The Vision of Dante · Elizabeth Harrison
THE VISION OF DANTE.
The study of Dante emphasizes the value of the poetic form of expression for the experiences of the human soul. The Divine Comedy can be looked at in many ways, literally, politically, artistically and ethically. We could regard it merely as the imaginary experiences of a man who suddenly awoke and found himself in the midst of a dark wood, who in trying to find his way out was met by a leopard, a lion and a she-wolf. He turns back in despair to the place “where the sun is silent,” but is met by the poet Virgil, who offers to show another way out, and so on. These mere literal facts of the poem could not cause it to live in the hearts of men for six hundred years. Some commentators have explained the poem to be the political disappointment of Dante, pouring itself out in bitter though brilliant imagery. The leopard is Florence, the lion is France, the she-wolf is the Papal power of Rome. But Florence and France and Rome have passed out of their supremacy in the minds of men, and the Divine Comedy still keeps its hold upon the affections of mankind. Some other meaning must lie in the poem, else we would not be studying it to-day.
Is it not this? Dante is giving us an account of the soul’s estrangement--that soul is his own soul, yet it mirrors also each soul which has wandered “from the true path.” In fact it describes the spiritual struggle of every soul which has felt that it was out of harmony with the divine order. The beasts of selfishness, of pride and of greed have stood in the way and obstructed the return to the path of light. The great question is, How can this soul get back into the right path? It is the old story of Adam and the fall of man retold. It is the picture which every great poet holds up--man’s soul in a state of estrangement, and the struggle to get back to “the peace of God which passeth all understanding.” This will explain why the human heart for six hundred years has read and re-read the great poem of Dante.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.