The Poets' Dante Twentieth-Century Responses

by Hawkins, Peter; Jacoff, Rachel

• ISBN13: 9780374528409
• ISBN10: 0374528403
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-04-03
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Summary

Essays on the most celebrated Italian poet by eminent poets of the twentieth century "Perhaps confessions by poets, of what Dante has meant to them, may even contribute something to the appreciation of Dante himself."-T. S. Eliot The great fourteenth-century poet has been an unequaled influence on many writers in the twentieth century, whose "confessions" may well foster a deeper appreciation of Dante. Previously published essays by some of this century's most renowned poets-Pound, Eliot, Mandelstam, Robert Fitzgerald, Borges, Merrill, Montale, Lowell, Duncan, Auden, Yeats, Charles Williams, Nemerov, Heaney-join new essays commissioned by the editors. Contemporary poets Mary Campbell, W. S. Di Piero, J. D. McClatchy, W. S. Merwin, Robert Pinsky, Rosanna Warren, Alan Williamson, and Charles Wright reflect on Dante as well as on their own complex (and often contentious) relationship to his legacy. Their engagement with his work offers a fresh perspective on the Commedia and its author that more academic writing does not provide. As the editors write, a new consideration of Dante "should generate insights not only about his work but also about poetry written in our own language and time.

Author Biography

Peter S. Hawkins is Professor of Religion and Literature at Boston University and director of the Luce Program in Scripture and Literary Arts.

Rachel Jacoff is Professor of Italian at Wellesley College.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Introduction	xiii
Part I
Dante	3	(9)
Ezra Pound
A Vision	12	(4)
William Butler Yeats
The Figure of Beatrice	16	(12)
Charles Williams
What Dante Means to Me	28	(12)
T. S. Eliot
Conversation about Dante	40	(54)
Osip Mandelstam
Dante, Yesterday and Today	94	(24)
Eugenio Montale
The Divine Comedy	118	(18)
Jorge Luis Borges
The Vision of Eros	136	(8)
W H. Auden
Mirroring the Commedia: An Appreciation of Laurence Binyon's Version	144	(27)
Robert Fitzgerald
Dante's Actuality and Fecundity in the Anglo-Saxon World	171	(5)
Robert Lowell
Epics	176	(10)
The Sweetness and Greatness of Dante's Divine Comedy	186	(24)
Robert Duncan
The Dream of Dante	210	(17)
Howard Nemerov
Divine Poem	227	(12)
James Merrill
Part II
Envies and Identifications: Dante and the Modern Poet	239	(20)
Seamus Heaney
Dantino Mio	259	(6)
Charles Wright
She's Come Undone: An American Jew Looks at Dante	265	(12)
Jacqueline Osherow
His Enamel	277	(15)
J. D. McClatchy
Poetry Rising from the Dead	292	(14)
W S. Merwin
The Pageant of Unbeing	306	(13)
Robert Pinsky
Between Politics and Eternity	319	(14)
Geoffrey Hill
Words and Blood	333	(11)
Rosanna Warren
Our Sweating Selves	344	(10)
W. S. Di Piero
Daniel in Perpignan	354	(5)
Daniel Halpern
The Tears of Cocytus	359	(11)
Alan Williamson
Rooting for the Damned	370	(10)
Mark Doty
Souls	380	(3)
C. K. Williams
Wrath, Order, Paradise	383	(12)
Mary Baine Campbell
Summoning Shades	395
Edward Hirsch

Excerpts

Chapter One

Ezra Pound

from Dante

The Divina Commedia must not be Considered as an epic; to compare it with epic poems is usually unprofitable. It is in a sense lyric, the tremendous lyric of the subjective Dante; but the soundest classification of the poem is Dante's own, "as a comedy which differs from tragedy in its content," for "tragedy begins admirably and tranquilly," and the end is terrible, "whereas comedy introduces some harsh complication, but brings the matter to a prosperous end." The Commedia is, in fact, a great mystery play, or better, a cycle of mystery plays.

    ... Any sincere criticism of the highest poetry must resolve itself into a sort of profession of faith. The critic must begin with a "credo," and his opinion will be received in part for the intelligence he may seem to possess, and in part for his earnestness. Certain of Dante's supremacies are comprehensible only to such as know Italian and have themselves attained a certain proficiency in the poetic art. An ipse dixit is not necessarily valueless. The penalty for remaining a layman is that one must at times accept a specialist's opinion. No one ever took the trouble to become a specialist for the bare pleasure of ramming his ipse dixit down the general throat.

    There are two kinds of beautiful painting one may perhaps illustrate by the works of Burne-Jones and Whistler; one looks at the first kind of painting and is immediately delighted by its beauty; the second kind of painting, when first seen, puzzles one, but on leaving it, and going from the gallery one finds new beauty in natural things--a Thames fog, to use the hackneyed example. Thus, there are works of art which are beautiful objects and works of art which are keys or passwords admitting one to a deeper knowledge, to a finer perception of beauty; Dante's work is of the second sort.

    Presumably critical analysis must proceed in part by comparison; Wordsworth is, we may say, the orthodox sign for comprehension of nature, yet where has Wordsworth written lines more instinct with "nature-feeling" than those in the twenty-eight of the Purgatorio ?

l' aqua, diss' io, e it suon della foresta impugnan dentro a me novella fede.

The water, quoth I, and the woodland murmuring drive in new faith upon my soul.

    So one is tempted to translate it for the sake of the rhythm, but Dante has escaped the metaphysical term, and describes the actual sensation with more intensity. His words are: "indrive new faith within to me."

    Wordsworth and the Uncouth American share the palm for modern "pantheism," or some such thing; but weigh their words with the opening lines of the Paradiso :

La gloria di colui che tutto move Per l' universo penetra e risplende In una parte più, e meno altrove.

The glory of him who moveth all Penetrates and is resplendent through the all In one part more and in another less.

    The disciples of Whitman cry out concerning the "cosmic sense," but Whitman, with all his catalogues and flounderings, has never so perfectly expressed the perception of cosmic consciousness as does Dante in the canto just quoted:

Qual si fe' Glauco nel gustar dell' erba Che il fe' consorto in mar degli altri dei.

As Glaucus, tasting of the grass which made him sea-fellow of the other gods.

Take it as simple prose expression, forget that it is told with matchless sound, discount the suggestion of the parallel beauty in the older myth, and it is still more convincing than Whitman.

    Shelley, I believe, ranks highest as the English "transcendental" poet, whatever that may mean. Shelley is honest in his endeavor to translate a part of Dante's message into the more northern tongue. He is, in sort, a faint echo of the Paradiso , very much as Rossetti is, at his best, an echo of the shorter Tuscan poetry. I doubt if Shelley ever thought of concealing the source of much of this beauty, which he made his own by appreciation. Certainly few men have honored Dante more than did Shelley. His finest poem, the Ode to the West Wind , bears witness to his impressions of the earlier canti; thus to the host under the whirling ensign in canto 3 of the Inferno , and especially to lines 112-14:

Come d' autunno si levan le foglie L'uno appreso dell' altra infin che il ramo Vede alla terra tutte le sue spoglie.

As leaves of autumn fall one after one Till the branch seeth all its spoils upon The ground ...

The full passage from which this is taken foreshadows Shelley's "pestilence-stricken multitudes." In the fifth canto "shadows borne upon the aforesaid strife," and the rest, with the movement of the wind, is pregnant with suggestions for the splendid English ode. I detract nothing from Shelley's glory, for of the tens of thousands who have read these canti, only one has written such an ode.

    This is not an isolated or a chance incident; the best of Shelley is filled with memories of Dante.

    The comparison of Dante and Milton is at best a stupid convention. Shelley resembles Dante afar off, and in a certain effect of clear light which both produce.

    Milton resembles Dante in nothing; judging superficially, one might say that they both wrote long poems which mention God and the angels, but their gods and their angels are as different as their styles and abilities. Dante's god is ineffable divinity. Milton's god is a fussy old man with a hobby. Dante is metaphysical, where Milton is merely sectarian. Paradise Lost is conventional melodrama, and later critics have decided that the Devil is intended for the hero, which interpretation leaves the whole without significance. Dante's Satan is undeniably and indelibly evil. He is not "Free Will" but stupid malignity. Milton has no grasp of the superhuman. Milton's angels are men of enlarged power, plus wings. Dante's angels surpass human nature, and differ from it. They move in their high courses inexplicable.

ma fé sembiante d' uomo, cui altra cura stringa. (101-2)

    Appeared as a man whom other care incites.

Milton, moreover, shows a complete ignorance of the things of the spirit. Any attempt to compare the two poets as equals is bathos, and it is, incidentally, unfair to Milton, because it makes one forget all his laudable qualities.

    Shakespear alone of the English poets endures sustained comparison with the Florentine. Here are we with the masters; of neither can we say, "He is the greater"; of each we must say, "He is unexcelled."

    It is idle to ask what Dante would have made of writing stage plays, or what Shakespear would have done with a "Paradise."

    There is almost an exact three centuries between their dates of birth [Dante was born in 1265; Shakespear in 1564]. America had been discovered, printing, the Reformation, the Renaissance were new forces at work. Much change had swept over the world; but art and humanity, remaining ever the same, gave us basis for comparison.

    Dante would seem to have the greater imaginative "vision," the greater ability to see the marvellous scenery through which his action passes; but Shakespear's vision is never deficient, though his expression of it be confined to a few lines of suggestion and the prose of the stage directions.

    Shakespear would seem to have greater power in depicting various humanity, and to be more observant of its foibles; but recalling Dante's comparisons to the gamester leaving the play, to the peasant at the time of hoar-frost, to the folk passing in the shadow of evening, one wonders if he would have been less apt at fitting them with speeches. His dialogue is comparatively symbolic, it serves a purpose similar to that of the speeches in Plato, yet both he and Plato convey the impression of individuals speaking.

    If the language of Shakespear is more beautifully suggestive, that of Dante is more beautifully definite; both men are masters of the whole art. Shakespear is perhaps more brilliant in his use of epithets of proper quality; thus I doubt if there be in Dante, or in all literature, any epithet so masterfully-placed as is Shakespear's in the speech of the Queen-mother to Hamlet where she says "And with the incorporal air do hold discourse," suggesting both the common void of the air which she sees and the ghostly form at which Hamlet stands aghast; on the other hand, Dante is, perhaps, more apt in "comparison."

    "The apt use of metaphor, arising, as it does, from a swift perception of relations, is the hall-mark of genius": thus says Aristotle. I use the term "comparison" to include metaphor, simile (which is a more leisurely expression of a kindred variety of thought), and the "language beyond metaphor," that is, the more compressed or elliptical expression of metaphorical perception, such as antithesis suggested or implied in verbs and adjectives; for we find adjectives of two sorts, thus, adjectives of pure quality, as: white, cold, ancient; and adjectives which are comparative, as: lordly. Epithets may also be distinguished as epithets of primary and secondary apparition. By epithets of primary apparition I mean those which describe what is actually presented to the sense or vision. Thus in "selva oscura," ("shadowy wood"); epithets of secondary apparition or afterthought are such as in " sage Hippotades" or " forbidden tree." Epithets of primary apparition give vividness to description and stimulate conviction in the actual vision of the poet. There are likewise clauses and phrases of "primary apparition." Thus, in canto 10 of the Inferno , where Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti's head appears above the edge of the tomb, "I believe he had risen on his knees," has no beauty in itself, but adds greatly to the verisimilitude.

    There are also epithets of "emotional apparition," transensuous, suggestive as in Yeats' line, "Under a bitter black wind that blows from the left hand." Dante's coloring and qualities of the infernal air, although they are definitely symbolical and not indefinitely suggestive, foreshadow this sort of epithet. The modern symbolism is more vague, it is sometimes allegory in three dimensions instead of two, sometimes merely atmospheric suggestion.

    It is in the swift forms of comparison, however, that Dante sets much of his beauty. Thus: "dove il sol tace," ("where the sun is silent,") or, "l'aura morta," ("the dead air."). In this last the comparison fades imperceptibly into emotional suggestion.

    His vividness depends much on his comparison by simile to particular phenomena; ... thus Dante, following the Provençal, says, not "where a river pools itself," but "As at Arles, where the Rhone pools itself." Or when he is describing not a scene but a feeling, he makes such comparison as in the matchless simile to Glancus.

    Dante's temperament is austere, patrician; Shakespear, as nature, combines refinement with profusion; it is as natural to compare Dante to a cathedral as it is to compare Shakespear to a forest; yet Shakespear is not more enamored of out-of-door beauty than is Dante. Their lands make them familiar with a different sort of out-of-doors. Shakespear shows his affection for this beauty as he knows it in--

--the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill;

and Dante, when the hoar-frost

    paints her white sister's image on the ground.

    It is part of Dante's aristocracy that he conceded nothing to the world, or to opinion--like Farinata, he met his reverses "as if he held Hell in great disdain"; Shakespear concedes, succeeds, and repents in one swift, bitter line: "I have made myself a motley to the view."

    Shakespear comes nearer to most men, partly from his habit of speaking from inside his characters instead of conversing with them. He seems more human, but only when we forget the intimate confession of the Vita Nuova or such lines of the Commedia as

col quale il fantolin corm alla mamma quand' ha paura o quando egli è aflitto.

as the little child runs to its mother when it has fear, or when it is hurt.

    Dante has the advantage in points of pure sound; his onomatopoeia is not a mere trick of imitating natural noises, but is a mastery in fitting the inarticulate sound of a passage to the mood or to the quality of voice which expresses that mood or passion which the passage describes or expresses. Shakespear has a language less apt for this work in pure sound, but he understands the motion of words, or, if the term be permitted, the overtones and undertones of rhythm, and he uses them with a mastery which no one but Burns has come reasonably near to approaching. Other English poets master this part of the art occasionally, or as if by accident; there is a fine example in a passage of Sturge Moore's Defeat of the Amazons , where the spirit of his faun leaps and scurries, with the words beginning: "Ahi! ahi! ahi! Laomedon."

    ... That Shakespear, as Dante, is the conscious master of his art is most patent from the manner in which he plays with his art in the sonnets, teasing, experimenting, developing that technique which he so marvellously uses and so cunningly conceals in the later plays. To talk about "wood-notes wild" is sheer imbecility.

    Did Shakespear know his Tuscan poetry directly or through some medium, through Petrarch, or through some Italianized Englishman? Why did he not write a play on Francesca da Rimini? There are a number of subjects for amusing speculation; theories will be built from straws floating in the wind; thus Francis Meres, when in 1598 he writes of Shakespear's "fine-filed phrase," may or may not have some half memory of Dante's "amorosa lima," the "loving file" that had "polished his speech."

    Our knowledge of Dante and Of Shakespear interacts; intimate acquaintance with either breeds that discrimination which makes us more keenly appreciate the other.

(1910)

Excerpted from The Poets' Dante by Peter S. Hawkins and Rachel Jacoff. Copyright © 2001 by Peter S. Hawkins and Rachel Jacoff. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.