other, must be distinguished, a period of preparation and a period of composition. The period of preparation, which lasted nearly twenty-five years, that is, from the latter part of Beatrice's life till the death of Henry VII, was devoted, not merely to meditating on the structure of the poem, but in collecting the materials and preparing the stones necessary for the construction of the edifice. Perhaps all the episodes and all the similes in the poem are such stones, collected and prepared, one by one, at different times. It is unquestionable that all the topographical descriptions were written at the places described,1 and, therefore, at very different times. When, therefore, after the death of Henry VII, Dante began to write The Comedy, he had already written hundreds and thousands of terzines,2 which he afterwards incorporated, in their proper places, in the great poem. And, even after having begun to rear the edifice of his poem, with old and new materials, he still continued, profiting by every propitious occasion, to collect additional materials to serve in bringing his structure to its desired completion. And, no doubt, as is always the case in the progress of any work, some of the stones collected were repolished, others were thrown away, as unsuitable for the edifice. [1 This appears to me extremely questionable. If it were true, some extraordinary conclusions would follow in respect to Dante's wanderings.] [2 As the whole poem contains only 4,744 terzines, this is, of course, an exaggeration.] Its mere novelty may, perhaps, make this theory seem nothing but a pure hypothesis, having no other foundation than fancy. And yet, if we reflect carefully, we shall find that it is impossible to imagine the works having been composed in any other way. For, surely, no one will be so naïve as to suppose that the simile of the man who, having escaped the shipwreck, turns to the perilous water and gazes [Hell, I, 22 sqq.], was really the first simile in The Comedy written by the poet; that of the miser who regrets the loss he has suffered [Hell, I, 55 sqq.], the second, and so on. It must seem to every one more natural to suppose that a large proportion, at least, of the similes in The Comedy were collected and versified at different times, and then, during the process of composition, incorporated in the poem as occasion demanded. Thus, no one will suppose that it was only when he reached the fifth canto of the Hell that he began, for the first time, to think of putting into verse the sad story of Francesca da Rimini, or that, when he wrote that touching episode, he had not yet made a single line upon Filippo Argenti, or Farinata degli Uberti, or Ser Brunetto, or Guido da Montefeltro, or Count Ugolino, or other personages of the poem. Indeed, it is a matter of course that, if the Poet conceived the idea of the poem in his youth, he cannot have neglected to collect suitable materials, and must have sketched different passages at different times, as opportunity offered, sometimes, perhaps, in prose, sometimes in verse. But this is not all. Many places are described in The Comedy with so much realism and accuracy, that one must be unusually obstinate who does not agree, with Troya and his followers, that the verses describing these must have been written, or at least sketched, on the spot.1 But, shall we conclude from this that [1 Any one with even a moderate power of "visualizing," will realize at once that this argument has no force whatsoever. See Moore's Preface to Lalla Rookh.] the Sacred Poem was merely Dante's Itinerary? Merely because the picture of the cascade of the Montone, above the monastery of St. Benedict [Hell, XVI, 94 sqq.], is so perfect, shall we say that, when Dante was in that region, he had just reached the sixteenth canto of the Hell? Such an idea would be too naïve, and almost ridiculous. No: we shall rather say that these verses were really written, or at least sketched, when Dante was in those regions, for the purpose of being afterwards used in the construction of the poem; and then, when, a long time afterwards, Dante was engaged in the composition of The Comedy, he inserted them in it at the proper places, of course polishing them, or even recasting them. It need not be objected that such a view would reduce The Comedy to a mere mosaic. What makes a mosaic is not the fact that the necessary materials were collected bit by bit, but the manner in which these materials are used and put into the work. With materials slowly collected through the course of many years, a most beautiful structure may be reared, and this is just what Dante did. Everybody knows the story told by Boccaccio about the recovery of the first seven cantos of The Comedy, said to have been written before the Poet's banishment from Florence. But the story, they say, is a fable. Indeed, at present, there is hardly any one who doubts that these seven cantos were written some years after Dante's banishment. (See Hell, VI, 64–72.1) [1 And he to me: "They, after long contention, Will come to bloodshed; and the rustic party Within three suns, and rise again the other - Longfellow's Translation.] Is then the pretty story of the recovery of the seven cantos a mere invention? And who was the inventor? Not Boccaccio, for he expresses his doubts? Some one else? But what motive could there have been for inventing such a fable? It is impossible to imagine any, and, in any case, stories generally have some sort of foundation in fact. The recovery might be a fact, and yet there might be some mistake as to the contents of the copy-book (or papers) recovered. That copy-book certainly cannot have contained the first seven cantos of The Comedy; but it may have contained, in general, materials, sketches, etc., for the poem planned by Dante. If this was really the case, we can very easily understand the rest of the story, which might contain the truth. Indeed, it is nothing extraordinary or incredible that Dante, believing that he had lost that copy-book, or those papers, should, both on account of this belief, and of the multitudinous distractions that were the result of his banishment, have abandoned the idea of The Comedy. Moreover, it is by no means incredible that the recovery of the copy-book may have induced him to resume the magnificent work which he had abandoned. In this way, if we simply admit that the Sacred Poem was composed in the way in which conscientious writers are wont to write their books, many difficulties vanish, and a whole bundle of enigmas is solved. 89. THE HARMONY BETWEEN the Life and Works. - Only three loves are recounted, or clearly alluded to, in Dante's works; only three in his life. All three, not excluding even the first, although it had a real and sensible object, were supersensual. The ideal love for Beatrice, the mirror on earth of the power, goodness, and kindness of God, was followed by a passionate love of Science, allegorically represented as a gentle lady, a love in which the author of The Comedy afterwards recognized an aberration from the way of truth. The third and last love was that for the glorified Beatrice, the symbol of the spiritual authority which, according to the dictates of Divine Revelation, guides man to the blessedness of eternal life. The documents of these three loves of Dante's are his works, written in the three periods of his life. All the other sensual and sinful loves, laid to Dante's charge by ancient and modern biographers and interpreters, having no place in his life as mirrored in his different works, but placing the Poet of Rectitude in open contradiction with himself, and making his most solemn protestations mendacious, must be considered fictitious, foolish inventions, having their origin in a misunderstanding of the philosophic lovesongs of the Great Poet, and a false interpretation of some passages in the Sacred Poem. Of Dante's three real loves enough has been said. Of the fictitious ones it might seem as if we needed not take any notice. But the charge that Dante was incontinent, and that he sinned much in love, has been repeated so often and by so many persons, and is even repeated by so many at the present day, that the matter cannot be passed over in silence, especially as these loves, if they were admitted, would introduce an ugly disharmony between the life and the works of the Poet. Boccaccio was not the first person who painted Dante in the brightest hues of luxury.1 The Certaldese was preceded in [1 Mr. Lowell, therefore, is mistaken when he says: "It was kindly old Boccaccio who, without thinking any harm, first set this nonsense a-going" |