WEBVTT 00:00.810 --> 00:03.770 Prof: Today we'll be discussing, 00:03.770 --> 00:06.720 and a little bit in haste of course, 00:06.720 --> 00:08.320 because I haven't got much time to do this, 00:08.320 --> 00:13.450 but we'll devote the whole class to the Vita nova or 00:13.445 --> 00:17.685 nuova, as it is called which is 00:17.685 --> 00:20.035 Dante's first work. 00:20.040 --> 00:23.330 I was going to say "first finished work," 00:23.325 --> 00:26.015 but in a way, it's not a finished work. 00:26.020 --> 00:28.940 It is a deliberately unfinished work. 00:28.940 --> 00:31.310 Dante doesn't really finish many of his works. 00:31.310 --> 00:34.430 He interrupts them; he breaks off and decides to 00:34.430 --> 00:36.350 move on to do other things. 00:36.350 --> 00:39.920 This is the case with the philosophical Banquet, 00:39.921 --> 00:43.561 this text of ethics that he goes on writing once he's in 00:43.558 --> 00:44.218 exile. 00:44.220 --> 00:47.680 It's true for the text on language, the so-called De 00:47.682 --> 00:50.822 vulgari eloquentia, about the vulgar language, 00:50.823 --> 00:53.263 a second book he just won't go on. 00:53.260 --> 00:56.220 But it's also true, in a way, for the Vita 00:56.222 --> 01:00.262 nuova to know that ends with a vision, but we do not know 01:00.261 --> 01:02.821 what's going to happen after that. 01:02.820 --> 01:05.390 This is--there is a kind of suspension about it, 01:05.391 --> 01:07.631 but this is the first work, let's call it, 01:07.634 --> 01:09.444 full work, that Dante writes. 01:09.438 --> 01:13.188 The title means a "new life"; 01:13.188 --> 01:18.158 though new or new life, so it means probably youth; 01:18.159 --> 01:23.919 that describes the story, an autobiographical account, 01:23.924 --> 01:29.804 the lover, the poet who falls in love with Beatrice. 01:29.799 --> 01:33.269 You may remember I called it the first decisive event 01:33.265 --> 01:37.055 happening in his early life immediately after his mother's 01:37.063 --> 01:41.263 death and describes the story of this love for Beatrice who then 01:41.263 --> 01:43.133 in the narrative dies. 01:43.129 --> 01:45.669 And he goes--he, the pilgrim, 01:45.673 --> 01:48.673 lover, poet, goes on recording the 01:48.671 --> 01:53.851 confusion, the sense of loss that ensues this event of the 01:53.849 --> 01:56.029 death of Beatrice. 01:56.030 --> 01:59.240 His betrayals become an ethical drama, 01:59.239 --> 02:04.089 as most lyrical poetry of the Middle Ages does, 02:04.090 --> 02:07.180 they're always dealing with treacherous presences, 02:07.180 --> 02:11.180 with betrayals, with infidelity, 02:11.177 --> 02:14.677 etc., and then he ends up having a 02:14.682 --> 02:15.922 final vision. 02:15.919 --> 02:20.229 So it's youth, it's the new life meets, 02:20.229 --> 02:23.279 above all youth, but youth means many other 02:23.284 --> 02:26.854 things which I think the narrative will go on-- 02:26.848 --> 02:29.378 the meanings of which I think the narrative will sustain. 02:29.379 --> 02:32.879 "New," in Italian, means surprising, 02:32.884 --> 02:37.204 unexpected, even strange, novel, marvelous, 02:37.200 --> 02:42.340 it's--and it therefore gives a kind of direction to the way we 02:42.339 --> 02:44.949 should be reading the story. 02:44.949 --> 02:49.019 Its primarily, well all of these meanings are 02:49.021 --> 02:53.081 true and it's an autobiography, or what do we call, 02:53.081 --> 02:55.101 or we'll come to the description of what an 02:55.099 --> 02:59.129 autobiography is, it's also what we call a novel 02:59.129 --> 03:00.439 of the self. 03:00.438 --> 03:03.708 Another way of speaking about autobiography which literally 03:03.705 --> 03:05.335 means I write about myself. 03:05.340 --> 03:08.640 So let me say a few things about this structure, 03:08.641 --> 03:12.371 this autobiographical structure, this form of problems 03:12.366 --> 03:15.526 before we get into the narrative as such. 03:15.530 --> 03:20.710 From one point of view we might all agree easily that if you 03:20.714 --> 03:24.174 knew that this is-- it belongs--the Vita 03:28.220 --> 03:30.380 who would all write what they would call, 03:30.376 --> 03:32.206 "vida" -- life. 03:32.210 --> 03:35.960 It's just a word that lingers, continues in Spanish, 03:35.961 --> 03:37.361 "life." 03:37.360 --> 03:40.470 So they would write their poems and they would append a brief 03:40.465 --> 03:41.755 account of their lives. 03:44.162 --> 03:45.712 when they would publish their poems. 03:45.710 --> 03:49.290 So let's say that Dante is writing about himself, 03:49.286 --> 03:54.126 and inserting the poems as part of the texture of his own life. 03:54.128 --> 03:57.948 As an autobiography, though, the text echoes, 03:57.952 --> 04:01.082 and is modeled on, the most important 04:01.080 --> 04:04.990 autobiography written in the Middle Ages. 04:04.990 --> 04:08.850 In fact, it's written by one who can be called the founder of 04:08.854 --> 04:11.374 the autobiographical genre and it is St. 04:11.366 --> 04:15.356 Augustine, who writes as you know, the Confessions. 04:15.360 --> 04:18.600 A confession, which is a witnessing, 04:18.600 --> 04:21.870 which is--it's really the story of his life, 04:21.870 --> 04:28.540 from his childhood in Africa, his growing up as a gifted 04:28.535 --> 04:33.125 young rhetorician, philosopher turned rhetorician, 04:33.129 --> 04:37.169 who then moves to Rome where he becomes a teacher despised and 04:37.166 --> 04:41.336 paid by his students, moves on to Milan and the whole 04:41.339 --> 04:44.429 narrative climaxes with a conversion. 04:44.430 --> 04:48.680 In fact, the whole idea of an autobiography for Augustine is 04:48.678 --> 04:52.128 that it is--it coincides with, it is coextensive, 04:52.134 --> 04:53.724 with a conversion. 04:53.720 --> 04:58.500 He writes--he achieves this conversion in a garden in Milan, 04:58.500 --> 05:02.970 it's a narrative that we may have at some point a chance to 05:02.971 --> 05:07.521 go to and look at it in some detail and then goes on writing 05:07.521 --> 05:12.231 a hermeneutics of the biblical Genesis as if the new life that 05:12.226 --> 05:15.066 he found, through the conversion, 05:15.074 --> 05:18.804 could only literally issue into a commentary about all 05:18.795 --> 05:22.275 beginnings; Genesis is the beginning of all 05:22.276 --> 05:24.126 beginnings as it were. 05:24.129 --> 05:27.579 After we say this and we say--and I can say that 05:27.577 --> 05:31.387 Augustine writes in the full awareness that in effect 05:31.391 --> 05:35.871 autobiography has to be the same thing as a conversion because 05:35.865 --> 05:39.675 autobiography demands two voices all the time. 05:39.680 --> 05:45.650 It's necessarily ambivalent; it demands the voice of the 05:45.646 --> 05:50.576 narrator who is outside of the narrative and who can look 05:50.577 --> 05:53.147 back-- in fact the mode of writing 05:53.148 --> 05:55.848 autobiographies is always retrospection. 05:55.850 --> 06:00.090 I look back at my life and try to figure out what are the 06:00.091 --> 06:04.331 stages, what are the events, what is it that makes me now 06:04.334 --> 06:06.234 the person that I am. 06:06.230 --> 06:11.410 There's a sort of necessary distance between the protagonist 06:11.408 --> 06:14.128 and the narrator, two voices. 06:14.129 --> 06:18.749 A narrator who knows more than what the protagonist knew. 06:18.750 --> 06:24.230 I am caught in time and I have encounters in my own life from 06:24.230 --> 06:27.580 day to day, and I never know what those 06:27.581 --> 06:32.431 encounters really portend, nor what do they mean and that 06:32.430 --> 06:34.230 same thing for you. 06:34.230 --> 06:38.270 You have--you probably--I don't know if you hold that which is a 06:38.267 --> 06:42.247 most abbreviated-- a unit of an autobiography 06:42.254 --> 06:45.814 which is a diary, you go home at night and you 06:45.810 --> 06:48.240 jot down all the great events of the day, 06:48.240 --> 06:51.500 but you may overlook the most important. 06:51.500 --> 06:53.680 You may have had a meeting with someone, 06:53.680 --> 06:55.720 you may have caught sight of some person, 06:55.720 --> 06:59.770 who eventually ten years from now will reenter your life and 06:59.771 --> 07:03.891 give an altogether different appearance and direction to your 07:03.891 --> 07:04.511 life. 07:04.509 --> 07:08.169 This is to say, that all autobiographical 07:08.168 --> 07:11.568 experiments, like all diary entries, 07:11.569 --> 07:16.429 are always uncertain and fundamentally false because you 07:16.425 --> 07:20.285 can never really write-- you can only write about what 07:20.290 --> 07:23.460 you know at that point and you can never really write about the 07:23.456 --> 07:25.086 whole structure of your life. 07:25.089 --> 07:29.299 To be able to write about the structure of your life you have 07:29.303 --> 07:33.873 to die, that's Augustine's idea of the necessity of conversion. 07:33.870 --> 07:37.000 It's a symbolic death by means of which you come back into 07:37.004 --> 07:39.834 existence, you come back into life as a 07:39.834 --> 07:42.044 new man, you have a new life, 07:42.036 --> 07:46.446 and now from that standpoint of yours being a new life you can 07:46.451 --> 07:50.291 have all the necessary detachment to look at your past 07:50.286 --> 07:53.466 and decipher that which was in a haze, 07:53.470 --> 07:56.090 that which was uncertain as things went on. 07:56.089 --> 07:59.409 The other reason why you need this kind of structure in 07:59.408 --> 08:01.498 autobiographies, this double voice, 08:01.497 --> 08:02.417 is obvious. 08:02.420 --> 08:05.340 Because if I go on writing about my life without any sense 08:05.338 --> 08:08.258 of what my life is about, can you imagine what happens? 08:08.259 --> 08:10.909 I go on writing every single thing that I do which means that 08:10.911 --> 08:13.691 I would need another life to be able to say well I got up in the 08:13.694 --> 08:15.404 morning, then I brushed my teeth, 08:15.401 --> 08:15.921 etc., etc. 08:15.920 --> 08:21.030 It becomes a random, senseless, accumulation of 08:21.031 --> 08:26.811 facts without any particular meaning or direction. 08:26.810 --> 08:34.860 Dante is aware of this type of complication of autobiographies. 08:34.860 --> 08:37.340 We don't have this kind of autobiographies, 08:37.340 --> 08:40.220 you have autobiographical writings beforehand, 08:40.220 --> 08:45.960 you have a kind of self analysis, think of the one-- 08:45.960 --> 08:49.700 the figure that is most powerful for Augustine is David, 08:49.700 --> 08:55.240 King David and his Psalms with a kind of reflection, 08:55.240 --> 08:59.590 a kind of turning inward, and trying to pinpoint the 08:59.589 --> 09:02.599 shifts in moods, moral judgments, 09:02.604 --> 09:06.094 temptations, the idea of one's own system 09:06.090 --> 09:09.000 is, but this really means a kind of 09:08.995 --> 09:11.285 internalization of one's life. 09:11.288 --> 09:15.718 Augustine will not do this, Augustine will go into the 09:15.715 --> 09:19.355 interiority of his self, into the interiority of his 09:19.363 --> 09:22.223 consciousness, but he will also describe what 09:22.217 --> 09:24.987 has happened to him in the public space. 09:24.990 --> 09:27.880 Now he goes inside and outside all the time. 09:27.879 --> 09:31.689 Dante's, Vita nuova, you have all read it, 09:31.690 --> 09:35.210 it's really a complicated text from this point of view, 09:35.210 --> 09:39.070 because for it being an autobiography, 09:39.070 --> 09:43.060 it's amazing how little he tells us really about his own 09:43.061 --> 09:43.571 life. 09:43.570 --> 09:46.260 There's nothing concrete about this text. 09:46.259 --> 09:51.349 We know that it has taken place in--it takes place in Florence, 09:51.345 --> 09:55.195 but Florence is not even mentioned as a city. 09:55.200 --> 09:58.240 We only infer that it's Florence because at one point 09:58.236 --> 10:01.446 there is a description of a river that crosses by it and 10:01.448 --> 10:04.718 which Dante uses because he has had an inspiration, 10:04.720 --> 10:08.430 words come to him with the same kind of strength and naturalness 10:08.427 --> 10:10.957 with which the waters of the river flow, 10:10.960 --> 10:14.700 that's the implied meaning of that association or description 10:14.695 --> 10:17.855 of the landscape, there's a river and fantastic 10:17.863 --> 10:22.243 words came to me which I jotted down which I wanted to remember, 10:22.240 --> 10:24.760 it's the turning in point in poetic terms of the Vita 10:24.759 --> 10:25.309 nuova. 10:25.308 --> 10:28.128 When he addresses the -- he understands that to write poetry 10:28.128 --> 10:30.208 -- he writes the famous line, 10:30.207 --> 10:33.547 "Women who have intellect of love." 10:33.548 --> 10:36.278 It is a remarkable line, Donne ch'avete 10:36.279 --> 10:39.469 intelletto, it's a remarkable line and I will 10:39.474 --> 10:42.074 explain why it's a remarkable line. 10:42.070 --> 10:46.180 It was never written -- that kind of perception was never 10:46.179 --> 10:49.779 really part of the understanding--of the warehouse 10:49.777 --> 10:51.977 of the poetic imagination. 10:51.980 --> 10:53.900 What does Dante do? 10:53.899 --> 10:56.109 It's a little bit abstract. 10:56.110 --> 10:59.710 It's a kind of an enigmatic account that he gives and this 10:59.710 --> 11:01.100 is unlike Augustine. 11:01.100 --> 11:06.190 It begins with a reference to the book of memory. 11:06.190 --> 11:11.350 In that part of the book of my memory, 11:11.350 --> 11:14.090 within which little has been written, 11:14.090 --> 11:18.560 I find words which I cannot go on repeating and all, 11:18.558 --> 11:21.048 but I would just transcribe some sentences, 11:21.048 --> 11:24.238 the meanings of them, so he understands that here we 11:24.239 --> 11:25.289 have, first of all, 11:25.294 --> 11:27.534 it's a book of memory, not necessarily an act of 11:27.534 --> 11:30.504 retrospection and memory it has a number of other implications 11:30.500 --> 11:31.230 and dangers. 11:31.230 --> 11:33.570 What are the implications? 11:33.570 --> 11:38.240 Well, Dante is writing this, he's about 25,24; 11:38.240 --> 11:44.610 it's a provisional retrospection of his growth as a 11:44.607 --> 11:45.497 poet. 11:45.500 --> 11:48.150 He certainly knows that memories of the mother, 11:48.149 --> 11:50.969 as you know of the Muses, this is the famous myth, 11:50.972 --> 11:51.552 right? 11:51.548 --> 11:55.778 There's the old Greek myth that memory, 11:55.779 --> 12:01.159 Mnemosyne, lay with Jupiter for nine successive nights and from 12:01.163 --> 12:05.683 their copulations the nine muses came into being, 12:05.678 --> 12:08.098 so Memories, the Mother, which means that 12:08.100 --> 12:11.800 art is always an act of memory; a way of remembering, 12:11.801 --> 12:14.801 an act of remembrance, we could say. 12:14.798 --> 12:20.368 It has also some dangers that Dante will go on reflecting 12:20.373 --> 12:21.173 about. 12:21.168 --> 12:27.238 It's that if you go on getting caught in the activity of memory 12:27.243 --> 12:31.893 you run a serious risk, the risk of changing your sense 12:31.889 --> 12:35.549 of life and your sense of reality into the phantasms of 12:35.548 --> 12:38.258 memory because that's what memory is. 12:38.259 --> 12:40.289 It's called, as you know, 12:40.288 --> 12:42.738 the eye of the imagination. 12:42.740 --> 12:46.730 That's the famous description of memory. 12:46.730 --> 12:49.750 The Greeks, of course, used to put memory in the 12:49.751 --> 12:53.681 heart, and in fact as you know, the ancient Greeks used to put 12:53.676 --> 12:55.216 memory in the heart. 12:55.220 --> 12:57.290 In fact, as you know, in Italian we still do say-- 12:57.288 --> 12:59.238 or in Spanish, recordarse, 12:59.243 --> 13:02.463 which really has the etymology, in English record, 13:02.457 --> 13:05.427 that's the etymology of the heart we remember. 13:05.428 --> 13:08.598 But in the Middle Ages it's already part of the imagination; 13:08.600 --> 13:13.040 it's called the eye of the imagination which means that it 13:13.039 --> 13:15.689 has a visionary component to it. 13:15.690 --> 13:19.200 This explains the emphasis of dreams, vision, 13:19.202 --> 13:24.152 strange apparitions with which this text is punctuated from the 13:24.153 --> 13:26.153 beginning to the end. 13:26.149 --> 13:29.499 Dante, I repeat, understands that there is a 13:29.500 --> 13:34.330 danger to memory and the danger of memory is the transformation 13:34.333 --> 13:37.923 of experience into a phantasmatic reality; 13:37.919 --> 13:39.339 the whole living in the world. 13:39.340 --> 13:43.590 It's like you're always looking backwards and you're not 13:43.587 --> 13:46.097 Janus-like, you don't look in all 13:46.095 --> 13:50.095 directions, you don't look ahead and Dante will turn against 13:50.101 --> 13:50.781 memory. 13:50.779 --> 13:53.499 The second thing that we get from that little exordium of-- 13:53.500 --> 13:56.000 in that part of the book of my memory, 13:56.000 --> 13:57.670 we know that Dante's placed himself-- 13:57.668 --> 14:02.258 I find words which have been the inscriptions of memory, 14:02.259 --> 14:05.819 I'm not going to repeat them all, but only some of them. 14:05.820 --> 14:09.070 We know that Dante has casted himself as the editor of his own 14:09.072 --> 14:10.782 book, that's the double poise. 14:10.778 --> 14:14.848 This is the double structure of this little text of his. 14:14.850 --> 14:18.850 First of all it's a double-- has duplicity all over, 14:18.854 --> 14:22.314 this text has, it's a book of poetry and it's 14:22.308 --> 14:23.878 a book of prose. 14:23.879 --> 14:27.139 It's not an unusual structure: Boethius, The 14:27.139 --> 14:30.749 Consolation of Philosophy is written like 14:30.751 --> 14:31.391 that. 14:31.389 --> 14:35.249 Dante also writes other texts like that, but what are the 14:35.245 --> 14:36.275 implications? 14:36.279 --> 14:41.279 Well, there's a lyrical self who has been in the throes of a 14:41.279 --> 14:45.939 great passion for Beatrice, who struggles sometimes with 14:45.942 --> 14:48.572 his inspiration, who waits. 14:48.570 --> 14:52.230 And that's the problem he has, that one of the crises that he 14:52.230 --> 14:55.890 has is that he's always waiting for words to come to him, 14:55.889 --> 14:59.739 he's always waiting for Beatrice to say hello to him, 14:59.740 --> 15:02.640 there is a way in which he casts himself as the passive, 15:02.639 --> 15:06.669 a passive protagonist, weak-willed, 15:06.668 --> 15:11.688 unable, believing that the will can direct him wherever the will 15:11.691 --> 15:16.791 wants and that's another problem that we are really going to talk 15:16.792 --> 15:17.592 about. 15:17.590 --> 15:24.930 Then, finally he understands that he better get out of that 15:24.927 --> 15:26.987 mode, and in effect, 15:26.985 --> 15:30.045 and I will say this by making you turn, 15:30.048 --> 15:31.848 just talking about the formal structure now, 15:31.850 --> 15:35.930 the whole text is written in the past mode, 15:35.928 --> 15:39.068 the whole text in that part of the book of memory; 15:39.070 --> 15:44.570 a commemoration of a great event in the private life of 15:44.572 --> 15:47.532 Dante, the love which he doesn't even 15:47.533 --> 15:50.513 know what it is, he doesn't even know the woman, 15:50.506 --> 15:53.886 he doesn't even know what the passion is and part of what the 15:53.890 --> 15:56.990 tension of this text is, to ponder what it is that the 15:56.990 --> 15:59.980 passion means and what it is that it's doing to him and to 15:59.980 --> 16:00.610 his mind. 16:00.610 --> 16:03.610 But by the end of the--in Chapter XLII, 16:03.610 --> 16:07.000 which by the way, let it be said in passing, 16:07.004 --> 16:11.114 its division in numbers is completely arbitrary. 16:11.110 --> 16:13.060 We don't know, that's not the way books were 16:13.059 --> 16:15.489 written, codices were written in Dante's 16:15.493 --> 16:17.753 time, it was a continuous -- to say 16:17.750 --> 16:19.450 page something, page something, 16:19.446 --> 16:22.216 people really believe, but the modern editors have 16:22.215 --> 16:24.565 made it controversially into XLII, 16:24.570 --> 16:26.960 so this should be XXX, and I agree with that. 16:26.960 --> 16:30.800 Let me read the last passage, the last paragraph which is not 16:30.798 --> 16:32.718 poetry now, ends with prose. 16:32.720 --> 16:37.540 With a voice of reflection prose functions as the work of 16:37.544 --> 16:41.254 reflections on the lyrical inspirations, 16:41.250 --> 16:43.410 on the immediacy of the lyrical voice, 16:43.409 --> 16:44.549 so that's the double voice. 16:44.548 --> 16:47.538 I'm an editor and I'm a poet at the same time; 16:47.538 --> 16:50.038 sometimes the editing, the notes that he writes, 16:50.038 --> 16:51.578 say nothing about the poem. 16:51.580 --> 16:55.300 They try to--sometimes he goes on into formal mechanical 16:55.299 --> 16:58.879 description about love, this sonnet is divided into two 16:58.879 --> 17:01.309 parts, that doesn't really add much to 17:01.312 --> 17:03.672 the inner life, to our understanding of the 17:03.673 --> 17:05.153 inner life of the protagonist. 17:05.150 --> 17:08.310 This is what he says in XLII, Chapter XLII, 17:08.308 --> 17:11.238 "After I wrote this sonnet," 17:11.236 --> 17:15.506 which is about the famous vision of Beatrice sitting at 17:15.507 --> 17:19.697 the foot of God's throne, and so he decides that he has 17:19.702 --> 17:20.522 to go there. 17:20.519 --> 17:22.979 He decides that he has to go and meet her, 17:22.980 --> 17:24.480 that's the last vision. 17:24.480 --> 17:29.430 "After I wrote this sonnet there came to me a miraculous 17:29.432 --> 17:32.242 vision in which I saw things," 17:32.238 --> 17:37.358 like a visionary burden of the narrative is kept up from memory 17:37.355 --> 17:41.055 now to vision, "that made me resolve to 17:41.060 --> 17:43.510 say no more about this blessed one. 17:43.509 --> 17:45.749 "Blessed" in Italian, by the way is a pun 17:45.750 --> 17:48.270 on the name of Beatrice, the one who is blessed, 17:48.269 --> 17:50.549 the one who is the bearer of the good, 17:50.548 --> 17:53.178 now that's really what it means--;"... 17:53.180 --> 17:57.370 until I will be capable of writing about her in a nobler 17:57.374 --> 17:58.294 way." 17:58.288 --> 18:02.528 That's the unavoidably unfinished quality of the text, 18:02.525 --> 18:07.235 I can't go on to write about her, I need to do more work. 18:07.240 --> 18:10.040 I need to do more research and find out what I really can say 18:10.041 --> 18:10.931 about this woman. 18:10.930 --> 18:12.270 So he will stop. 18:12.269 --> 18:16.279 That's what I call an unfinished, an inevitably 18:16.276 --> 18:18.276 unfinished narrative. 18:18.278 --> 18:22.858 "To achieve this I'm striving as hard as I can, 18:22.855 --> 18:25.275 and this she truly knows. 18:25.278 --> 18:28.268 Accordingly, if it be the pleasure of Him 18:28.267 --> 18:32.667 through whom all things live that my life continue for a few 18:32.673 --> 18:36.223 more years, I hope to write of her that 18:36.221 --> 18:41.101 which has never been written before of any other woman. 18:41.098 --> 18:44.588 And that it may please the One who is the Lord of graciousness 18:44.590 --> 18:47.740 that my soul ascend to behold the glory of its lady, 18:47.740 --> 18:50.500 that is, of that blessed Beatrice who in glory 18:50.498 --> 18:54.118 contemplates the countenance of the One qui est per omnia 18:54.115 --> 18:56.195 secula benedictus" -- 18:56.200 --> 19:01.350 and to all times blessed, and ends with a pun on, 19:01.349 --> 19:03.199 again, on Beatrice. 19:03.200 --> 19:08.300 What is the most important--to me the most important point of 19:08.298 --> 19:11.948 this paragraph, the intrusion of the verb of 19:11.953 --> 19:13.233 the future. 19:13.230 --> 19:15.550 The only time you find it in the narrative, 19:15.548 --> 19:16.708 "I hope." 19:16.710 --> 19:22.100 The whole text is contained between an exercise of memory, 19:22.098 --> 19:24.448 an idea of something which is past, 19:24.450 --> 19:27.310 and that tempts him greatly because if something is past and 19:27.307 --> 19:28.877 you have-- you think that you can even 19:28.882 --> 19:31.712 control it, you can certainly decipher it, 19:31.711 --> 19:36.261 you can hope to extract from it some particular meaning, 19:36.259 --> 19:40.049 complacently or not, and then ends with a projection 19:40.047 --> 19:44.757 of the self into the future, another work is to come. 19:44.759 --> 19:48.649 This is the preamble to something more which I cannot 19:48.652 --> 19:51.582 really contain, so memory is abandoned, 19:51.575 --> 19:56.365 the work ends with an image, and within the horizon of the 19:56.373 --> 19:57.133 future. 19:57.130 --> 19:59.100 This is really very important. 19:59.098 --> 20:02.538 The limitations of memory are--can be understood only from 20:02.544 --> 20:05.244 this point of view because hope, as you know, 20:05.240 --> 20:08.580 when you think of hope, hope grammatically--this is 20:08.575 --> 20:10.145 what is the future. 20:10.150 --> 20:13.280 He says I hope to write, there's no future there, 20:13.276 --> 20:15.096 I hope that's the present. 20:15.098 --> 20:19.598 But hope grammatically is a verb, those of you who have 20:19.601 --> 20:24.191 studied a little bit of Latin, remember, always take the 20:24.185 --> 20:26.015 future participle. 20:26.019 --> 20:29.519 I hope that I will do this; I hope I would have done this; 20:29.519 --> 20:30.359 it doesn't work. 20:30.358 --> 20:33.548 I wished I had done that, but so it takes all--it's a 20:33.550 --> 20:34.840 verb of the future. 20:34.838 --> 20:37.978 It is literally also in substantial terms, 20:37.976 --> 20:39.196 it's a virtue. 20:39.200 --> 20:43.550 This is a--to say "I hope" is a theological 20:43.554 --> 20:47.494 virtue, hope which always implies the future. 20:47.490 --> 20:52.710 It says that the past is not really over and done with 20:52.711 --> 20:57.741 because once you include, or you intrude the category of 20:57.740 --> 21:00.240 hope, you really believe you can 21:00.237 --> 21:02.657 change the meaning of the past. 21:02.660 --> 21:05.830 That things may be happening that whereby all your past 21:05.832 --> 21:08.792 errors, all your past mistakes can be 21:08.787 --> 21:11.887 seen and will be seen in a new life, 21:11.890 --> 21:16.060 so much then for this question of destruction. 21:16.058 --> 21:19.388 I repeat, we have prose and poetry, 21:19.390 --> 21:22.000 we have the voice of the lover, and we have the voice of the 21:21.997 --> 21:24.637 editor, we have a text of memory that 21:24.642 --> 21:27.682 at the same time turns against itself, 21:27.680 --> 21:30.180 points out the limitations of memory, 21:30.180 --> 21:32.130 and opens to the future through hope, 21:32.130 --> 21:38.010 and you have this idea that something amazing is going to 21:38.013 --> 21:38.963 happen. 21:38.960 --> 21:41.830 Something that, though nothing concrete is 21:41.828 --> 21:45.888 being given, everything will take place within the self. 21:45.890 --> 21:50.140 It's the moment where Dante abandons Augustine. 21:50.140 --> 21:53.240 We began by saying, I began by saying that the 21:53.239 --> 21:55.649 mode, the rhetorical mode that Dante 21:55.654 --> 21:59.264 really follows is Augustine's Confessions which is a 21:59.260 --> 22:03.240 text of retrospection and ends with a commentary of Genesis, 22:03.240 --> 22:08.260 Dante ends with what we call a prolepsis, 22:08.259 --> 22:11.169 a weird word that's not so weird, but all that means, 22:11.170 --> 22:15.180 a projection to the future; autobiography has this kind of 22:15.183 --> 22:18.653 future dimension and cannot be contained. 22:18.650 --> 22:22.170 In other words, it's not over and done with. 22:22.170 --> 22:24.970 The mode which, just to make this really 22:24.969 --> 22:28.689 intelligible to you, the kind of text that is most 22:28.691 --> 22:33.051 like what Dante has written in the Vita nuova is really 22:33.049 --> 22:37.049 Joyce who writes The Portrait of the Artist as a Young 22:37.050 --> 22:37.980 Man. 22:37.980 --> 22:41.800 That's the way you can really--if you cannot have a 22:41.799 --> 22:44.579 conversion, if you cannot die as Augustine 22:44.575 --> 22:46.675 says you have to do when you write, 22:46.680 --> 22:49.730 write an autobiography, in order to come back as a new 22:49.726 --> 22:52.936 man and be able to write your life story and find out the 22:52.944 --> 22:56.834 meaning of your life, then what you can do is write 22:56.825 --> 23:01.265 about yourself with a kind of temporal distance that is 23:01.267 --> 23:02.827 brought by time. 23:02.828 --> 23:06.288 I'm no longer the young man I used to be, but I do know those 23:06.294 --> 23:06.934 passions. 23:06.930 --> 23:10.230 I remove myself from them in exactly the same way Joyce does 23:10.228 --> 23:13.638 it with The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man which 23:13.637 --> 23:16.207 ends with the projection of going to the-- 23:16.210 --> 23:19.350 descending into the smithy of this whole and writing, 23:19.348 --> 23:26.928 and then forge the epic of the future. 23:26.930 --> 23:32.120 That's really the--it ends with a project for the future so this 23:32.115 --> 23:36.305 is a kind of a mode of autobiographical writing that 23:36.314 --> 23:39.694 Dante really prepares and puts forth. 23:39.690 --> 23:43.850 What happens in this text, so much for the-- 23:43.848 --> 23:47.408 this--you--by the way you can stop me at any point as I'm 23:47.406 --> 23:51.026 talking if you want me to clarify things or we can leave a 23:51.028 --> 23:52.678 little bit at the end. 23:52.680 --> 23:53.910 What happens in the text? 23:53.910 --> 23:56.460 It's a love story. 23:56.460 --> 24:06.310 It's a love story of a young man who meets, 24:06.308 --> 24:10.368 at the age of nine, meets a young woman who is 24:10.373 --> 24:14.543 roughly the same age, he says she's in her ninth 24:14.537 --> 24:19.297 year, doesn't even know who she is but feels a kind of bliss. 24:19.298 --> 24:22.428 Then he sees her again nine years later, so we know that 24:22.432 --> 24:25.682 there is a kind of numerical symbolism running through. 24:25.680 --> 24:29.600 The number for Beatrice is three, 333, 24:29.598 --> 24:32.568 a Trinitarian number, she comes-- she reappears and 24:32.573 --> 24:36.263 is convinced that this is going to be the love of his life, 24:36.259 --> 24:39.199 but he doesn't even know what love is. 24:39.200 --> 24:42.610 He does not know what love is, what he does know at the 24:42.608 --> 24:44.938 beginning, and this is what part of the 24:44.938 --> 24:47.938 whole-- the economy of this narrative 24:47.941 --> 24:52.641 really focuses on trying to ponder what love may be. 24:52.640 --> 24:56.980 The culture of the Middle Ages is filled with literature of 24:56.984 --> 24:57.514 love. 24:57.509 --> 25:00.229 This could be viewed as one of the many love books of the 25:00.230 --> 25:03.140 Middle Ages, and in case some of you may be 25:03.140 --> 25:06.410 looking already for a topic for your paper, 25:06.410 --> 25:08.340 you could write about the love books of the Middle Ages. 25:08.338 --> 25:11.568 What are the other love books, the famous love books of the 25:11.573 --> 25:13.753 Middle Ages, which are completely different 25:13.751 --> 25:16.171 from the love books of the Middle Ages coming before. 25:16.170 --> 25:18.980 For instance, The Art of Courtly Love 25:18.983 --> 25:22.323 of Andreas Capellanus, which is as some of you know, 25:22.321 --> 25:24.941 it's a codification of what love is. 25:24.940 --> 25:28.920 The idea that love is an art, the "art of courtly 25:28.920 --> 25:33.430 love," that it's obviously natural instinct or thrust or 25:33.425 --> 25:37.405 passion and yet has to be changed as if there can be a 25:37.406 --> 25:39.506 sentimental education. 25:39.509 --> 25:43.759 One has to learn how to contain, how to hold off 25:43.759 --> 25:48.639 excesses, how to hold off the potential disruptions and 25:48.644 --> 25:51.904 violence that love will commute. 25:54.528 --> 25:57.828 you may know about, which is all about love at the 25:57.828 --> 26:01.818 court, the place of pleasure within 26:01.816 --> 26:06.046 the unfolding of responsible life. 26:09.858 --> 26:11.988 poets whom Dante really evokes. 26:11.990 --> 26:14.550 Dante writes about love. 26:14.548 --> 26:18.238 Let me say a couple of things so that you can really--it's not 26:18.240 --> 26:21.690 the first time that people reflect upon love of course. 26:21.690 --> 26:27.360 The Greeks tried to do that and you may remember Socrates who 26:27.355 --> 26:30.185 always wonders what love is. 26:30.190 --> 26:32.760 Is it a figure of speech, a manner of feeling or is there 26:32.762 --> 26:33.822 such a thing as love? 26:33.818 --> 26:37.088 It's--that's just a useless figure of love. 26:37.089 --> 26:39.529 Is it a god that possesses me? 26:39.529 --> 26:43.299 Is this a natural instinct that we call love. 26:43.298 --> 26:46.668 This variety of passions, this variety of ways of 26:46.673 --> 26:50.123 understanding love all figure within this text. 26:50.118 --> 26:52.878 The main thing is that Dante meets Beatrice, 26:52.880 --> 26:54.440 because if we don't know who she is, 26:54.440 --> 26:56.350 does not know what's happening to him at the age of eight, 26:56.349 --> 26:59.019 it starts in an involuntary way. 26:59.019 --> 27:02.799 The whole point of this narrative is that things seem to 27:02.796 --> 27:06.156 be happening to him, not only as a passive figure, 27:06.161 --> 27:08.291 but even love comes to him. 27:08.288 --> 27:11.838 It's--he doesn't will it, he doesn't look for it, 27:11.838 --> 27:16.698 and in many ways, look at this passage here in 27:16.695 --> 27:19.005 book-- in Chapter II, 27:19.011 --> 27:25.441 "Nine times already since my birth the heaven of light had 27:25.442 --> 27:29.802 circled back to almost the same point, 27:29.798 --> 27:35.018 when there appeared before my eyes," it's appearing, 27:35.019 --> 27:37.279 it's an apparition, something gives itself to him, 27:37.279 --> 27:40.949 "before my eyes the now glorious lady of my mind, 27:40.950 --> 27:44.750 who was called Beatrice even by those who did not know what her 27:44.746 --> 27:45.416 name was. 27:45.420 --> 27:48.490 She had been in this life long enough for the heaven of fixed 27:48.490 --> 27:51.460 starts to be able to move a twelfth of a degree to the East 27:51.460 --> 27:53.790 in her time; that is, she appeared to me at 27:53.794 --> 27:56.874 about the beginning of her ninth year," so she's a little 27:56.873 --> 28:00.003 younger than he is "and I first saw her near the end of my 28:00.001 --> 28:00.811 ninth year. 28:00.808 --> 28:04.348 She appeared dressed in the most patrician of colors, 28:04.354 --> 28:06.744 a subdued and decorous crimson... 28:06.740 --> 28:09.170 At that very moment, and I speak the truth, 28:09.170 --> 28:11.810 the vital spirit, the one that dwells in the most 28:11.806 --> 28:15.026 secret chamber of the heart, began to tremble so violently 28:15.030 --> 28:17.970 that even the most minute veins of my body were strangely 28:17.970 --> 28:19.800 affected; and trembling, 28:19.796 --> 28:24.066 it spoke these words: Here is a god stronger than I 28:24.068 --> 28:28.768 who is coming to dominate me, to rule over me." 28:28.769 --> 28:32.999 This is--these are set descriptions of what love is, 28:32.998 --> 28:37.808 the point is that he doesn't will it, he does not know what 28:37.807 --> 28:39.297 this is about. 28:39.298 --> 28:43.368 Why does he present himself as unwilling this passion? 28:43.368 --> 28:48.498 Because passions which are unwilled seem to be more 28:48.496 --> 28:52.696 important than the things that we will. 28:52.700 --> 28:57.510 If they are unwilled and they happen to me they may have the 28:57.507 --> 28:59.867 mark of a secret necessity. 28:59.868 --> 29:02.958 There may be a pattern behind them that I do not know but it 29:02.959 --> 29:03.849 happened to me. 29:03.849 --> 29:05.029 Do you see what I'm saying? 29:05.028 --> 29:08.018 I do not have any responsibility about it. 29:08.019 --> 29:09.649 I don't know what that is. 29:09.650 --> 29:14.370 He will find out in time that he cannot go on obeying the 29:14.368 --> 29:19.428 rules of the will that he has to go on understanding that the 29:19.426 --> 29:23.216 will needs to be in turn ruled by reason. 29:23.220 --> 29:27.130 Yet, nothing that he does is that this figure of love is a 29:27.126 --> 29:29.386 god, really a literary conceit. 29:29.390 --> 29:33.910 He has no idea who speaks to him or around him. 29:33.910 --> 29:39.800 All around him he takes refuge in the chamber of his house, 29:39.797 --> 29:45.277 the chamber of his mind and there he goes on engaged in 29:45.279 --> 29:48.019 deliriums, dreams, etc. 29:48.019 --> 29:51.529 That is to say, all the clinical signs of love. 29:51.529 --> 29:55.879 He thinks that love is a passion that disabilitates him. 29:55.880 --> 29:59.980 This whole problem will come to a head with the first sonnet 29:59.984 --> 30:02.214 that he writes, which by the way, 30:02.211 --> 30:04.371 is really the poem we know. 30:04.368 --> 30:08.858 Dante's seventeen years old when he wrote this poem, 30:08.856 --> 30:14.396 we know that this is really a kind of--sort of--it's a dream. 30:14.400 --> 30:18.330 It's a poem which appears as a dream which I'll read in English 30:18.332 --> 30:22.202 in this so and so translation, but it's better than anything I 30:22.201 --> 30:23.091 could try. 30:23.088 --> 30:27.708 "To every captive soul," it's a horrifying 30:27.707 --> 30:29.787 dream as you can see. 30:29.788 --> 30:32.758 To every captive soul and loving heart 30:32.759 --> 30:34.779 to whom these words I have composed are sent 30:34.779 --> 30:39.689 for your elucidation in reply, greetings I bring for your 30:39.688 --> 30:41.338 sweet lord's sake, Love. 30:41.338 --> 30:43.588 The first three hours, the hours of the time 30:43.588 --> 30:45.548 of shining stars, were coming to an end, 30:45.548 --> 30:47.948 when suddenly Love appeared before me 30:47.950 --> 30:50.430 (to remember how it really was appalls me). 30:50.430 --> 30:53.760 Joyous, Love seemed to me, holding my heart 30:53.759 --> 30:55.719 within his hand, and in his arms he had 30:55.720 --> 30:59.190 my lady, loosely wrapped in folds, asleep. 30:59.190 --> 31:02.450 He woke her then, and gently fed to her 31:02.450 --> 31:06.530 the burning heart; she ate it, terrified. 31:06.528 --> 31:09.958 And then I saw him disappear in tears. 31:09.960 --> 31:14.650 It's a dream, a horrifying dream about a lady 31:14.650 --> 31:19.660 which is asleep, held in the arms of the lord of 31:19.660 --> 31:20.620 love. 31:20.618 --> 31:25.438 She wakes and eats the heart, the heart was given to her. 31:25.440 --> 31:32.380 It's a story of clearly how the heart nourishes love, 31:32.375 --> 31:35.705 that's the sense of it. 31:35.710 --> 31:38.520 The meaning, he says, it's a dream, 31:38.519 --> 31:42.319 another involuntary experience, a dream comes to us without our 31:42.318 --> 31:44.548 will, without our wanting it, 31:44.554 --> 31:48.504 and he says the meaning of this sonnet was unclear. 31:48.500 --> 31:53.700 He writes the sonnet and sends it out to his fellow poets in 31:53.700 --> 31:54.670 Florence. 31:54.670 --> 31:58.220 He sends one of them to the person who's going to become his 31:58.220 --> 32:01.170 best friend and to whom this text is dedicated. 32:01.170 --> 32:04.200 It will appear very soon in the text. 32:04.200 --> 32:08.950 His name is Guido Cavalcanti; we shall see him in Hell by the 32:08.946 --> 32:09.206 way. 32:09.210 --> 32:13.030 Dante put him in Inferno X and we'll talk about him at 32:13.027 --> 32:13.597 length. 32:13.598 --> 32:18.378 Guido answers, because that was the fashion, 32:18.380 --> 32:20.880 just write the poem, and then by taking your own 32:20.884 --> 32:22.914 rhyme scheme as a kind of response, 32:22.910 --> 32:25.860 they go on really writing about this. 32:25.858 --> 32:29.238 And Guido Cavalcanti says to him, well you're really right-- 32:29.240 --> 32:32.960 you really had the vision which means that you cannot quite 32:32.961 --> 32:35.511 trust love, that you really have to turn 32:35.507 --> 32:35.857 away. 32:35.858 --> 32:40.728 It's a kind of admonition to you: move away from all of these 32:40.733 --> 32:45.043 figments of love and turn to philosophical studies. 32:45.038 --> 32:48.418 It's only in the mind that you can find, 32:48.420 --> 32:50.640 and in the pursuits of the works of the mind, 32:50.640 --> 32:54.970 that you can find some kind of truth and stability for 32:54.971 --> 32:55.871 yourself. 32:55.868 --> 32:57.718 Outside of it, there is only--and if you 32:57.721 --> 33:00.191 pursue love there's the world of the arrangements. 33:00.190 --> 33:02.610 By the way, another physician of the time, 33:02.608 --> 33:05.408 Dante--his name was also Dante, Dante da Maiano, 33:05.410 --> 33:09.600 he decides to write to him and also writes about the sonnet. 33:09.598 --> 33:14.578 He says, well this really means that you have humoural problems: 33:14.582 --> 33:18.222 take cold baths and everything will be okay. 33:18.220 --> 33:23.800 You really need to rebalance the new equilibrium for your 33:23.801 --> 33:24.701 humors. 33:24.700 --> 33:28.780 One reduces love to a question of bodies, 33:28.778 --> 33:32.128 the physician, as if it were just a disease, 33:32.130 --> 33:37.370 the other one reduces it to a question of love's danger 33:37.365 --> 33:41.045 vis-a-vis the stability of the mind. 33:41.048 --> 33:44.958 Dante will go neither with one and will not listen neither to 33:44.960 --> 33:46.460 one nor to the other. 33:46.460 --> 33:50.540 The rest of the poem will be that of trying to understand 33:50.535 --> 33:52.495 what this love really is. 33:52.500 --> 33:56.210 Crucial chapters will appear. 33:56.210 --> 33:58.810 Chapter VIII, he describes his going to a 33:58.810 --> 34:01.610 funeral, you remember, he sees a dead woman, 34:01.606 --> 34:05.506 and you wonder what is the point of this kind of seeing. 34:05.509 --> 34:09.949 And the point I think that--of that scene is that there is a 34:09.952 --> 34:14.172 body and that body is inert and dead and that there is no 34:14.168 --> 34:18.308 possible connection between him and this dead body. 34:18.309 --> 34:20.879 So that love is not reusable only to bodies. 34:20.880 --> 34:25.690 There must be some kind of animation, there must be some 34:25.690 --> 34:30.240 kind of soul that is--or life that accompanies it. 34:30.239 --> 34:33.689 In Chapter XII finally, Dante seems to be moving a 34:37.000 --> 34:41.990 this way of describing love in terms of conventional terms that 34:41.994 --> 34:45.894 I have to describe to you, and he has this other dream 34:45.889 --> 34:49.359 about the god of love who comes to him and says it's time for 34:49.356 --> 34:53.416 you to put aside all simulacra, all fictions and all emptiness. 34:53.420 --> 34:56.780 Let me just say a little bit about more of this point about 34:56.775 --> 34:59.605 love and a kind of questions that Dante raises. 34:59.610 --> 35:02.550 Whenever we think about love in the modern era, 35:02.550 --> 35:04.790 as you know, these are not my ideas, 35:04.786 --> 35:07.276 but particularly I believe in them. 35:07.280 --> 35:09.720 Others have formulated these ideas. 35:09.719 --> 35:12.649 Whenever we think about love in modern times that--the 35:12.650 --> 35:15.420 formulation of love is as we understand it today is 35:15.416 --> 35:16.796 essentially medieval. 35:16.800 --> 35:20.330 The Greeks do not have the understanding of love the 35:20.333 --> 35:23.593 way--the romantic idea of love the way we do. 35:23.590 --> 35:27.780 They understand love as an intellectual pursuit, 35:27.775 --> 35:31.155 as an ascent up the ladder of being. 35:31.159 --> 35:36.179 That it's the work of philosophers that the minds can 35:36.184 --> 35:40.154 go on from degrees-- through the various degrees of 35:40.152 --> 35:43.532 reality and intellectual reality and one can grasp it. 35:43.530 --> 35:47.310 There is friendship of course, but there's not the idea of the 35:47.309 --> 35:51.029 love of a man for a woman which is so crucial to the romantic 35:51.027 --> 35:52.637 understanding of love. 35:52.639 --> 35:56.219 The Romans had no understanding at all about either, 35:56.221 --> 35:58.821 what the Greeks knew, what we know. 35:58.820 --> 36:02.490 The most important Latin voice of--about love is, 36:02.487 --> 36:04.857 for instance, I think, Catullus, 36:04.855 --> 36:08.445 who talks about love as something to be slightly 36:08.445 --> 36:10.275 embarrassed about. 36:10.280 --> 36:14.510 It's a weakness, a serious guy does not involve 36:14.509 --> 36:17.819 oneself in this kind of pursuits, 36:17.820 --> 36:21.230 this kind--you have to do the serious work of living: 36:21.233 --> 36:24.373 the political issues, going to the forum, 36:24.367 --> 36:25.677 negotiate, etc. 36:33.706 --> 36:37.086 both its meaning and its contours. 36:37.090 --> 36:40.220 Now love is the love of a man for a woman and it's usually 36:40.224 --> 36:42.594 described, and you can see in Andreas 36:42.586 --> 36:45.626 Capellanus and The Art of Courtly Love, 36:45.630 --> 36:50.180 or in the texts of Chretien de Troyes, 36:50.179 --> 36:53.879 it's described as maybe it can be a clandestine, 36:53.880 --> 36:58.300 secret relationship, it need not be within marriage 36:58.300 --> 37:02.070 because marriages are-- usually are business 37:02.068 --> 37:03.158 propositions. 37:03.159 --> 37:08.359 It is a kind of emotion that's potentially violent, 37:08.358 --> 37:13.968 in fact the effort one should--what is the sociology of 37:13.974 --> 37:14.914 love? 37:14.909 --> 37:18.749 Can a noble man fall in love with a plebian, 37:18.746 --> 37:23.116 can a noble woman fall love with a plebian man? 37:23.119 --> 37:26.449 It's an arrangement about what love can be, 37:26.449 --> 37:32.639 and yet also they describe it, they always describe it as the 37:32.644 --> 37:37.634 experience that causes insomnia, loss of appetite, 37:37.630 --> 37:42.310 the lover turns pale and can't speak in the presence of the 37:42.311 --> 37:44.831 beloved, they go on describing the 37:44.829 --> 37:46.629 physical properties of love. 37:46.630 --> 37:50.110 The other great revolution about love is what is contained 37:50.105 --> 37:51.015 in this text. 37:51.019 --> 37:53.469 He's not the only one; Dante's not the only one to 37:53.471 --> 37:54.351 have brought it about. 37:54.349 --> 37:57.899 His teachers and people, the likes of Guido Cavalcanti 37:57.902 --> 38:01.322 and Guinizelli were going to the same direction, 38:01.320 --> 38:05.970 namely, that love has to be explored for the changes it 38:05.971 --> 38:07.781 brings to the mind. 38:07.780 --> 38:09.600 How can it be? 38:09.599 --> 38:11.969 This is the kind of problem that they raise. 38:11.969 --> 38:16.369 How can it be that I see a woman and the image of that 38:16.369 --> 38:18.029 woman obsesses me? 38:18.030 --> 38:19.340 What is it about my mind? 38:19.340 --> 38:21.920 Why do I want to be better than I am? 38:21.920 --> 38:28.060 How am I going to be educated in the light of the love that I 38:28.059 --> 38:30.309 feel for this woman? 38:30.309 --> 38:33.659 And in effect, this kind of metaphysical 38:33.657 --> 38:38.117 aspect of love is the special burden of this text. 38:38.119 --> 38:40.759 Let me just give you an idea, it happens-- 38:40.760 --> 38:44.980 the first time that this happens is exactly with the 38:44.980 --> 38:50.360 famous poem that I mentioned to you that is the turning point, 38:50.360 --> 38:51.640 Chapter XIX. 38:51.639 --> 38:54.219 Let me just read this paragraph. 38:54.219 --> 38:57.159 This is the turning point in Dante's understanding of what 38:57.163 --> 38:57.683 love is. 38:57.679 --> 39:03.349 "Then it happened, that while walking down a path, 39:03.349 --> 39:06.069 along which ran a very clear stream…" 39:06.072 --> 39:08.652 -- we guess that it's the Arno 39:08.650 --> 39:09.260 River. 39:09.260 --> 39:11.180 He won't say, he's not interested in the 39:11.181 --> 39:13.771 outside world, he's only interested in what 39:13.766 --> 39:17.356 love does to his inner self, to this thought of his mind -- 39:17.362 --> 39:20.522 "I suddenly felt a great desire to write a poem, 39:20.518 --> 39:24.198 and I began to think how I would go about it." 39:24.199 --> 39:28.199 What an extraordinary moment, finally he's not just jotting 39:28.197 --> 39:31.987 down words that come to him, he just starts thinking. 39:31.989 --> 39:35.599 This is not just about a self as desiring or willing, 39:35.596 --> 39:38.296 or unwilling, and who lives that kind of 39:38.300 --> 39:40.920 strange world; oh it's a good thing that 39:40.916 --> 39:43.756 things are happening to me because I can't help it. 39:43.760 --> 39:49.250 I can give up my whole exercise of what I can do, 39:49.253 --> 39:54.293 the sense of purpose about what is happening, 39:54.288 --> 39:59.208 changing will into a rational activity. 39:59.210 --> 40:02.000 Now he starts thinking and: "I began to think how I 40:02.003 --> 40:03.023 would go about it. 40:03.018 --> 40:07.278 It seemed to me that to speak of my lady would not be becoming 40:07.284 --> 40:10.574 unless I were to address my words to ladies, 40:10.570 --> 40:14.020 and not just to any ladies, but only to those who are 40:14.016 --> 40:15.886 worthy, not merely to women. 40:15.889 --> 40:18.199 Then, I must tell you my tongue," 40:18.199 --> 40:20.249 -- he's not out of it yet -- 40:20.251 --> 40:22.991 "as if moved of its own accord, 40:22.989 --> 40:27.579 spoke and said: Ladies who have," 40:27.581 --> 40:28.971 -- actually he says, 40:28.969 --> 40:32.219 "Women who have intelligence of love. 40:32.219 --> 40:35.179 With great delight I decided to keep these words in mind and to 40:35.184 --> 40:37.054 use them at the beginning of my poem. 40:37.050 --> 40:39.830 Later, after returning to the aforementioned city and 40:39.831 --> 40:42.211 reflecting for several days, I began writing a 40:42.210 --> 40:43.270 canzone," -- 40:43.268 --> 40:46.728 meaning a song, which for Dante is the noblest 40:46.731 --> 40:50.831 form of rhetorical form-- and "using this beginning 40:50.829 --> 40:54.929 and then constructed it in a way that will appear below in its 40:54.934 --> 40:55.814 divisions. 40:55.809 --> 40:59.789 The canzone begins: Ladies who have intelligence of 40:59.789 --> 41:01.999 love I wish to speak to you about my 41:01.998 --> 41:04.618 lady, not thinking to complete her 41:04.623 --> 41:06.953 litany, but to talk in order to relieve 41:06.952 --> 41:07.502 my heart. 41:07.500 --> 41:11.800 Not thinking to complete her praise--her praise, 41:11.795 --> 41:13.985 it's a poem of praise. 41:13.989 --> 41:17.729 Therefore, a religious kind of--very close to religious 41:17.726 --> 41:18.276 poems. 41:18.280 --> 41:20.160 As you know, they're also called 41:20.163 --> 41:22.653 laude, laudatory we say in English, 41:22.652 --> 41:26.422 to come back to--to give you a sense of what this kind of poems 41:26.420 --> 41:27.210 can be. 41:27.210 --> 41:32.180 To praise, which he would like us to distinguish from flattery. 41:32.179 --> 41:36.099 There's a difference between praising someone and flattering 41:36.096 --> 41:36.756 someone. 41:36.760 --> 41:41.840 Praising you really don't expect anything in return, 41:41.840 --> 41:45.330 you're praising as kind of sense that you are just trying 41:45.333 --> 41:49.203 to describe and yielding to the allure and the power of what is 41:49.202 --> 41:50.452 in front of you. 41:50.449 --> 41:53.879 Flattery always implies some kind of circuitness, 41:53.880 --> 41:56.670 some sort of desire to get something. 41:56.670 --> 41:59.160 You flatter, it's a rhetorical form, 41:59.164 --> 42:02.734 you flatter because there's--implies some degree of 42:02.728 --> 42:03.938 manipulation. 42:03.940 --> 42:07.530 The most important word, it is "women who have 42:07.532 --> 42:09.402 intellect of love." 42:09.400 --> 42:17.210 Finally, intellect and love are not two disjointed activities of 42:17.206 --> 42:18.566 the mind. 42:18.570 --> 42:23.120 It's not what Guido Cavalcanti, who really believes in part, 42:23.119 --> 42:25.769 who really believes in a world in which one is sundered one 42:25.768 --> 42:28.468 from the other, in a fragmentary world -- and 42:28.465 --> 42:31.305 we will come to that in Inferno X -- 42:31.309 --> 42:34.639 who really thinks that time is all fragmented from itself 42:34.635 --> 42:36.505 anyway, experiences are all 42:36.507 --> 42:40.197 fragmentary, that love-- if I have a passion I can never 42:40.199 --> 42:42.469 quite come to understand anything. 42:42.469 --> 42:46.059 In fact, when I am in throes of passion my mind ceases its 42:46.061 --> 42:46.881 operations. 42:46.880 --> 42:52.740 This poem is written against Dante's best friend to whom this 42:52.737 --> 42:54.687 text is dedicated. 42:54.690 --> 42:57.690 We are forced to think, and I'll go back with this poem 42:57.686 --> 43:00.236 in a moment, but let me make a brief 43:00.242 --> 43:04.062 digression about the relationship between friendship 43:04.061 --> 43:04.961 and love. 43:04.960 --> 43:12.130 They're two extraordinary virtues. 43:12.130 --> 43:15.280 We call them passions, but they're also virtues. 43:15.280 --> 43:17.710 Is there anything better than friendship? 43:17.710 --> 43:19.940 Is there anything better than love? 43:19.940 --> 43:24.950 Dante says -- this is the radical way of Dante's thinking 43:24.952 --> 43:27.332 -- he brings us to the point where 43:27.333 --> 43:31.253 you really have to distinguish between things that seem to be 43:31.251 --> 43:33.081 equally powerful virtues. 43:33.079 --> 43:34.279 What is friendship? 43:34.280 --> 43:38.150 The text is dedicated to Guido Cavalcanti which means that 43:38.148 --> 43:40.388 friendship implies a conversation, 43:40.389 --> 43:42.289 a conversation of minds. 43:42.289 --> 43:46.119 The word conversation, as you know in Latin means, 43:46.117 --> 43:48.147 things turning together. 43:48.150 --> 43:51.280 That's why the minds--when you are conversing, 43:51.280 --> 43:56.210 minds are turning together in some kind of harmonious turning, 43:56.210 --> 44:00.100 looking for some common agreements and there is a sort 44:00.103 --> 44:04.293 of benevolence implied in friendship that presupposes even 44:04.291 --> 44:06.571 what you are going to find. 44:06.570 --> 44:08.920 We are going to--not only its benevolence, 44:08.920 --> 44:10.950 it's the condition for friendship, it's really the 44:10.951 --> 44:13.391 point of arrival, we've got to like each other 44:13.393 --> 44:15.013 even more after we discuss. 44:15.010 --> 44:17.230 We disagree, but we are doing it 44:17.226 --> 44:18.296 benevolently. 44:18.300 --> 44:20.000 That's the gift of friendship. 44:20.000 --> 44:21.140 It's a virtue. 44:21.139 --> 44:24.329 In the Ethics of Aristotle, it counts as this, 44:24.329 --> 44:27.199 one of the major virtues--and so does Dante in his own 44:27.201 --> 44:30.341 rewriting of the Ethics of Aristotle which is the 44:30.342 --> 44:31.212 Banquet. 44:31.210 --> 44:38.570 But love for Dante here is more important than friendship and 44:38.568 --> 44:45.318 it's more important for friendship because it forces you 44:45.315 --> 44:46.905 to think. 44:46.909 --> 44:50.629 Something happens to you and that mobilizes your mind. 44:50.630 --> 44:53.230 You've got to go looking for the signs of love; 44:53.230 --> 45:00.150 you try to look for what kind of sign is my beloved sending to 45:00.146 --> 45:01.276 me, etc. 45:01.280 --> 45:06.330 The mind is engaged in an extended self -- mode of 45:06.326 --> 45:08.176 self-reflection. 45:08.179 --> 45:11.069 So intellect and love now rolled together, 45:11.074 --> 45:12.774 that's the revolution. 45:12.768 --> 45:16.558 Let me go back to them that I have been--with which I started. 45:16.559 --> 45:20.299 This is the beginning of the so-called "Sweet New 45:20.300 --> 45:21.290 Style." 45:21.289 --> 45:25.079 The kind of poetry that the Tuscans write and which is a 45:29.010 --> 45:29.700 doing. 45:33.512 --> 45:35.502 "I tremble, and I shake, 45:35.503 --> 45:39.133 and the image of the beloved I cannot even tell anybody. 45:39.130 --> 45:42.840 I have to keep my passion away from the flatterers because they 45:42.840 --> 45:46.490 are going to violate my secret and so I have to always protect 45:46.490 --> 45:48.370 this, I have to protect the identity 45:48.371 --> 45:49.441 of the beloved," -- 45:49.440 --> 45:54.280 in a sense singularity and uniqueness to this passion. 45:54.280 --> 45:57.800 The Tuscan poets Dante, Cavalcanti, 45:57.800 --> 46:01.970 Guinizelli they come along and say no, 46:01.969 --> 46:04.799 no what matters is that love can become part of an 46:04.795 --> 46:07.675 intellectual experience and intellectual ascent. 46:07.679 --> 46:13.149 And knowledge only favors love, and love mobilizes the mind to 46:13.153 --> 46:14.683 go on thinking. 46:14.679 --> 46:20.739 See, I really don't want to say too much now because we have so 46:20.742 --> 46:23.092 much time ahead of us. 46:23.090 --> 46:26.700 The great debate, philosophical debates in the 46:26.695 --> 46:30.135 thirteenth century, is always the following: 46:30.141 --> 46:35.031 it's between the so-called voluntarists and rationalists. 46:35.030 --> 46:38.770 Very simple don't--the voluntarists are those who 46:38.769 --> 46:42.199 believe that if I want to know something, 46:42.199 --> 46:46.539 I have to love first, that love is crucial to my 46:46.541 --> 46:47.651 knowledge. 46:47.650 --> 46:55.810 If I--probably you remember from your own early youth, 46:55.809 --> 47:00.489 when some of you would be interested enough in a boy, 47:00.489 --> 47:03.639 or the boy and the girl, someone would say, 47:03.639 --> 47:05.029 "oh you really love that person." 47:05.030 --> 47:05.880 What do you mean? 47:05.880 --> 47:08.760 I don't know--even know him; I don't even know her, 47:08.759 --> 47:12.769 that's really the issue--if you love so that you may know, 47:12.771 --> 47:15.801 that's the position of the voluntarists. 47:15.800 --> 47:20.400 Others would say you have to know first in order that you may 47:20.400 --> 47:25.020 love, and it's a fierce debate; Dante's circumventing all of 47:25.021 --> 47:25.471 this. 47:25.469 --> 47:31.019 Intellect and love are like the two feet that carry us along, 47:31.018 --> 47:33.418 and you move one and you move the other, 47:33.420 --> 47:37.780 and only this way can you walk without being hobbled. 47:37.780 --> 47:41.310 They say it would be later when he starts in Inferno. 47:41.309 --> 47:43.939 So, this is the great change, what you call the Sweet New 47:43.943 --> 47:44.323 Style. 47:44.320 --> 47:46.140 The Sweet New Style means, therefore, 47:46.139 --> 47:48.669 a highly philosophical, highly intellectual kind of 47:48.672 --> 47:50.892 poetry, a poetry where the woman or the 47:50.893 --> 47:53.663 love of a woman can take you up to the divinity, 47:53.659 --> 47:56.919 love through love, and the understanding that that 47:56.916 --> 47:59.906 which rules the world is not just an idea, 47:59.909 --> 48:04.309 it's just love and therefore love is the only way of coming 48:04.309 --> 48:06.129 to it and pursuing it. 48:06.130 --> 48:13.670 Some examples of this kind of experience will happen very 48:13.666 --> 48:14.606 soon. 48:14.610 --> 48:21.110 I want to mention this great poem that he describes, 48:21.106 --> 48:27.856 this little sonnet where he--which also--which sort of 48:27.856 --> 48:33.076 pursues immediately after Chapter XX. 48:33.079 --> 48:35.029 Let's look at the sonnet. 48:35.030 --> 48:39.280 48:39.280 --> 48:41.730 "After the canzone had become..." 48:41.730 --> 48:43.670 -- this canzone about "Women who have intellect 48:43.666 --> 48:44.726 of love" -- "... 48:44.730 --> 48:48.020 had become rather well known, one of my friends who had heard 48:48.019 --> 48:50.709 it was moved asked me to write about the nature of 48:50.706 --> 48:51.636 Love..." 48:51.639 --> 48:56.999 -- that's not what he--forget about the experiences about 48:57.001 --> 49:00.071 being sleepless, but Dante starts as a 49:03.146 --> 49:05.866 and wants to think about the nature of love, 49:05.869 --> 49:09.189 philosophical idea about love having-- 49:09.190 --> 49:11.330 without losing sight of Beatrice-- "... 49:11.329 --> 49:13.379 having perhaps, from reading my poem, 49:13.375 --> 49:16.155 acquired more confidence in me than I deserved. 49:16.159 --> 49:18.829 So, thinking that after my treatment with the previous 49:18.833 --> 49:21.713 theme it would be good to treat the theme of Love and, 49:21.710 --> 49:23.270 feeling that I owed this to my friend, 49:23.268 --> 49:25.858 I decided to compose a poem dealing with Love. 49:25.860 --> 49:27.860 And I wrote this sonnet which begins: 49:27.860 --> 49:32.860 Love and the gracious heart are a single thing 49:32.860 --> 49:37.150 as Guinizelli [who's another poet of the Sweet New Style , 49:37.154 --> 49:39.874 is the father of the sweet new style] 49:39.865 --> 49:43.485 tells us in his poem: one can no more be without the 49:43.490 --> 49:45.550 other than can be a reasoning mind 49:45.554 --> 49:46.784 without its reason. 49:46.780 --> 49:49.790 Nature, when in a loving mood, creates them 49:49.789 --> 49:55.749 This is the shift now the full awareness that learning about 49:55.751 --> 49:56.461 love. 49:56.460 --> 49:58.870 Dante's gone to the school of the philosophers, 49:58.867 --> 50:00.487 in order to learn about this. 50:00.489 --> 50:06.639 This means that this whole text really is traversed by two 50:06.641 --> 50:11.071 inter-related themes, they're two stories, 50:11.065 --> 50:15.485 two thematic strains running through. 50:15.489 --> 50:19.879 One is the story of a love for Beatrice, Dante's love for 50:19.875 --> 50:23.865 Beatrice, and we have understanding what love is. 50:23.869 --> 50:28.679 Is it a physical impulse? 50:28.679 --> 50:30.349 Is it a demon? 50:30.349 --> 50:32.869 Is it a figure of speech? 50:32.869 --> 50:35.889 Is it a simulacrum, another fiction that we tell 50:35.885 --> 50:36.715 each other? 50:36.719 --> 50:41.189 Or not, and he goes on learning about this. 50:41.190 --> 50:47.050 The other thematic strain of this text has to do with 50:47.045 --> 50:49.745 learning to be a poet. 50:49.750 --> 50:54.970 Dante is also telling us the story of his poetic growth. 50:57.929 --> 51:00.499 imitating now the poets of the Sweet New Style, 51:00.500 --> 51:03.690 and finally finding his voice, and how the two themes really 51:03.688 --> 51:07.148 shed light on each other because I can only understand this about 51:07.146 --> 51:10.386 love and if I understand really things about love that nobody 51:10.389 --> 51:13.549 else has understood, I can really go on writing 51:13.545 --> 51:16.785 about the poem -- writing poems that nobody else 51:16.791 --> 51:19.971 can go on writing which is a famous promise, 51:19.969 --> 51:22.639 the hope he expresses in Chapter XLII. 51:22.639 --> 51:25.109 And if I can go on writing about love in a way that nobody 51:25.114 --> 51:28.284 else has ever written, it means that I understand love 51:28.284 --> 51:30.914 more than others have understood love. 51:30.909 --> 51:33.379 At any rate, the great poem that he starts 51:33.376 --> 51:41.776 writing when he's, in a sense, even in a kind of 51:41.784 --> 51:53.284 rivalry with Guinizelli, appears in the sonnet that 51:53.275 --> 51:55.815 starts here. 51:55.820 --> 51:59.530 I could mention 21, "The power of Love borne 51:59.532 --> 52:03.632 in my lady's eyes," where now it's not only about 52:03.634 --> 52:08.204 the nature of love but he goes on trying to find love within 52:08.199 --> 52:09.359 Beatrice. 52:09.360 --> 52:11.840 It's not the god of love that has been abandoned, 52:11.840 --> 52:14.430 it's not the conceit of love, it's not the words, 52:14.429 --> 52:17.399 the strange and enigmatic words of love that have come to him 52:17.396 --> 52:21.556 from oracles and traditions, now that is love for the 52:21.556 --> 52:25.276 concreteness of Beatrice herself. 52:25.280 --> 52:28.820 As I said earlier, very much in passing, 52:28.820 --> 52:36.450 the text has an extraordinary sonnet that I read in Italian a 52:36.454 --> 52:42.084 couple lines, a few lines so you can hear the 52:42.076 --> 52:44.386 sound of this poem. 52:44.389 --> 52:47.659 Chapter XXVI, this is about Beatrice, 52:47.659 --> 52:52.619 the apparition of Beatrice, she goes by through the streets 52:52.619 --> 52:56.439 and the world is silent, the world falls silent, 52:56.438 --> 52:58.798 it's a kind of general apparition, 52:58.800 --> 53:03.320 but also she's wrapped in a kind of mystery and an 53:03.318 --> 53:05.438 inapproachable light. 53:05.440 --> 53:07.260 There's always some kind of distance. 53:07.260 --> 53:08.270 This is the poem. 53:08.268 --> 53:12.238 Such sweet decorum, [page 57 of this edition, 53:12.244 --> 53:14.924 Chapter XXVI] and such gentle grace 53:14.920 --> 53:17.520 attend my lady's greeting as she moves 53:17.518 --> 53:19.488 that lips can only tremble into silence, 53:19.489 --> 53:22.169 and eyes dare not attempt to gaze at her. 53:22.170 --> 53:24.670 Moving, benignly clothed in humility, 53:24.670 --> 53:27.390 untouched by all the praise along the way, 53:27.389 --> 53:29.479 she seems to be a creature come from Heaven 53:29.480 --> 53:32.260 to earth, to manifest a miracle. 53:32.260 --> 53:38.560 We are now--Dante appears as a sort of poetical caress because 53:38.556 --> 53:43.716 of love, heaven, and earth mixed up in his head. 53:43.719 --> 53:47.819 Beatrice brings heaven down to earth and asks of him that he 53:47.815 --> 53:51.905 can rise up to heaven and these are the words in Italian. 53:51.909 --> 53:55.679 Listen to the repartitions, the sounds, the "n" 53:55.682 --> 53:59.652 sounds: Tanto gentile e tanto onesta 53:59.646 --> 54:02.516 pare la donna mia quand'ella 54:02.516 --> 54:03.886 altrui saluta, 54:03.889 --> 54:05.789 ch'ogne lingua deven tremando muta, 54:07.217 --> 54:07.587 guardare. 54:07.590 --> 54:11.660 Ella si va, sentendosi laudare 54:11.659 --> 54:18.449 Only praise can come in toward her--in her direction. 54:18.449 --> 54:23.229 Finally, how does he really--how does Dante really 54:23.230 --> 54:28.690 get out of this sense of constant wonder because that's a 54:28.693 --> 54:30.843 poem about wonder. 54:30.840 --> 54:33.360 Beatrice appears and it's a miracle, 54:33.360 --> 54:36.540 wonder, and that's how you start thinking as soon as you 54:36.543 --> 54:40.133 believe that what you perceive is a wonder that you don't quite 54:40.130 --> 54:41.000 understand. 54:41.000 --> 54:43.460 You want to go on trying to understand it. 54:43.460 --> 54:47.100 Now that's the heart of the effort of reflection, 54:47.101 --> 54:47.711 right? 54:47.710 --> 54:53.390 So there's this kind of a sense of constant perplexity, 54:53.387 --> 54:57.907 great excitement at the idea of Beatrice. 54:57.909 --> 55:01.949 Now Beatrice has died, her death appears around 55:01.951 --> 55:03.271 Chapter XXIX. 55:03.268 --> 55:07.738 How real can she be now that she's--well how are you going to 55:07.742 --> 55:10.132 relate to someone who is dead? 55:10.130 --> 55:14.540 Dante will do that which probably some others can--could 55:14.539 --> 55:14.939 do. 55:14.940 --> 55:18.950 We try to find a replacement and we go looking for someone 55:18.947 --> 55:22.887 who looks exactly like her or reminds him of her and then 55:22.885 --> 55:28.305 finds this, Chapter XXXII, XXXIII, XXXIV; 55:28.309 --> 55:31.729 this woman who has a lot of--so much mercy, sense of mercy for 55:31.726 --> 55:33.626 him that he's very drawn to her. 55:33.630 --> 55:37.530 He understands that in the measure in which he tries to 55:37.529 --> 55:41.069 duplicate Beatrice, then the love for Beatrice was 55:41.067 --> 55:45.817 not really singular; that his own project was at 55:45.818 --> 55:47.158 stake here. 55:47.159 --> 55:50.739 Either you believe in the singularity of the figure you 55:50.742 --> 55:54.392 love, or if you believe in the duplication, then you are 55:54.393 --> 55:56.653 undercutting your own project. 55:56.650 --> 56:01.040 So he's caught in all this drama until finally he sees some 56:01.041 --> 56:03.171 pilgrims, and this is really the great 56:03.168 --> 56:05.048 direction, and with this I will stop and 56:05.054 --> 56:06.614 see if there are some questions. 56:06.610 --> 56:12.590 Chapter XL, some pilgrims, the pilgrimages that used to go 56:12.585 --> 56:17.195 to Santiago de Compostela, as they do now. 56:17.199 --> 56:21.079 They used to go to the famous--from the north of 56:21.083 --> 56:23.553 Europe, the so called--they would go to 56:23.545 --> 56:25.565 Jerusalem, they would go to the Via 56:25.574 --> 56:28.464 Francigena as it is called, that goes from the north 56:28.461 --> 56:30.791 following a particular path, they go to Rome, 56:30.791 --> 56:32.871 and here this is some pilgrims going-- 56:32.869 --> 56:37.729 they're called romei. He sees some pilgrims going to Rome 56:37.733 --> 56:43.213 and this is the poem he writes, this is an extraordinary poem. 56:43.210 --> 56:44.410 "Ah, pilgrims... 56:44.407 --> 56:45.887 " he addresses them. 56:45.889 --> 56:49.809 They don't listen to him, they know nothing about him. 56:49.809 --> 56:51.819 He addresses them: .. 56:51.822 --> 56:55.872 .moving pensively along, thinking, perhaps, 56:55.867 --> 57:01.057 of things at home you miss, could the land you come from be 57:01.059 --> 57:03.569 so far away (as anyone might guess from 57:03.567 --> 57:06.107 your appearance) that you show no sign of grief 57:06.110 --> 57:09.860 as you pass through the middle of the desolated 57:09.856 --> 57:10.596 city... 57:10.599 --> 57:13.649 This is a phrase that normally is used for Jerusalem, 57:13.652 --> 57:16.122 "desolated, " "the abandoned 57:16.117 --> 57:16.407 city. 57:16.411 --> 57:18.761 " This is Florence, though.... 57:18.760 --> 57:20.940 like people who seem not to understand, 57:20.940 --> 57:23.570 the grievous weight of woe it is has to bear? 57:23.570 --> 57:26.640 If you would stop to listen to me speak, 57:26.639 --> 57:30.869 I know, from what my sighing heart tells me, 57:30.869 --> 57:33.099 you would be weeping when you leave this place: 57:33.099 --> 57:35.699 lost is the city's source of blessedness, 57:35.699 --> 57:38.319 and I know words that could be said of her 57:38.320 --> 57:41.880 with power to humble any man to tears. 57:41.880 --> 57:46.970 This is--it's really another great shift in the movement of 57:46.972 --> 57:47.942 the poem. 57:47.940 --> 57:53.640 He sees pilgrims who are going somewhere and he realizes that 57:53.639 --> 57:56.869 he is not like them; he's not going anywhere; 57:56.869 --> 58:00.699 he is moving in circles. 58:00.699 --> 58:03.339 If you move in circles, you get nowhere. 58:03.340 --> 58:07.450 Now, something happens around him that will, 58:07.449 --> 58:11.269 in many ways, shake him from that kind of 58:11.273 --> 58:16.533 circular self-absorption in which he finds himself. 58:16.530 --> 58:18.950 The second thing is that he understands. 58:18.949 --> 58:21.199 This is an extraordinary poem. 58:21.199 --> 58:24.319 Read it again for yourselves when you have a chance. 58:24.320 --> 58:28.590 He says he understands that the mythology he has been 58:28.585 --> 58:33.915 constructing about Beatrice is an absolutely private mythology. 58:33.920 --> 58:36.080 It means nothing to anybody else. 58:36.079 --> 58:39.379 You who come from afar, and he's like them, 58:39.382 --> 58:43.082 because he too is--they are separated pensively, 58:43.077 --> 58:45.827 a word that implies suspension. 58:45.829 --> 58:47.869 The same word, "to think" 58:47.865 --> 58:49.715 and "to be suspended," 58:49.722 --> 58:51.942 it's the same etymology in Latin. 58:51.940 --> 58:56.190 They are halfway: they are here now going through 58:56.188 --> 58:58.458 Florence, going somewhere to a 58:58.456 --> 59:02.006 destination, and nostalgically separated from the world they 59:02.014 --> 59:02.924 left behind. 59:02.920 --> 59:04.990 And Dante too, is not going anywhere, 59:04.994 --> 59:08.164 but he doesn't have Beatrice with him and has no idea of 59:08.164 --> 59:10.414 where he -- though, unlike the pilgrims, 59:10.411 --> 59:11.451 where to go. 59:11.449 --> 59:15.799 Above all, if I were to tell you anything, 59:15.800 --> 59:19.030 you would understand that this is a desolated city but you do 59:19.025 --> 59:20.835 not know, an implication is, 59:20.835 --> 59:21.995 you may not care. 59:22.000 --> 59:24.610 My mythology is private. 59:24.610 --> 59:29.660 The effort I have to make is to transform my private mythology 59:29.657 --> 59:31.807 into a public discourse. 59:31.809 --> 59:35.209 This is the transition from the Vita nuova to the 59:35.208 --> 59:36.378 Divine Comedy. 59:36.380 --> 59:40.250 The Divine Comedy would be a text where finally Dante 59:40.246 --> 59:43.536 will go on literally, theatricalizing, 59:43.543 --> 59:47.423 literally staging his own passion, 59:47.420 --> 59:51.060 through the passions of others, involving all others in his 59:51.061 --> 59:54.451 discourse and creating what I would call a "public 59:54.452 --> 59:55.712 mythology." 59:55.710 --> 59:58.320 This is really the most important moment that--which 59:58.322 --> 1:00:01.402 ends with another journey of the mind that will make the next 1:00:01.398 --> 1:00:04.158 one, Beyond the sphere that makes 1:00:04.164 --> 1:00:07.534 the widest round, passes the sigh arisen from my 1:00:07.530 --> 1:00:09.550 heart; A new intelligence that Love in 1:00:09.550 --> 1:00:11.410 tears endowed it with is urging it on 1:00:11.409 --> 1:00:11.709 high. 1:00:11.710 --> 1:00:16.100 Here he sees Beatrice far away and decides to undertake his 1:00:16.097 --> 1:00:18.457 journey, the journey of knowledge, 1:00:18.458 --> 1:00:21.818 the journey of exploration of the journey which will-- 1:00:21.820 --> 1:00:27.060 which is the journey of life and which is the journey at the 1:00:27.056 --> 1:00:32.376 heart of the comedy or the Divine Comedy with which we 1:00:32.384 --> 1:00:34.164 start next time. 1:00:34.159 --> 1:00:41.019 This is really the kind of experience, poetic experience 1:00:41.016 --> 1:00:45.626 that Dante will go on at the start. 1:00:45.630 --> 1:00:46.850 He's still a young man. 1:00:46.849 --> 1:00:50.409 He's exploring a lot of possibilities; 1:00:50.409 --> 1:00:54.069 he's gathering all the voices around him, but he internalizes 1:00:54.072 --> 1:00:54.502 them. 1:00:54.500 --> 1:00:57.550 They are not--it's not that it's still the kind of 1:00:57.550 --> 1:01:00.720 encyclopedic text that the Divine Comedy will 1:01:00.724 --> 1:01:03.434 necessarily be, but he has to evolve all 1:01:03.429 --> 1:01:05.269 discourses, all whispers, 1:01:05.269 --> 1:01:07.209 all groans, all noises. 1:01:07.210 --> 1:01:10.230 The whole world has to speak through his poem. 1:01:10.230 --> 1:01:14.770 That's part of the most inclusive vision, 1:01:14.768 --> 1:01:18.508 not excluding anything, but this is a time is-- 1:01:18.510 --> 1:01:22.580 it's an effort to try to find himself as a poet with a project 1:01:22.579 --> 1:01:26.119 and that project will be necessarily a project for the 1:01:26.115 --> 1:01:26.845 future. 1:01:26.849 --> 1:01:31.429 There is no poet that I know in the Western tradition who is so 1:01:31.431 --> 1:01:35.791 given to the idea of the future and who is more of a poet of 1:01:35.789 --> 1:01:37.489 hope than Dante is. 1:01:37.489 --> 1:01:39.839 I call him a lot of things, and I will call him a lot of 1:01:39.835 --> 1:01:40.215 things. 1:01:40.219 --> 1:01:43.629 I'll call him the poet of exile, which he is. 1:01:43.630 --> 1:01:45.510 I'll call him the poet of love, which he is. 1:01:45.510 --> 1:01:48.290 I'll call him the poet of peace, which he is. 1:01:48.289 --> 1:01:52.539 There's an irenic thrust underneath his whole--even his 1:01:52.536 --> 1:01:54.736 polemics, fierce polemics. 1:01:54.739 --> 1:01:58.729 But above all, and now, for now he appears as 1:01:58.731 --> 1:02:02.911 the poet of hope, in the knowledge that hope is 1:02:02.905 --> 1:02:05.985 the most realistic of virtues. 1:02:05.989 --> 1:02:11.089 Because he tells us that the past, not even the past may be 1:02:11.086 --> 1:02:16.616 dead, that really despair is the most crucial sin that one could 1:02:16.623 --> 1:02:18.913 have in this universe. 1:02:18.909 --> 1:02:22.739 Belief is to say that things are over and done with. 1:02:22.739 --> 1:02:25.389 Dante says I'm not done yet. 1:02:25.389 --> 1:02:28.719 I still have a project I can't even begin to tell you about it, 1:02:28.715 --> 1:02:31.715 but let me stop now because I have other things to do. 1:02:31.719 --> 1:02:34.899 That's the substance of this poem, and in this sense, 1:02:34.902 --> 1:02:37.782 it's a preamble, a preparation for the Divine 1:02:37.780 --> 1:02:38.700 Comedy. 1:02:38.699 --> 1:02:43.299 Since I'm trying to give you a sense of Dante's own life as a 1:02:43.297 --> 1:02:46.437 flesh and bone kind of guy that he was. 1:02:46.440 --> 1:02:48.990 What happens after this poem? 1:02:48.989 --> 1:02:52.019 Beatrice has died; literally in 1289 she dies. 1:02:52.018 --> 1:02:58.968 Dante now is married--marries a woman he will never mention, 1:02:58.969 --> 1:03:04.809 belongs to a decent family in Florence, 1:03:04.809 --> 1:03:08.359 the Donati, troublemakers that Dante doesn't really like. 1:03:08.360 --> 1:03:11.900 And Dante will enter public life. 1:03:11.900 --> 1:03:14.910 This public life, which also means, 1:03:14.914 --> 1:03:19.974 that he will have a great interruption to his intellectual 1:03:19.967 --> 1:03:21.117 pursuits. 1:03:21.119 --> 1:03:25.099 Until in 1302, as I--probably you remember, 1:03:25.097 --> 1:03:29.167 I mentioned, he's banned from Florence to go 1:03:29.168 --> 1:03:30.588 into exile. 1:03:30.590 --> 1:03:35.330 And once he's in exile, then his production will start 1:03:35.333 --> 1:03:36.053 again. 1:03:36.050 --> 1:03:38.470 He started writing about the language, the theatre of the 1:03:38.465 --> 1:03:40.785 language, one of the first treatises on language in the 1:03:40.793 --> 1:03:41.573 Western world. 1:03:41.570 --> 1:03:45.770 He writes a text of ethics which is the Banquet and 1:03:45.771 --> 1:03:48.131 then the Divine Comedy. 1:03:48.130 --> 1:03:52.000 We'll begin next time; we'll find them in the middle 1:03:51.996 --> 1:03:55.266 of his journey which is Canto I. 1:03:55.268 --> 1:03:59.738 Since we have a few minutes, do we have questions? 1:03:59.739 --> 1:04:02.829 I said a lot of things. 1:04:02.829 --> 1:04:06.959 I hope it was--I'll go back to some of these things so 1:04:06.958 --> 1:04:08.438 don't--Questions? 1:04:08.440 --> 1:04:17.110 1:04:17.110 --> 1:04:19.490 Student: Well, this is not exactly about the 1:04:19.494 --> 1:04:21.424 lecture, it's about the text, 1:04:21.420 --> 1:04:25.510 do you recommend that we go over the specific text that you 1:04:25.512 --> 1:04:29.552 recommend on the syllabus or-- I already own the Mandelbaum 1:04:29.548 --> 1:04:32.938 translation that-- is that usable for this course 1:04:32.940 --> 1:04:33.610 as well? 1:04:33.610 --> 1:04:35.610 Prof: Yes, the question is, 1:04:35.605 --> 1:04:38.865 do I recommend that the students stick to the text that 1:04:38.871 --> 1:04:42.501 I mention in the syllabus or can they go on using other texts 1:04:42.501 --> 1:04:44.861 such as Mandelbaum's translation? 1:04:44.860 --> 1:04:48.690 The answer is yes you can, it's a very good--Mandelbaum's 1:04:48.686 --> 1:04:51.486 translation is a very good translation. 1:04:51.489 --> 1:04:55.729 I don't use it for one simple reason, because he's a dear 1:04:55.733 --> 1:04:59.073 friend of mine, he probably will hear me now, 1:04:59.068 --> 1:05:01.568 everything will be on record. 1:05:01.570 --> 1:05:04.790 Poets have a weakness. 1:05:04.789 --> 1:05:07.519 When they translate they do it out of great love for the texts. 1:05:07.518 --> 1:05:12.068 Deep down this idea, look at it, I can do one better 1:05:12.065 --> 1:05:17.235 than even Dante and he lapses into that and I have told him 1:05:17.235 --> 1:05:18.925 more than once. 1:05:18.929 --> 1:05:23.429 I like this unpretentious translation by Sinclair. 1:05:23.429 --> 1:05:27.139 Prose sometimes is wrong; I will tell you when it is 1:05:27.143 --> 1:05:30.833 blatantly wrong, but you can use Mandelbaum, 1:05:30.831 --> 1:05:36.081 or if you have Singleton or you have Durling and Martinez, 1:05:36.079 --> 1:05:39.759 or if you have--actually I think is really better than all 1:05:39.764 --> 1:05:43.074 of these, Hollander's, Robert Hollander. 1:05:43.070 --> 1:05:45.680 Actually the translation is by his wife Jean. 1:05:45.679 --> 1:05:49.269 You can use any translation you want. 1:05:49.268 --> 1:05:53.588 They are not really all that different from each other, 1:05:53.590 --> 1:05:55.620 it's usually the sound, and of course, 1:05:55.619 --> 1:05:58.999 Mandelbaum as a poet has a sense of the rhythm in English; 1:05:59.000 --> 1:06:01.310 but absolutely. 1:06:01.309 --> 1:06:03.249 Yes? 1:06:03.250 --> 1:06:06.780 Student: I'm not quite sure I understand how love as a 1:06:06.782 --> 1:06:10.082 process of acquiring knowledge is different or better than 1:06:10.083 --> 1:06:12.493 friendship, or like the harmonious turning 1:06:12.494 --> 1:06:13.834 >. 1:06:13.829 --> 1:06:14.949 Prof: Yeah. 1:06:14.947 --> 1:06:18.857 The question is very good first of all, and is why should I make 1:06:18.858 --> 1:06:22.398 a claim that love as a process of knowledge is better than 1:06:22.396 --> 1:06:23.386 friendship? 1:06:23.389 --> 1:06:25.499 You are really singling out that which is the-- 1:06:25.500 --> 1:06:27.890 one of the dramas of the Vita nuova, 1:06:27.889 --> 1:06:31.389 a book dedicated to--Dante dedicates to his best friend, 1:06:31.389 --> 1:06:34.089 Guido Cavalcanti, and yet it's about Beatrice. 1:06:34.090 --> 1:06:37.010 When Cavalcanti appears he says, forget about love, 1:06:37.010 --> 1:06:41.600 just turn to philosophy in a sonnet that is very well known 1:06:41.603 --> 1:06:44.933 and that I quote in some piece or other. 1:06:44.929 --> 1:06:47.239 There is a tension between the two, 1:06:47.239 --> 1:06:50.549 love and friendship, and we agree and you seem to be 1:06:50.545 --> 1:06:53.315 agreeing with a very generic, not unusual, 1:06:53.318 --> 1:06:55.818 the description that I make of friendship. 1:06:55.820 --> 1:06:58.940 A friendship is really the language of philosophers, 1:06:58.940 --> 1:06:59.430 right? 1:06:59.429 --> 1:07:03.879 Philosophers who get together and believe in thought and 1:07:03.882 --> 1:07:07.932 believe also that friendship is a great virtue, 1:07:07.929 --> 1:07:13.409 there's a lot of drama within friendships and in literature, 1:07:13.409 --> 1:07:15.759 friendships are trying to outdo each other. 1:07:15.760 --> 1:07:17.200 I'm a better friend than you. 1:07:17.199 --> 1:07:21.249 To me, I'm a better friend to you than you are to me, 1:07:21.250 --> 1:07:25.200 as soon as you talk about that kind of rivalry you realize that 1:07:25.202 --> 1:07:28.012 passions also are getting to that process. 1:07:28.010 --> 1:07:32.650 I would say that Dante--I understand Dante to imply here 1:07:32.652 --> 1:07:37.132 that love is better than friendship exactly because it 1:07:37.126 --> 1:07:41.526 forces, it does violence on our ways of 1:07:41.534 --> 1:07:45.414 thinking, because it forces us never to 1:07:45.405 --> 1:07:49.635 take anything for granted, and in and of itself, 1:07:49.637 --> 1:07:53.737 because this may even be something that you find very 1:07:53.742 --> 1:07:56.552 romantic, people can find very romantic. 1:07:56.550 --> 1:08:01.090 The idea that in love you are going to be surprised by what 1:08:01.090 --> 1:08:05.790 the signs of love are and ubiquitous of the idea of love, 1:08:05.789 --> 1:08:09.369 whereas, in friendship you really have a sort of the 1:08:09.365 --> 1:08:11.115 clarity of an exchange. 1:08:11.119 --> 1:08:15.739 In love you are going to have the secret signs that lovers can 1:08:15.744 --> 1:08:17.114 give each other. 1:08:17.109 --> 1:08:21.189 To me, a great text that maybe Dante--I'm sure Dante read is 1:08:21.190 --> 1:08:22.160 really Ovid. 1:08:22.158 --> 1:08:24.328 You go and read all these stories, 1:08:24.328 --> 1:08:26.268 great stories, but the story of Pyramus and 1:08:26.268 --> 1:08:29.038 Thisbe, lovers who can see the smallest 1:08:29.038 --> 1:08:33.288 chink in the wall through which to communicate and all the 1:08:33.287 --> 1:08:35.967 inventiveness that comes with it. 1:08:35.970 --> 1:08:39.690 In a sense, it's really where the idea that love can-- 1:08:39.689 --> 1:08:45.909 I say, can force us to think about in ways that we could 1:08:45.913 --> 1:08:50.843 never really imagine, because it is tied to the 1:08:50.840 --> 1:08:51.990 imagination. 1:08:51.989 --> 1:08:54.029 Okay? 1:08:54.029 --> 1:08:55.199 That's what I would say. 1:08:55.199 --> 1:08:56.939 Other questions? 1:08:56.939 --> 1:09:01.819 1:09:01.819 --> 1:09:03.849 Okay, I think that that's it. 1:09:03.850 --> 1:09:06.880 I will see you next Thursday in some detail and then goes on 1:09:06.878 --> 1:09:09.138 writing a hermeneutics of" with Canto I, 1:09:09.139 --> 1:09:09.549 etc. 1:09:09.550 --> 1:09:10.220 Thank you. 1:09:10.220 --> 1:09:15.000