
• In the Wake of the Argo on a Boundless Sea
• The Fig Tree and the Laurel
• Medusa and the Madonna of Forlì: Political Sexuality in Machiavelli
• Donne’s “Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”
• Zeno’s Last Cigarette
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index