WEBVTT 00:01.490 --> 00:08.690 Prof: Last time then we talked about the cantos of 00:08.691 --> 00:09.721 pride. 00:09.720 --> 00:13.730 We introduced the cantos of pride: X, XI, 00:13.728 --> 00:14.728 and XII. 00:14.730 --> 00:23.920 I was arguing that Dante comes to know and understand the 00:23.923 --> 00:31.643 virtues and vices of pride and its opposite, 00:31.640 --> 00:35.010 humility, which he sees featured--humility he sees 00:35.009 --> 00:39.409 featured in Canto X and pride he'll see punished in Canto XII. 00:39.410 --> 00:44.960 He gets to understand the nature of this virtue and this 00:44.957 --> 00:48.687 vice by looking at the work of art. 00:48.690 --> 00:53.840 So that in Canto X, we already have a sort of 00:53.843 --> 01:00.523 representation of what an aesthetic education can turn out 01:00.518 --> 01:01.688 to be. 01:01.689 --> 01:07.839 How do we look at art and what are we likely to learn from it? 01:07.840 --> 01:09.220 This was the argument. 01:09.218 --> 01:14.498 Dante arrives into Purgatory proper and the first image that 01:14.501 --> 01:19.961 uses to give us a sense of the dimensions of this place is the 01:19.964 --> 01:22.834 figure of the human measure. 01:22.830 --> 01:29.500 He measures the world around him through the dimensions of 01:29.497 --> 01:31.717 the human figure. 01:31.720 --> 01:36.820 Obliquely, it's not quite--we are not quite there yet to that 01:36.815 --> 01:40.485 point, but he's warning us that indeed 01:40.492 --> 01:44.262 the issue-- what is the issue about pride 01:44.259 --> 01:48.539 and about humility really is-- what is the man's measure? 01:48.540 --> 01:51.380 We are--he says that he's going to-- 01:51.379 --> 01:56.069 that the place is measured according to the size of human 01:56.072 --> 01:59.022 beings, but then the question is what 01:59.018 --> 02:02.428 is the measure of human beings in a moral sense, 02:02.433 --> 02:03.383 of course. 02:03.379 --> 02:10.949 Since pride, superbia in Italian and 02:10.950 --> 02:22.310 in Latin, is a sin of excessive love of one's own excellence. 02:22.310 --> 02:27.900 The sense that one isn't quite reducible to what perhaps others 02:27.897 --> 02:29.247 see about us. 02:29.250 --> 02:33.380 The idea that there may be a touch of vanity in the way we 02:33.378 --> 02:37.148 judge and view ourselves, the way in which we measure 02:37.145 --> 02:38.155 ourselves. 02:38.160 --> 02:41.720 Humility, on the other hand, is the opposite-- 02:41.720 --> 02:48.070 is the remedy to pride and it is really a virtue in that it 02:48.071 --> 02:52.851 really reduces us to-- reminds us of the fact that we 02:52.852 --> 02:54.002 are earthbound. 02:54.000 --> 02:57.280 That's the meaning of the word, and by the way, 02:57.275 --> 03:01.325 that's exactly how humility and the etymology of human are 03:01.332 --> 03:02.332 connected. 03:02.330 --> 03:06.470 They're both derived from a common root, a common matrix in 03:06.473 --> 03:10.263 humus which is the Latin word for the earth. 03:10.258 --> 03:12.768 We are called humans, homo, 03:12.769 --> 03:16.949 because we come out of the earth, because we are made of 03:16.952 --> 03:21.062 the clay of the earth, and we return to the earth. 03:21.060 --> 03:23.290 That's the other implication. 03:23.288 --> 03:26.218 On the other hand, humility is the virtue that 03:26.222 --> 03:30.262 reminds us that we really should not view ourselves as all that 03:30.262 --> 03:31.112 elevated. 03:31.110 --> 03:33.540 So these are the issues. 03:33.538 --> 03:38.568 Dante then confronts some scenes of humility. 03:38.568 --> 03:42.328 He begins with the virtues, and the sins of humility--the 03:42.327 --> 03:46.417 virtue of humility are all taken from the three histories that 03:46.419 --> 03:47.559 interest him. 03:47.560 --> 03:53.210 He's always placing himself at the confluence of these three 03:53.209 --> 03:55.219 strains of history. 03:55.220 --> 03:58.450 An image from the Old Testament, David, 03:58.453 --> 04:03.053 who dances in front of the ark, therefore he humiliates 04:03.048 --> 04:04.068 himself. 04:04.068 --> 04:08.168 He tells us that he's more and less than king. 04:08.169 --> 04:11.529 By the way, this phrase "more and less," 04:11.530 --> 04:14.960 this lack of precision is really an expression that 04:14.959 --> 04:16.399 pervades Canto X. 04:16.399 --> 04:20.309 This "more and less," the grief is "more" 04:20.307 --> 04:21.867 than I can take, etc.; 04:21.870 --> 04:26.670 it appears in a variety of forms, at least five times in 04:26.665 --> 04:29.015 the context of the canto. 04:29.019 --> 04:32.629 Next to David, and that image of humility from 04:32.632 --> 04:36.912 the Old Testament, and above him actually, 04:36.906 --> 04:43.426 watching down from the balcony of a high tower in the royal 04:43.432 --> 04:46.422 palace, there is his wife Michal, 04:46.420 --> 04:48.170 who looks down at David. 04:48.170 --> 04:51.710 Not only she looks down at David, she obviously has 04:51.711 --> 04:56.161 contempt for him, because in her view he is 04:56.161 --> 04:58.811 humiliating, he's offending, 04:58.810 --> 05:02.420 violating the principle of decorum of what a king ought to 05:02.420 --> 05:02.800 be. 05:02.800 --> 05:05.870 She has a different understanding of what is the 05:05.872 --> 05:09.672 measure of a king and the place of a king, because pride is 05:09.666 --> 05:11.756 exactly a question of place. 05:11.759 --> 05:15.749 What place do I occupy in the world around me? 05:15.750 --> 05:20.830 Am I where I think I would like to be or am I where somebody 05:20.826 --> 05:24.436 else is placing me through his/her gaze? 05:24.439 --> 05:27.939 The second image is an image of--but they're all-- 05:27.939 --> 05:31.929 you'll notice the little detail, they're all placed 05:31.930 --> 05:35.300 above, they're sculptures placed above 05:35.297 --> 05:38.637 the normal sight, so that there is obvious 05:38.644 --> 05:42.314 reversal now in what the value of humility can be. 05:42.310 --> 05:44.430 There is the story of the Annunciation, 05:44.430 --> 05:47.790 the angel Gabriel who descends, literally, 05:47.790 --> 05:52.120 and that descent is a story of humiliation of the divine, 05:52.120 --> 05:56.280 the divine enters history, and therefore in that sense the 05:56.281 --> 05:58.401 divine is truly omnipotent. 05:58.399 --> 06:01.359 There is the idea which is really something developed, 06:01.360 --> 06:04.610 I mention it here, but I will come back to that, 06:04.610 --> 06:08.680 the idea that the divine is detached from the human would 06:08.678 --> 06:11.148 make the divine less omniscient. 06:11.149 --> 06:14.749 A divine that does not know the human, does not know death, 06:14.745 --> 06:16.725 cannot claim to be omniscient. 06:16.730 --> 06:18.580 That's an argument that Dante uses. 06:18.579 --> 06:22.829 So there is the story of the angel Gabriel who comes down and 06:22.827 --> 06:25.517 the obedience of Mary, the Virgin Mary, 06:25.517 --> 06:28.277 who says, 'Yes, I am your servant.' 06:28.278 --> 06:33.888 So there's a story of--and Mary is the one who said to turn the 06:33.891 --> 06:38.601 key between the old alliance and the new alliance. 06:38.600 --> 06:41.190 She reverses the story of Eve. 06:41.190 --> 06:45.330 It is as if her obedience is a response to some kind of 06:45.331 --> 06:49.701 violation and the promise of being divine in the eating of 06:49.702 --> 06:50.702 the tree. 06:50.699 --> 06:55.929 The third example, or story, that the pilgrim 06:55.928 --> 06:58.728 sees-- looks at--it's the story of the 06:58.733 --> 07:01.433 emperor Trajan, secular history, 07:01.427 --> 07:07.717 who stops his--from marching onto his campaign into Dacia, 07:07.720 --> 07:10.510 into Romania, in order to give justice to a 07:10.514 --> 07:12.994 little widow, the diminutive is Dante's. 07:12.990 --> 07:16.390 A little widow who has been asking for justice before he 07:16.394 --> 07:19.124 departs, justice for the death of her son. 07:19.120 --> 07:22.680 This is what he--what Dante is confronted with and what he is 07:22.682 --> 07:25.892 confronted with is we do know that he's being asked and 07:25.889 --> 07:28.919 directed by Virgil to look at the whole scene, 07:28.920 --> 07:33.170 not to stop at one detail, to even move beyond Virgil 07:33.170 --> 07:35.730 himself, in what would appear to be a 07:35.732 --> 07:38.942 transgression of the reverential bond that ties them. 07:38.940 --> 07:44.190 He--Dante is always following as a disciple follows the 07:44.187 --> 07:45.157 teacher. 07:45.160 --> 07:48.860 So he just even transgresses his place but that doesn't seem 07:48.860 --> 07:52.440 to have anything to do with the aesthetic education of the 07:52.437 --> 07:53.187 pilgrim. 07:53.190 --> 07:58.670 He's witnessing what he calls visible speech, 07:58.666 --> 08:00.406 synesthesia. 08:00.410 --> 08:03.930 That's why this phrase it says, visibile parlare, 08:03.925 --> 08:05.775 in Italian, visible speech. 08:05.778 --> 08:11.428 It's a synesthesia that combines the sight to sensory 08:11.430 --> 08:15.670 experiences, the eye and the hearing; 08:15.670 --> 08:20.600 so speech because this is God's art and God's art has also a 08:20.603 --> 08:22.113 precise meaning. 08:22.110 --> 08:26.710 A precise meaning that Dante has no difficulty understanding 08:26.714 --> 08:30.544 or finding delight in, so this is the argument. 08:30.540 --> 08:33.960 At one point, in the drama of the canto, 08:33.958 --> 08:39.038 some figures keep appearing and Virgil directs Dante's eyes 08:39.044 --> 08:42.644 toward the people that are appearing. 08:42.639 --> 08:45.559 Dante does not recognize them. 08:45.558 --> 08:46.958 He says, I don't know what they are. 08:46.960 --> 08:49.280 My sight is so confused. 08:49.279 --> 08:52.739 He doesn't want to even know who they are or what they are. 08:52.740 --> 08:57.390 Virgil will explain to him they are human figures crawling on 08:57.394 --> 09:00.814 the huge boulders and almost moving like, 09:00.808 --> 09:04.548 on the ground, on the earth like worms on the 09:04.548 --> 09:05.228 earth. 09:05.230 --> 09:10.570 And Dante is not really capable of deciphering them or having 09:10.573 --> 09:12.893 even sympathy with them. 09:12.889 --> 09:14.299 At that point, as you recall, 09:14.298 --> 09:17.118 because I had the feeling that maybe the explanation is a 09:17.115 --> 09:20.625 little bit-- was a little bit too wriggly, 09:20.625 --> 09:24.725 but Dante's poem-- canto moves in that way with a 09:24.725 --> 09:26.735 lot of sinuosities there. 09:26.740 --> 09:31.140 I mentioned to you a particular passage in Chapter II--Book III, 09:31.136 --> 09:33.856 Chapter II of the Confessions. 09:33.860 --> 09:38.450 It's an extraordinary passage and I brought it in so that you 09:38.447 --> 09:41.887 can--I want to read a little bit from that. 09:41.889 --> 09:48.559 It's a passage--it's a book where Augustine is living in 09:48.562 --> 09:51.112 Carthage, you know. 09:51.110 --> 09:54.470 At about now, at this stage he's about 17, 09:54.470 --> 10:01.450 19--has been talking about his attraction for shows, 10:01.450 --> 10:05.400 his attractions for the Manicheans, 10:05.399 --> 10:10.429 the distaste for scripture that he has, 10:10.428 --> 10:14.958 and how he is going to be--has been led astray by some of his 10:14.961 --> 10:19.841 friends with the stealing of-- gratuitous stealing of the pear 10:19.842 --> 10:22.312 tree-- the pears from the pear tree, 10:22.308 --> 10:25.928 which he doesn't understand why he would ever do that. 10:25.928 --> 10:30.518 And now he talks about once again his experience of the 10:30.519 --> 10:31.369 theatre. 10:31.370 --> 10:34.610 That is to say, he's discussing his experience 10:34.609 --> 10:38.419 of himself as a spectator, which is exactly what Dante 10:38.423 --> 10:39.003 was. 10:39.000 --> 10:43.490 Dante--the problem Dante in Canto X of Purgatorio is 10:43.485 --> 10:47.425 that he is at first a spectator of works of art, 10:47.428 --> 10:50.408 which he seems to have no difficulty understanding. 10:50.408 --> 10:53.448 Then he has to be involved--show them at least 10:53.447 --> 10:57.187 some compassion, some self-recognition with the 10:57.191 --> 11:01.861 souls who are these shades, penitents, who are under these 11:01.860 --> 11:05.690 huge weights that they carry, and he cannot do it. 11:05.690 --> 11:10.510 He still has to learn what grief is and what is it, 11:10.509 --> 11:16.389 and how do you go on connecting to the images that you see. 11:16.389 --> 11:18.609 Let's see how--what Augustine says, 11:18.610 --> 11:23.910 Augustine is--that's what he says: "Stage plays," 11:23.912 --> 11:27.662 this is really Chapter II of Book III, 11:27.658 --> 11:30.428 "stage plays carried me away, 11:30.428 --> 11:35.838 full of images of my miseries, and a fuel to my fire. 11:35.840 --> 11:41.090 Why is it that man desires to be made sad? 11:41.090 --> 11:46.220 Beholding doleful and tragical things which he himself would by 11:46.222 --> 11:48.212 no means suffer." 11:48.210 --> 11:51.510 The real pleasure of his going to the theatre, 11:51.506 --> 11:55.536 he claims, we have a great pleasure, is in the images of 11:55.537 --> 11:56.267 grief. 11:56.269 --> 11:59.639 They don't really touch us, we are not even expected to 11:59.636 --> 12:03.626 jump on the stage to relieve the characters were involved in this 12:03.628 --> 12:04.998 sort of situation. 12:05.000 --> 12:08.500 He goes on, and then you'll see what the point is, 12:08.500 --> 12:10.080 "which would himself by no means suffer, 12:10.080 --> 12:14.540 yet he desires as a spectator to feel sorrow at them, 12:14.538 --> 12:17.828 and this very sorrow is his pleasure." 12:17.830 --> 12:19.160 I was just paraphrasing that. 12:19.158 --> 12:22.368 "What is this, but a miserable madness, 12:22.368 --> 12:26.098 for a man is the more affected with his actions. 12:26.100 --> 12:30.230 The less free he is from such affections, however, 12:30.234 --> 12:34.794 when he suffers in his own person, it uses to be styled 12:34.791 --> 12:35.721 misery. 12:35.720 --> 12:39.800 When he feels compassion for others, then it is mercy. 12:39.798 --> 12:44.538 What sort of compassion is this for feigned and scenic passions? 12:44.538 --> 12:48.268 For the auditor is not called on to relieve, 12:48.269 --> 12:52.349 but only to grieve, and he applauds the actor of 12:52.346 --> 12:55.726 these fictions the more he grieves. 12:55.730 --> 12:59.000 And if the calamities of those persons were of all times or 12:58.998 --> 13:01.488 mere fiction, to be so acted that the 13:01.485 --> 13:05.475 spectator is not moved to tears, he goes away disgusted and 13:05.480 --> 13:07.850 criticizing, but if he is to be moved to 13:07.850 --> 13:11.180 passion, he stays intent and weeps for 13:11.176 --> 13:12.226 joy." 13:12.230 --> 13:14.880 This is an extraordinary passage, I think, 13:14.878 --> 13:18.748 in the history of antiquity and the criticism of the theatre, 13:18.753 --> 13:20.113 dramatic theatre. 13:20.110 --> 13:24.210 The point is, can we ever be disengaged 13:24.207 --> 13:25.607 spectators? 13:25.610 --> 13:29.750 Yes, we can be disengaged spectators and Augustine is 13:29.753 --> 13:32.943 criticizing the disengaged spectator, 13:32.940 --> 13:37.620 the belief that we can be in front of the play of the world 13:37.624 --> 13:41.694 and that things only touch us, as if in a fiction, 13:41.687 --> 13:46.027 and yet we ourselves are not going to be able to acknowledge 13:46.028 --> 13:46.468 it. 13:46.470 --> 13:50.460 He's really criticizing the limits of the theatre, 13:50.464 --> 13:54.544 the limits of that kind of aesthetic experience. 13:54.538 --> 13:59.518 I think that Dante is picking up exactly from this--what 13:59.524 --> 14:04.144 Augustine says in this chapter, and he's showing how 14:04.144 --> 14:07.684 unavoidably one has to be involved. 14:07.678 --> 14:11.248 There's--in the measure in which we think that we are not 14:11.253 --> 14:13.553 touched by somebody else's grief, 14:13.548 --> 14:17.368 we're really admitting the overpowering quality of that 14:17.370 --> 14:18.290 experience. 14:18.289 --> 14:19.209 That's his argument. 14:19.210 --> 14:24.050 He has learned something then; he has learned that there is no 14:24.048 --> 14:26.868 such a thing as a safe perspective. 14:26.870 --> 14:31.480 The way--and he has learned what Michal had been doing in-- 14:31.480 --> 14:34.870 from the high window of her palace, 14:34.870 --> 14:40.710 that she was expressing disgust at her husband because that 14:40.711 --> 14:44.641 offends her own sense of superiority. 14:44.639 --> 14:49.499 Dante says, I may be no different from Michal in my 14:49.504 --> 14:55.154 disclaimer that I do not know and I do not see any of these 14:55.145 --> 14:59.325 penitents who disfigure the human form. 14:59.330 --> 15:03.270 In refusing to acknowledge that they are like me, 15:03.268 --> 15:07.778 and refusing to have any self-recognition between me and 15:07.780 --> 15:08.520 them. 15:08.519 --> 15:11.279 This is really the aesthetic education. 15:11.278 --> 15:15.898 Let's see now how for Dante it is aesthetic and it's ethical. 15:15.899 --> 15:20.949 He goes on understanding that the stakes are in the idea of 15:20.945 --> 15:25.505 perspective, the idea that the world is a 15:25.505 --> 15:31.435 projection of my own wishes and that world is really 15:31.437 --> 15:33.297 reformulated. 15:33.298 --> 15:36.508 If I think that I can take a safe distance, 15:36.509 --> 15:40.409 it's because I do not want to look within myself. 15:40.408 --> 15:43.858 Canto XI and Canto XII, I think, will answer that 15:43.859 --> 15:44.649 question. 15:44.649 --> 15:47.709 Let me just go on with Canto XII--Canto XI, 15:47.706 --> 15:48.576 I'm sorry. 15:48.580 --> 15:51.660 First of all--if there are questions you can interrupt me, 15:51.658 --> 15:54.768 because I don't think this is a difficult argument, 15:54.769 --> 15:58.479 but if there are questions interrupt me now or keep them 15:58.480 --> 15:59.290 for later. 15:59.288 --> 16:04.308 Canto XI begins with the penitents, who now change, 16:04.309 --> 16:06.519 reverse perspective. 16:06.519 --> 16:11.469 They are so close to the ground, but they are looking up, 16:11.471 --> 16:16.251 and they have the Lord's Prayer, in what is Dante's own 16:16.249 --> 16:19.609 recasting of the canonical prayer. 16:19.610 --> 16:22.010 "Our Father, which art in heaven, 16:22.013 --> 16:25.783 not circumscribed but by the greater love Thou hast for Thy 16:25.780 --> 16:27.730 first works on high." 16:27.730 --> 16:30.370 This is the prayer of the penitents. 16:30.370 --> 16:34.740 "Praise be Thy name and power by every creature as it is 16:34.739 --> 16:38.089 meet to give thanks for Thy sweet effluence; 16:38.090 --> 16:41.460 May Thy peace of Thy kingdom come to us, for we cannot reach 16:41.461 --> 16:43.231 it of ourselves, if it come not, 16:43.232 --> 16:44.722 with all our striving. 16:44.720 --> 16:48.270 As Thine angels make sacrifice to Thee of their will, 16:48.269 --> 16:51.409 singing hosannas, so let men make of theirs; 16:51.408 --> 16:55.258 Give us this day the daily manna, without which he goes 16:55.259 --> 16:59.249 backward through this harsh wilderness who most labors to 16:59.254 --> 17:01.914 advance; And as we forgive everyone the 17:01.912 --> 17:04.682 wrong we have suffered, do Thou also forgive in 17:04.675 --> 17:07.615 loving-kindness and look not on our deserving; 17:07.619 --> 17:09.339 Our strengths," and so on. 17:09.338 --> 17:13.328 "Thus beseeching good speed for themselves and for us 17:13.328 --> 17:16.408 those shades went beneath their burden," 17:16.410 --> 17:16.970 etc. 17:16.970 --> 17:21.320 What about this prayer? 17:21.318 --> 17:24.318 First of all, how is this related to what we 17:24.323 --> 17:25.723 are talking about? 17:25.720 --> 17:29.640 The first thing is that in the Lord's Prayer, 17:29.642 --> 17:34.632 the change Dante makes is to emphasize that God is not in 17:34.634 --> 17:37.224 space, not circumscribed. 17:37.220 --> 17:41.530 God is not in space and therefore He is really 17:41.528 --> 17:44.208 everywhere, or He is free. 17:44.210 --> 17:47.850 That formula he is using, you may want to know, 17:47.845 --> 17:52.185 is a traditional one in medieval thinking whereby God is 17:52.192 --> 17:54.882 said to be an infinite sphere. 17:54.880 --> 18:00.130 This is a formula to define what--the idea of the infinity 18:00.130 --> 18:00.960 of God. 18:00.960 --> 18:05.410 An infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose 18:05.411 --> 18:07.391 circumference nowhere. 18:07.390 --> 18:12.070 God is not in a place; God does not have a perspective. 18:12.068 --> 18:16.118 There is--indirectly there is a critique of perspective here, 18:16.115 --> 18:18.605 or the inadequacy of a perspective. 18:18.608 --> 18:20.628 God is everywhere, not circumscribed, 18:20.630 --> 18:22.090 that's the first change. 18:22.088 --> 18:23.968 The second change that he's making, 18:23.970 --> 18:27.740 this is a neo-Platonic element that he adds on to the Lord's 18:27.740 --> 18:30.370 Prayer, and then the second one is that 18:30.367 --> 18:33.217 he literally places, "Give us this day the 18:33.215 --> 18:35.555 daily manna, without which he goes 18:35.559 --> 18:38.919 backwards," he literally makes the Lord's 18:38.924 --> 18:42.594 Prayer the prayer of the exiles in the desert. 18:42.588 --> 18:47.568 Like the Jews in the wilderness who ask and get their manna, 18:47.568 --> 18:50.358 so now this is another element that-- 18:50.358 --> 18:56.108 another metaphorical element that casts Purgatory as a 18:56.108 --> 19:01.668 journey through the desert between the bondage of Egypt and 19:01.667 --> 19:03.007 Jerusalem. 19:03.009 --> 19:07.369 The other point is that there is a reversal of perspective 19:07.369 --> 19:11.959 somehow, and what kind of a perspective is he gaining now? 19:11.960 --> 19:15.080 The perspective, I think, is what I call a 19:15.084 --> 19:16.994 Franciscan perspective. 19:16.990 --> 19:19.900 Let me just explain first of all, the line, 19:19.903 --> 19:23.373 "Praised be Thy name and power by every living 19:23.371 --> 19:24.691 creature." 19:24.690 --> 19:28.990 This is literally an echo of the first poem of the Italian 19:28.990 --> 19:31.860 poetic tradition, a poem written by St. 19:31.857 --> 19:36.307 Francis, which is known as the Canticle of Creatures, 19:36.308 --> 19:41.288 which is really a sequence--a anaphoric sequence of praises. 19:41.288 --> 19:43.738 'Praised be Thy name, praised be the water, 19:43.743 --> 19:45.033 praised'--and so on. 19:45.029 --> 19:50.359 The point of that poem is that it begins with the look of human 19:50.362 --> 19:55.522 beings up to the highest and then it ends up with the idea of 19:55.520 --> 19:56.640 humility. 19:56.640 --> 20:02.350 We are, Francis says, "Not the most important or 20:02.346 --> 20:07.006 the center of creation, we are like everything else 20:07.010 --> 20:08.890 valuable in creation." 20:08.890 --> 20:13.670 That's the thrust of the poem, and the only way in which you 20:13.669 --> 20:18.199 can really understand the creation is really to look from 20:18.204 --> 20:21.774 the bottom up and not from the top down. 20:21.769 --> 20:26.989 This is the true, the kind of perspective that he 20:26.986 --> 20:30.026 is describing in the poem. 20:30.028 --> 20:35.008 The rest of the canto really is a connection between art and 20:35.009 --> 20:36.819 pride, which we are not going to be 20:36.818 --> 20:39.678 surprised, since the whole of Canto X was 20:39.678 --> 20:42.808 a reflection on the premises of that-- 20:42.808 --> 20:46.098 of the two metaphors, art and pride. 20:46.098 --> 20:53.808 So you have the illuminators and then references on lines 90 20:53.807 --> 20:58.577 to the painters, "O empty glory of human 20:58.575 --> 21:01.395 powers, how briefly last the green on 21:01.398 --> 21:04.318 its top, unless it's followed by age of 21:04.317 --> 21:05.047 dullness! 21:05.048 --> 21:08.198 In painting Cimabue thought to hold the field, 21:08.200 --> 21:12.260 and now Giotto has the cry, so that the other's fame is dim 21:12.259 --> 21:13.589 and so..." 21:13.588 --> 21:16.498 And then the poets, Guido Cavalcanti and Guido 21:16.503 --> 21:20.523 Guinizelli: "So has the one Guido taken from the other the 21:20.519 --> 21:24.069 glory of our tongue, and he, perhaps is born that 21:24.067 --> 21:27.717 shall chase the one and the other from the nest," 21:27.718 --> 21:29.438 meaning Dante himself. 21:29.440 --> 21:33.180 The idea of fame, which is what the proud souls 21:33.180 --> 21:38.350 may be looking for, is here dismissed as having the 21:38.353 --> 21:43.953 inconsistency of the wind, just vanishing like the breath, 21:43.952 --> 21:48.982 a breath of wind, and so this is the sort of 21:48.976 --> 21:54.706 moral understanding of pride and humility. 21:54.710 --> 21:57.350 In Canto XII, I just want to show you and 21:57.351 --> 22:01.411 describe the reasons why, and try to explain to you the 22:01.405 --> 22:05.815 reasons why Dante deploys a peculiar rhetorical artifice. 22:05.818 --> 22:12.648 And I ask you to turn to around lines 25 which is a sequence of 22:12.646 --> 22:15.286 new visions Dante has. 22:15.288 --> 22:18.678 This time the images are on the ground. 22:18.680 --> 22:21.820 So he has to look down; he doesn't have to look up, 22:21.823 --> 22:25.233 and they are images of the proud souls who have been 22:25.230 --> 22:29.240 punished and therefore now they appear now on the ground. 22:29.240 --> 22:31.940 The text starts, "I saw him that I was 22:31.942 --> 22:34.772 created nobler than any other creature," 22:34.773 --> 22:37.223 now of course you know who he is, 22:37.220 --> 22:39.570 "on the one side; I saw Briareus," 22:39.567 --> 22:42.127 one of the giants, "pierced by the heavenly 22:42.134 --> 22:43.234 shaft, lying heavy.. 22:43.227 --> 22:45.247 .I saw Thymbraeus, I saw Pallas and... 22:45.248 --> 22:46.448 I saw Nimrod... 22:46.450 --> 22:50.400 " All figures you have more or less seen before. 22:50.400 --> 22:51.000 "... 22:51.000 --> 22:54.200 at the foot of his mighty work, as if bewildered, 22:54.203 --> 22:57.813 and he was looking at the peoples in Shinar that shared 22:57.807 --> 22:59.207 his pride." 22:59.210 --> 23:01.860 And then four tercets: "O Niobe.. 23:01.863 --> 23:03.593 .", "O Saul... 23:03.585 --> 23:05.735 ", "O mad Arachne... 23:05.736 --> 23:07.956 ", "O Rehoboam... 23:07.960 --> 23:11.460 " And then, once again, the four more 23:11.462 --> 23:15.572 tercets: "It showed too, that hard pavement, 23:15.566 --> 23:17.186 how Alcmaeon... 23:17.190 --> 23:19.750 It showed how his sons fell upon Sennacherib... 23:19.746 --> 23:22.856 It showed the destruction and the cruel butchery that the 23:22.857 --> 23:23.967 Tomyris wrought. 23:23.970 --> 23:24.130 ... 23:24.133 --> 23:27.183 It showed how the Assyrians fled in rout after Holofernes 23:27.183 --> 23:28.223 was slain." 23:28.220 --> 23:33.140 And then one final tercet: "I saw Troy in ashes and 23:33.144 --> 23:35.844 in heaps; O Ilion, how abased and vile 23:35.836 --> 23:38.636 the design show thee that we saw there!" 23:38.640 --> 23:43.800 These are all the figurations of punished pride: 23:43.795 --> 23:48.945 pride that has been now literally humiliated. 23:48.950 --> 23:52.200 I did have to ask you to look, so that you can understand the 23:52.202 --> 23:52.802 artifice. 23:52.798 --> 23:58.708 This is what we call a visible speech that Dante himself has 23:58.714 --> 24:02.334 been deploying, and to do this I have to ask 24:02.329 --> 24:06.209 you to look at the Italian text that begins with the word-- 24:06.210 --> 24:11.300 every tercet with the letter V, though I'm sure you would like 24:11.299 --> 24:15.719 me to read a little bit of the Italian: Vedea colui 24:15.722 --> 24:16.562 che... 24:25.318 --> 24:29.488 And then, the four next tercets with the letter O: 24:32.219 --> 24:35.029 O folle Aragne, O Roboam. 24:35.029 --> 24:38.139 And then the next four tercets with M, Mostrava ancor.. 24:38.138 --> 24:40.588 ., next Mostrava come i figli si gettaro.. 24:40.586 --> 24:42.316 ., Mostrava la ruina... 24:42.318 --> 24:46.108 You've got to read down, Mostrava come in 24:46.114 --> 24:47.354 rotta... 24:47.348 --> 24:51.118 and then final tercet from line 61 to 62, Vedea Troia... 24:51.115 --> 24:52.085 o Ilion.. 24:52.086 --> 24:53.906 mostrava il segno... 24:53.910 --> 24:59.520 which sort of recapitulates all of the key elements of this 24:59.516 --> 25:00.576 artifice. 25:00.578 --> 25:05.118 We are in the presence of a so-called acrostic that if you 25:05.118 --> 25:09.258 read from the top down, it spells the following V-U-M 25:09.259 --> 25:11.409 and then recapitulates. 25:11.410 --> 25:14.810 This is the V, but in Italian it's also the U. 25:14.809 --> 25:16.979 That is to say, the fall of man. 25:16.980 --> 25:20.760 So he's doing this--he's using this artifice that you can only 25:20.760 --> 25:22.870 understand if you read the text. 25:22.868 --> 25:27.478 If you have to hear it, you can't quite get to it. 25:27.480 --> 25:30.420 In other words, he's doing two things, 25:30.416 --> 25:33.986 using God's own art as a model for himself. 25:33.990 --> 25:38.360 This is pride, it would seem to be pride. 25:38.358 --> 25:41.768 After all it's excessive love of one's excellence, 25:41.767 --> 25:45.867 but God did that in Canto X, he's going to do the same thing 25:45.869 --> 25:47.399 now with the text. 25:47.400 --> 25:51.410 The second thing that it shows is that the text is not a text 25:51.413 --> 25:54.293 to be just heard, it's a text to be read. 25:54.289 --> 25:57.249 It's a text to be looked at. 25:57.250 --> 26:00.480 It's what we call visible speech. 26:00.480 --> 26:05.740 What is Dante doing in--is he lapsing into a sin of pride? 26:05.740 --> 26:10.310 Of course, but what he's telling us is that pride is not 26:10.305 --> 26:10.965 a sin. 26:10.970 --> 26:14.420 He is, in a sense, redefining the ethical language 26:14.422 --> 26:18.152 of the Middle Ages and the ethical language of his own 26:18.154 --> 26:18.794 text. 26:18.788 --> 26:23.068 He's saying that in the measure in which you love what is above 26:23.071 --> 26:24.801 you, that is not a sin. 26:24.798 --> 26:30.038 The sin--it is a sin, pride, in the measure in which 26:30.038 --> 26:36.408 you do have contempt for those that you think are below you. 26:36.410 --> 26:40.810 We have, thanks to the world of art, a re-evaluation of the 26:40.809 --> 26:42.099 moral language. 26:42.098 --> 26:46.078 That's the first and most important example of all of this 26:46.084 --> 26:50.004 that happens throughout Purgatory in Purgatory itself. 26:50.000 --> 26:53.780 Do you see what--is it--do you want me to say this again? 26:53.779 --> 26:59.899 Dante, by imitating God's form of art as he does here, 26:59.900 --> 27:03.830 with his own text, he's drawing attention to this 27:03.830 --> 27:08.910 as an artifice available to us thanks to his text and it's only 27:08.907 --> 27:14.147 possible to view it the way he describes it within the text. 27:14.150 --> 27:17.440 He's giving a peculiar status to his own text. 27:17.440 --> 27:23.240 This text has also its stages and artifice that we normally-- 27:23.240 --> 27:26.080 and he has learned from God directly, 27:26.078 --> 27:29.758 which means that the sin of Lucifer, 27:29.759 --> 27:32.839 even, is not just the sin that he transgresses what's above 27:32.837 --> 27:35.677 him-- it's the sin because he has 27:35.681 --> 27:38.611 contempt for what is below him. 27:38.608 --> 27:43.218 So the humility and pride really have to go hand in hand 27:43.223 --> 27:48.093 and one attenuates and changes the meaning of the other. 27:48.088 --> 27:54.488 This is really something that in many ways a Franciscan 27:54.491 --> 27:57.291 canto-- you might want to write a paper 27:57.287 --> 27:59.457 on that on the song of the so called-- 27:59.460 --> 28:02.330 the Song of All Creatures by St. 28:02.325 --> 28:05.035 Francis and this particular canto. 28:05.038 --> 28:09.278 And so you may draw your own conclusions, if you do not agree 28:09.275 --> 28:10.965 with what I have said. 28:10.970 --> 28:15.840 Let's move on to the next few cantos. 28:15.838 --> 28:19.958 I want to go to, above all, to Canto XVI because 28:19.962 --> 28:25.402 here we have--we are approaching now the center of the world of 28:25.401 --> 28:26.631 Purgatory. 28:26.630 --> 28:32.540 We are in the--we skipped envy altogether and I will get back 28:32.536 --> 28:36.766 to that on another occasion in Canto XV, 28:36.769 --> 28:40.869 but in XVI and XVII we'll talk about anger, 28:40.868 --> 28:43.858 the sin of anger, the purgation of anger. 28:43.858 --> 28:47.418 Here, in XVI, Dante meets a famous 28:47.424 --> 28:54.234 magnanimous figure called Marco Lombardo and he has a discussion 28:54.232 --> 28:57.272 about human-- he has a discussion with him 28:57.268 --> 29:00.648 about the so-called-- the issue of human degradation, 29:00.647 --> 29:02.297 of human degeneracy. 29:02.298 --> 29:05.968 The scene takes place in a kind of-- 29:05.970 --> 29:11.400 the cloud of anger, the biblical cloud of anger, 29:11.400 --> 29:14.070 sort of a world deprived of any light, 29:14.068 --> 29:15.998 a kind of madness, if you wish, 29:15.998 --> 29:19.848 anger understood as that which violates the clarity and light 29:19.854 --> 29:23.054 of reason that-- as we refer to it. 29:23.048 --> 29:27.268 "Gloom of Hell or night bereft of every planet under a 29:27.268 --> 29:31.698 barren sky overcast everywhere with cloud never made a veil to 29:31.703 --> 29:35.993 my sight so heavy or of a stuff so harsh to the sense as the 29:35.994 --> 29:37.454 smoke..." 29:37.450 --> 29:39.940 And then the language: "Just as a blind man goes 29:39.938 --> 29:42.758 behind his guide that he may not stray or knock against what 29:42.760 --> 29:44.580 might injure or perhaps kill him, 29:44.578 --> 29:47.958 so I went through the foul and bitter air listening to my 29:47.962 --> 29:48.872 Leader." 29:48.868 --> 29:52.168 He meets then, within this context, 29:52.170 --> 29:57.310 in this background of a cloudiness and near blindness, 29:57.314 --> 30:01.784 near invisibility of the world around him. 30:01.778 --> 30:05.678 The kind of invisibility that has been carried over from the 30:05.683 --> 30:09.593 sin of envy, which as you know, is all about being blind. 30:09.588 --> 30:19.078 Then he hears a voice and Dante asks one question. 30:19.078 --> 30:23.788 The question is: do we have the "world is.. 30:23.794 --> 30:27.404 .wholly barren of every virtue," 30:27.404 --> 30:30.844 on line 55, "as thou declarest to me, 30:30.838 --> 30:32.918 and pregnant and overspread with wickedness, 30:32.920 --> 30:36.930 but I beg thee to point out to me the cause that I may see it, 30:36.930 --> 30:39.540 and show it to men, for one places it in the 30:39.536 --> 30:41.896 heavens and another here below." 30:41.900 --> 30:45.230 Is there such a thing as free, what we call free will? 30:45.230 --> 30:47.570 What is it, what is free will? 30:47.568 --> 30:53.128 What is the cause of all our deeds of our doings? 30:53.130 --> 30:57.130 Is it--as the astrologers will say, in the planets and 30:57.130 --> 31:00.830 therefore a matter of determination by forces that 31:00.827 --> 31:04.297 transcend us and which we have no control? 31:04.298 --> 31:08.418 A severe limitation of the meaning of choices and the 31:08.423 --> 31:12.553 possibilities of choices, and therefore of merits and 31:12.548 --> 31:13.578 demerits. 31:13.578 --> 31:17.188 If we have no choices, then we can really--we cannot 31:17.190 --> 31:21.090 be praised or blamed for what we do, or is it within us, 31:21.085 --> 31:23.275 and this is Marco Lombardo. 31:23.278 --> 31:28.078 It is a revisit--Dante's revisiting the whole story of-- 31:28.078 --> 31:32.448 and debate, an ancient debate about the relationship between 31:32.454 --> 31:36.094 free will and God's foreknowledge if you wish, 31:36.088 --> 31:38.798 that Boethius in The Consolation of Philosophy, 31:38.798 --> 31:42.548 as is well known, had been confronting. 31:42.548 --> 31:44.928 "He first heaved then a deep sigh," 31:44.933 --> 31:47.643 line 63 and following, "which grief forced us to 31:47.640 --> 31:50.050 'Alas!', then began: 'Brother..." 31:50.048 --> 31:52.808 I don't have to point out to you, this is the form of 31:52.807 --> 31:54.607 salutation in Purgatorio. 31:54.608 --> 31:58.678 You already had "Our Father" in Canto XI, 31:58.680 --> 32:01.950 with this idea that there's a human family, 32:01.950 --> 32:06.170 therefore a brother is the appropriate form of 32:06.167 --> 32:11.227 interlocution and address among the souls and Dante. 32:11.230 --> 32:11.870 ".. 32:11.866 --> 32:16.006 .the world is blind and indeed thou comest from it. 32:16.009 --> 32:20.259 You that are living refer every cause up to the heavens alone, 32:20.263 --> 32:24.313 just as if they moved all things with them by necessity. 32:24.308 --> 32:27.298 If it were so, free choice would be 32:27.298 --> 32:28.878 destroyed." 32:28.880 --> 32:30.430 I think the text is very clear. 32:30.430 --> 32:34.240 I would have to tell you that there is a distinction between 32:34.237 --> 32:37.397 choice and free will, they are not the same thing: 32:37.397 --> 32:39.267 free choice or free will. 32:39.269 --> 32:43.769 And this is a very difficult argument because choice implies 32:43.770 --> 32:46.970 that we--that it's an intellectual problem, 32:46.974 --> 32:50.184 that we choose thanks to what we know. 32:50.180 --> 32:54.590 The will is a difficult argument, because free will 32:54.589 --> 32:58.559 implies that the will is never in bondage, 32:58.558 --> 33:02.958 and it's possible to attain the moment where we will freely. 33:02.960 --> 33:06.930 In fact, so many theologians go on asking that free will means 33:06.933 --> 33:10.713 that the will finally can be moved by an act of choice that 33:10.712 --> 33:14.462 it is-- it follows on the prior act of 33:14.459 --> 33:15.569 knowledge. 33:15.568 --> 33:19.168 Dante uses the two terms: "if it were so free choice 33:19.167 --> 33:22.887 would be destroyed in you and there would be no justice and 33:22.894 --> 33:26.434 happiness for well doing and misery for evil." 33:26.430 --> 33:30.590 That's the answer that Marco Lombardo will give. 33:30.588 --> 33:32.328 "The heavens initiate your impulses; 33:32.328 --> 33:35.018 I do not say all, but, if I did, 33:35.020 --> 33:38.060 light is given on good and evil, 33:38.058 --> 33:40.898 and free will, and if it bear the strain in 33:40.896 --> 33:43.596 the first battlings with the heavens, 33:43.598 --> 33:46.658 then, being rightly nurtured it conquers all. 33:46.660 --> 33:49.760 To a greater power and to a better nature you, 33:49.759 --> 33:51.549 free, are subject." 33:51.548 --> 33:55.478 Which in Italian it really is, I have to say, 33:55.483 --> 33:58.883 more of an oxymoron, line 80: liberi 33:58.881 --> 34:00.671 soggiaciete. 34:00.670 --> 34:05.530 You are free subjects exactly, you are--and you can--you do 34:05.525 --> 34:10.795 sense the--you understand the contradiction in the two terms. 34:10.800 --> 34:12.890 That is to say, we are free, 34:12.893 --> 34:15.843 but at the same time we are subject. 34:15.840 --> 34:18.880 I can only understand it with--in terms of what Dante 34:18.882 --> 34:21.752 will say a little bit later when he discusses-- 34:21.750 --> 34:26.580 he shifts the argument to the law, saying that that's really 34:26.577 --> 34:29.287 the-- we are free subjects and the 34:29.291 --> 34:32.721 law is exactly the-- the metaphor for him that will 34:32.724 --> 34:36.444 make us understand what it means to be free and subject at the 34:36.438 --> 34:39.498 same time; where limitations are going to 34:39.500 --> 34:43.740 be posited and within those limitations we can be free. 34:43.739 --> 34:45.089 That's the argument. 34:45.090 --> 34:47.680 "And that creates the mind in you which the heavens have 34:47.679 --> 34:48.629 not in their charge. 34:48.630 --> 34:49.940 Therefore..." etc. 34:49.940 --> 34:55.960 Then here the first thing that Dante does is give a sense of 34:55.958 --> 34:57.078 creation. 34:57.079 --> 35:04.359 He posits human freedom in the act of creation of the soul. 35:04.360 --> 35:09.930 This is, "from his hand," lines 85, 35:09.929 --> 35:12.739 "from His hand, who regards it fondly, 35:12.739 --> 35:14.399 before it is, comes forth, 35:14.400 --> 35:17.790 like a child that sports, tearful and smiling, 35:17.786 --> 35:21.526 the little simple soul that knows nothing." 35:21.530 --> 35:25.390 This is the famous poem, for those of you who remember a 35:25.393 --> 35:29.733 little bit of Latin, Hadrian--of the emperor Hadrian 35:29.728 --> 35:34.818 about the little simple soul that goes wandering around and 35:34.815 --> 35:40.075 Dante's reinterpreting it as not the soul that is lost in the 35:40.077 --> 35:43.197 world, but a soul that is playing. 35:43.199 --> 35:46.369 The creation is a playful act. 35:46.369 --> 35:51.069 The soul is a like "a child that sports tearful and 35:51.070 --> 35:53.510 smiling, the little simple soul that 35:53.510 --> 35:55.910 knows nothing, but, moved by a joyful Maker 35:55.905 --> 35:58.105 turns eagerly to what delights it." 35:58.110 --> 36:04.960 We have the idea of creation as a free and playful act. 36:04.960 --> 36:08.860 Play in the sense of the innocence of the experience and 36:08.864 --> 36:11.284 play in the sense of being free. 36:11.280 --> 36:14.250 Now when one is at play one has all the attributes of 36:14.250 --> 36:16.650 spontaneity and freedom that go with it. 36:16.650 --> 36:22.880 It is the basis of what I call the playful theology of Dante. 36:22.880 --> 36:28.040 God creates the world in an act--in a moment of freedom and 36:28.041 --> 36:32.941 that freedom becomes the foundation for positing our own 36:32.936 --> 36:34.536 human freedom. 36:34.539 --> 36:40.649 It's because we were born free that therefore we can go on 36:40.648 --> 36:46.328 believing and--that there is such a freedom for us. 36:46.329 --> 36:48.229 That it was not an act of necessity-- 36:48.230 --> 36:50.780 that would be the opposite in the moment of creation and the 36:50.784 --> 36:55.654 experience of creation-- but it's spontaneous and 36:55.648 --> 36:57.048 playful. 36:57.050 --> 37:00.970 Then the canto goes on with these extraordinary political 37:00.974 --> 37:03.994 arguments, political and legal arguments. 37:03.989 --> 37:08.149 So we talk about human freedom and Dante moves to political 37:08.152 --> 37:11.602 freedom and look at what he says: "Rome, 37:11.599 --> 37:14.499 which made the world good, used to have two suns," 37:14.503 --> 37:17.843 which is a kind of Baroque image and I'll explain that too, 37:17.840 --> 37:20.310 in a moment, why he uses this image, 37:20.309 --> 37:22.919 "which made plain the one way and the other, 37:22.920 --> 37:24.710 that of the world and that of God. 37:24.710 --> 37:28.340 The one has quenched the other and the sword is joined to the 37:28.344 --> 37:30.364 crook, and the one together with the 37:30.360 --> 37:32.540 other must perforce go ill, since, joined, 37:32.541 --> 37:34.221 the one does not fear the other. 37:34.219 --> 37:39.169 If thou dost not believe me consider the ear of corn," 37:39.168 --> 37:39.678 etc. 37:39.679 --> 37:41.159 What is he talking about? 37:41.159 --> 37:44.269 God has--Rome had two suns? 37:44.268 --> 37:48.488 The phrase translates--the line mistranslates-- 37:48.489 --> 37:53.819 deliberately mistranslates, a line in Genesis where it is 37:53.818 --> 37:58.098 said that God gave mankind two luminaries, 37:58.099 --> 38:02.359 the sun and the moon, but whereby we could really see 38:02.360 --> 38:04.900 both in the day and at night. 38:04.900 --> 38:10.140 This little image from Genesis was used by the so-called 38:10.143 --> 38:14.553 hierocrats, the Canon lawyers of the middle 38:14.554 --> 38:18.334 ages, to explain it as the emblem for 38:18.333 --> 38:21.023 the Empire and the Church. 38:21.018 --> 38:26.418 That the Empire--the sun having the larger light the hierocrats 38:26.422 --> 38:29.762 would claim, was the light of the Church, 38:29.762 --> 38:33.902 and the moon having a reflected light was the light of the 38:33.902 --> 38:34.632 Empire. 38:34.630 --> 38:38.330 It was an argument, they would use this gloss as a 38:38.329 --> 38:41.349 way of explaining the superiority of-- 38:41.349 --> 38:44.909 the Empire over--the superiority of the Church over 38:44.905 --> 38:45.825 the Empire. 38:45.829 --> 38:49.989 The Empire had to take its light and its direction from the 38:49.985 --> 38:50.625 Church. 38:50.630 --> 38:55.860 Dante is deliberately violating that idea of the sun and the 38:55.860 --> 38:58.080 moon, equating them by saying 38:58.081 --> 39:01.171 "the two suns," in order to convey his 39:01.172 --> 39:04.122 conviction, the conviction that the two 39:04.119 --> 39:08.549 institutions God provides for the guidance of human beings, 39:08.550 --> 39:11.820 the Church and the Empire, are equal. 39:11.820 --> 39:15.530 He's conferring on them an equality rather than a 39:15.527 --> 39:20.077 hierarchical ordering of the two luminaries, the sun and the 39:20.083 --> 39:20.783 moon. 39:20.780 --> 39:25.610 It's an argument that really is addressed against the lawyers at 39:25.608 --> 39:28.978 the University of Bologna where they are-- 39:28.980 --> 39:35.810 they were working for the pope, explaining the sense of the 39:35.811 --> 39:41.191 superiority, the superior status of one 39:41.188 --> 39:43.548 above the other. 39:43.550 --> 39:50.500 With this whole argument here, now the-- 39:50.500 --> 39:55.320 which is about a kind of legality or the questions of 39:55.322 --> 39:59.142 history's boundaries, that's what I understand by 39:59.143 --> 40:02.783 legalities, you have retrospectively also 40:02.782 --> 40:08.832 some light shown on this claim of being free subjects in Canto 40:08.826 --> 40:09.516 XVI. 40:09.518 --> 40:13.788 We turn now to the very center of the Divine Comedy. 40:13.789 --> 40:14.969 The center of the Divine Comedy, 40:14.969 --> 40:17.579 which is, clearly, numerically the center, 40:17.579 --> 40:22.079 Canto XVII, and we'll see how--what is it that Dante 40:22.081 --> 40:24.821 discusses here in Canto XVII. 40:24.820 --> 40:30.220 The canto--its visions of anger of the-- 40:30.219 --> 40:34.639 the canto begins with an apostrophe to the reader's 40:34.644 --> 40:39.734 memory: "Recall reader, if ever in the mountains mist 40:39.730 --> 40:44.330 caught thee for which thou couldst not see except as moles 40:44.329 --> 40:48.769 do through the skin," the difficulty of sight, 40:48.768 --> 40:54.078 the difficulty of seeing is highlighted again, 40:54.079 --> 40:57.419 "how, when the moist, dense vapors begin to disperse, 40:57.418 --> 41:00.788 the sun's disk passes feebly through them; 41:00.789 --> 41:04.319 and thy imagination will quickly come to see how, 41:04.324 --> 41:08.304 at first, I saw the sun again, now near its setting. 41:08.300 --> 41:10.880 So measuring mine with the faithful steps of my master, 41:10.880 --> 41:15.070 I came forth from such a fog to the beams which were already 41:15.067 --> 41:17.407 dead on the shores below." 41:17.409 --> 41:23.979 It's a twilight landscape; you have a number of reversals 41:23.980 --> 41:27.370 and contrast-- antithesis actually the 41:27.369 --> 41:31.729 mole--blind mole, that burrows underneath the 41:31.728 --> 41:37.578 earth and then alpine scenery which makes vision also 41:37.583 --> 41:39.163 impossible. 41:39.159 --> 41:44.549 Dante's evoking the heights and the lowest possible point of 41:44.550 --> 41:46.560 sight with the mole. 41:46.559 --> 41:50.509 The sun is setting and the night is approaching. 41:50.510 --> 41:54.450 It is as if the whole--so the solidity of the world around him 41:54.452 --> 41:56.522 is vanishing--is disappearing. 41:56.519 --> 41:58.189 What's the experience? 41:58.190 --> 42:02.300 At this very moment, he's appealing to the memory of 42:02.300 --> 42:06.090 the reader and the imagination of the reader. 42:06.090 --> 42:10.130 It is as if that when the world outside seems to be failing us, 42:10.130 --> 42:13.010 we have this--part of this inner light, 42:13.010 --> 42:17.210 this inner possibility of recollection of the world or 42:17.206 --> 42:18.946 imagining the world. 42:18.949 --> 42:23.359 He's specifying what some of the claims about the inner 42:23.358 --> 42:27.358 lights that he says we have within us could be. 42:27.360 --> 42:29.430 He had just said that. 42:29.429 --> 42:33.499 Also he's preparing this extraordinary second apostrophe 42:33.503 --> 42:35.063 to the imagination. 42:35.059 --> 42:39.359 Dante is--we are approaching the center of the universe, 42:39.364 --> 42:43.364 this poetic universe, and Dante reminds us that this 42:43.356 --> 42:45.936 is a work of the imagination. 42:45.940 --> 42:47.470 Why does he do this? 42:47.469 --> 42:50.289 What is this--what does he say about the imagination? 42:50.289 --> 42:52.269 The first thing that he says about the imagination: 42:52.268 --> 42:54.878 "O imagination, which so steals us at times 42:54.880 --> 42:58.410 from outward things that we pay no heed though a thousand 42:58.405 --> 43:03.105 trumpets sound about us, who moves thee if the senses 43:03.114 --> 43:05.854 offer thee nothing?" 43:05.849 --> 43:10.549 It's the same question he had been asking earlier: 43:10.545 --> 43:13.705 where do our choices come from? 43:13.710 --> 43:16.760 Why do we what we do? 43:16.760 --> 43:21.190 Is it because a power from the outside moves us, 43:21.190 --> 43:25.150 or is there something that is within us? 43:25.150 --> 43:28.950 Now this question is asked in slightly different terms, 43:28.954 --> 43:31.074 in terms of the imagination. 43:31.070 --> 43:36.750 The imagination is a power, that's what he--the way he 43:36.746 --> 43:42.636 describes it--that removes us from the outside world. 43:42.639 --> 43:45.529 There's such a power--in other words, 43:45.530 --> 43:49.280 it's not just the imagination that translates sensory 43:49.284 --> 43:53.614 experiences into images for the benefit of rational judgment: 43:53.614 --> 43:56.724 this is the triadic Aristotelian order; 43:56.719 --> 44:00.359 the imagination has the middle ground between the senses, 44:00.360 --> 44:03.740 the work of the perception and the work of reason. 44:03.739 --> 44:09.129 This is a triadic pattern that Dante could have found in 44:09.130 --> 44:10.800 Aquinas; we, in turn, 44:10.797 --> 44:13.597 found it certainly in Aristotle, that's the way it 44:13.601 --> 44:14.291 precedes. 44:14.289 --> 44:18.179 He has another imagination that he's talking about now, 44:18.181 --> 44:22.221 an imagination that removes us from the outside world. 44:22.219 --> 44:26.579 It frees us--it needs nothing of the world of perception. 44:26.579 --> 44:29.119 It is a power that, in many ways, 44:29.115 --> 44:32.915 steals us from it, it's a power that--how does he 44:32.920 --> 44:34.190 describe it? 44:34.190 --> 44:37.320 It comes "from the outward things that we pay no heed 44:37.317 --> 44:40.057 though a thousand trumpets sound about us." 44:40.059 --> 44:43.939 It's a faculty that is completely free from the outside 44:43.936 --> 44:48.166 world, a power that we have within us to imagine worlds that 44:48.172 --> 44:49.682 don't even exist. 44:49.679 --> 44:53.859 To imagine things that without the solicitations of what lies 44:53.858 --> 44:57.688 outside us and continues: "a light moves thee which 44:57.690 --> 45:01.660 takes form in the heavens, either of itself or by a will 45:01.661 --> 45:03.351 that directs it downwards. 45:03.349 --> 45:04.549 Of her impious deed..." 45:04.550 --> 45:08.450 and then he goes on describing three images of anger. 45:08.449 --> 45:12.279 At the point in which Dante is approaching the center of the-- 45:12.280 --> 45:17.190 his world where this--where we are witnessing, 45:17.190 --> 45:21.510 we are shown the power of the imagination as a visionary 45:21.505 --> 45:22.285 faculty. 45:22.289 --> 45:27.489 As a faculty that is not a transcription of the real world, 45:27.494 --> 45:32.524 and one wonders why he has to make this kind of claim. 45:32.518 --> 45:39.148 It encompasses the real world and yet is something that almost 45:39.148 --> 45:45.778 prophetic, something that does not come from the contacts with 45:45.777 --> 45:47.297 the world. 45:47.300 --> 45:50.260 I'll come back to this in a moment, I hope. 45:50.260 --> 45:53.260 He has three images, then three--that come down to 45:53.264 --> 45:54.434 him gratuitously. 45:54.429 --> 46:01.029 They seem to have been descending into his mind without 46:01.027 --> 46:07.377 anything that--around him and then Dante goes on here 46:07.380 --> 46:11.780 describing the law of Purgatory. 46:11.780 --> 46:16.810 What is the world of Purgatory? 46:16.809 --> 46:18.099 How is it constructed? 46:18.099 --> 46:19.899 What's the architecture of this world? 46:19.900 --> 46:23.660 Unsurprisingly, this is a fabric of love, 46:23.659 --> 46:26.789 an architecture of love, and it's at the very center, 46:26.789 --> 46:31.959 lines 91,92, and 93--that this is the actual 46:31.956 --> 46:35.816 numerically even, in the center the poem--not 46:35.818 --> 46:38.088 surprising, that's what Dante says, 46:38.094 --> 46:40.634 "Neither Creator nor creature, 46:40.630 --> 46:45.110 my son, was ever without love, either natural or of the 46:45.110 --> 46:46.190 mind." 46:46.190 --> 46:47.270 That's the center. 46:47.268 --> 46:49.728 What does he mean natural or of the mind? 46:49.730 --> 46:52.240 He's distinguishing here between the two types of love 46:52.237 --> 46:53.937 and in fact he will clarify: ".. 46:53.942 --> 46:56.852 .and this thou knowest; the natural is always without 46:56.851 --> 46:59.491 error," whatever impulse we may have," 46:59.494 --> 47:05.014 that's the impulse of love, that is never prone to 47:05.012 --> 47:07.072 sinfulness. 47:07.070 --> 47:11.140 It's a natural impulse, a natural desire, 47:11.143 --> 47:16.643 that which is instead sinful is the one where choice is 47:16.644 --> 47:17.974 involved. 47:17.969 --> 47:19.839 "The natural is always without error, 47:19.835 --> 47:22.605 but the other may err through a wrong object or through excess 47:22.610 --> 47:23.930 or defect of vigor." 47:23.929 --> 47:27.749 Whenever we make a choice we may either not love the right 47:27.750 --> 47:30.230 object or we may love it too much, 47:30.230 --> 47:34.070 or we may love it too little, and so this is the topography 47:34.067 --> 47:35.057 of Purgatory. 47:35.059 --> 47:38.419 This triadic division in terms of love. 47:38.420 --> 47:42.950 Everything is a problem of love but then there are varieties 47:42.947 --> 47:45.477 that organize its subdivisions. 47:45.480 --> 47:48.100 "While it is directed on the primal good and on the 47:48.103 --> 47:50.733 secondary keeps right measure, it cannot be the cause of 47:50.726 --> 47:53.446 sinful pleasure; but when it is warped to evil, 47:53.447 --> 47:56.747 or with more or with less concern than is due pursues its 47:56.748 --> 47:59.518 good against the Creator works his creature. 47:59.518 --> 48:03.668 From this thou canst understand that love must be the seed in 48:03.666 --> 48:08.016 you of every virtue and of every action deserving punishment. 48:08.018 --> 48:12.108 Now since love can never turn its face from the welfare of its 48:12.106 --> 48:15.316 subject all things are secure from self hatred... 48:15.322 --> 48:16.732 " and so on. 48:16.730 --> 48:20.400 And Dante now responds: "Now I would have thee 48:20.396 --> 48:24.136 give thought to the other, which pursues its good in 48:24.135 --> 48:25.525 faulty measure. 48:25.530 --> 48:29.450 Everyone confusedly apprehends the good at which the mind may 48:29.445 --> 48:33.395 be at rest and desires it, so that each strives to reach 48:33.396 --> 48:37.646 it, and if the love is sluggish that draws you to see or gain 48:37.652 --> 48:38.932 it, this terrace, 48:38.929 --> 48:41.629 after due repentance, torments you for that. 48:41.630 --> 48:43.590 Other good there is..." 48:43.590 --> 48:48.810 The question then will become--and I did not ask you to 48:48.811 --> 48:54.591 read this canto, but I can give you a sort of 48:54.592 --> 49:01.202 brief preview of it-- Dante has to ask if--what is 49:01.204 --> 49:03.844 this love of choice? 49:03.840 --> 49:08.430 Does it depend--since I may have a particular perception of 49:08.429 --> 49:12.389 the world that makes me see whatever I encounter as 49:12.385 --> 49:17.465 beautiful and desirable, where is my fault? 49:17.469 --> 49:22.789 He repeats the same problems that he's been raising in Canto 49:22.789 --> 49:23.239 XV. 49:23.239 --> 49:27.069 Dante will try to explain it in terms of love, 49:27.074 --> 49:32.104 and yet, we are going to be brought back to the world of how 49:32.103 --> 49:35.773 do we perceive what it is that we love. 49:35.768 --> 49:40.778 The perception of what we love becomes crucial to our very 49:40.782 --> 49:43.072 responsibilities for it. 49:43.070 --> 49:47.820 So this is--at the center of the poem then Dante seems to be 49:47.822 --> 49:50.242 suspended between two ideas. 49:50.239 --> 49:53.929 On the one hand, the notion that there is a real 49:53.929 --> 49:57.929 world where you have responsibilities for everything 49:57.934 --> 50:00.924 that we do and on the other hand, 50:00.920 --> 50:05.700 a world where there's an imagination which is completely 50:05.702 --> 50:09.182 disengaged from the world of reality, 50:09.179 --> 50:15.059 and cannot quite be constrained or held in. 50:15.059 --> 50:19.239 So how are you going to--suspended between these two 50:19.237 --> 50:24.067 possibilities--how is Dante going to bring them together? 50:24.070 --> 50:27.200 You see what the issue is? 50:27.199 --> 50:32.059 How do you--if the world of the imagination is free and 50:32.059 --> 50:35.569 disengaged from reality then how am-- 50:35.570 --> 50:37.540 I'm going to, on the other hand, 50:37.536 --> 50:41.406 going to be held accountable for what I do over the world, 50:41.409 --> 50:44.039 and with the world around me, and with my own deeds. 50:44.039 --> 50:47.559 At the center of the poem Dante's raising this 50:47.561 --> 50:51.471 contradiction that's not--imagination is made to be 50:51.472 --> 50:53.432 the way to knowledge. 50:53.429 --> 50:56.639 I can only know through the imagination. 50:56.639 --> 51:00.509 The imagination of--that depends on my perception of the 51:00.507 --> 51:04.517 world or an imagination which frees me completely from the 51:04.516 --> 51:07.676 world, and then these two ideas of the 51:07.684 --> 51:11.624 imagination are really in contradiction one with the 51:11.623 --> 51:12.323 other. 51:12.320 --> 51:14.840 So where is the human responsibility? 51:14.840 --> 51:21.140 The poem gets nourished by this duality of the imagination. 51:21.139 --> 51:25.059 The poem moves back and forth between one and the other. 51:25.059 --> 51:28.389 And let me just stop here because I think I may have said 51:28.387 --> 51:31.887 a little bit too much about these issues and I could respond 51:31.893 --> 51:35.513 to your questions, I hope, if there are some. 51:35.510 --> 51:45.770 51:45.769 --> 51:47.989 Please. 51:47.989 --> 51:50.429 Student: So just as sins of the Inferno 51:50.425 --> 51:53.725 were more products of the will, the sins in Purgatory are more 51:53.726 --> 51:56.916 products of love and he's not told where will may or may not 51:56.920 --> 51:59.900 have been factored into it, and because Purgatory is the 51:59.896 --> 52:02.706 place that's in between, is it also the place of that 52:02.710 --> 52:04.500 uncertainty between will and love? 52:04.496 --> 52:07.416 Prof: Well I don't know about that. 52:07.420 --> 52:13.410 The question is really a perplexity about what I have 52:13.414 --> 52:15.034 been saying. 52:15.030 --> 52:21.160 In Inferno, will is crucial and you are absolutely right. 52:21.159 --> 52:26.809 There cannot be a sin unless there is a will involved. 52:26.809 --> 52:29.659 In Purgatorio, the argument here seems to be-- 52:29.659 --> 52:32.529 the way I have been following it from Cantos XV, 52:32.525 --> 52:35.935 XVI, XVII and the way it's going to be developed in XVIII 52:35.940 --> 52:39.690 and actually frankly XIX, where Dante goes on telling a 52:39.690 --> 52:43.870 dream-- Dante makes the word of love 52:43.867 --> 52:49.467 the crucial act of our being in the word, 52:49.469 --> 52:53.159 relating us to God, we are related to God, 52:53.159 --> 52:55.429 really born through the way of love, 52:55.429 --> 52:59.069 therefore, the way of the heart and not unnecessarily through 52:59.067 --> 53:01.247 some abstract metaphysical issues. 53:01.250 --> 53:06.760 Then the issue becomes how is this love related to the will? 53:06.760 --> 53:09.220 Is Dante being uncertain between the two? 53:09.219 --> 53:13.949 What is the moral--Dante begins in Canto XV talking about moral 53:13.952 --> 53:17.202 responsibilities, this kind of free subjection 53:17.204 --> 53:20.174 that we have, and an inner light that is 53:20.166 --> 53:21.496 available to us. 53:21.500 --> 53:26.680 Then he--Canto XVI we'll also talk about the-- 53:26.679 --> 53:29.539 in Canto XVI he talks about creation, 53:29.539 --> 53:33.099 the creation of the soul, the freedom with which God 53:33.097 --> 53:35.957 creates and that freedom authorizes us. 53:35.960 --> 53:41.030 It becomes a sort of ground for the human freedom. 53:41.030 --> 53:43.120 Then in XVII, first of all, 53:43.119 --> 53:47.939 he talks about an imagination which is completely free of any 53:47.943 --> 53:53.493 contact with the world and then talks about this theory of love, 53:53.489 --> 53:57.169 that rational love that organizes, the love of knowledge 53:57.173 --> 53:59.053 that organizes everything. 53:59.050 --> 54:01.960 I could just have stopped there and shown you, 54:01.960 --> 54:06.190 this is really what the text says, and maybe ask you to 54:06.192 --> 54:10.822 connect imagination and love that I read at the two sides of 54:10.815 --> 54:14.725 Canto XVII, at the very center of the poem, 54:14.731 --> 54:19.371 almost to imply that we can love only and so far as-- 54:19.369 --> 54:23.219 and we can love as well as our imagination takes us to loving. 54:23.219 --> 54:26.499 That's clearly one of the images. 54:26.500 --> 54:29.590 But clearly there is more in that debate. 54:29.590 --> 54:33.680 The debate is that if I love according well, 54:33.677 --> 54:36.147 or not enough, or too much, 54:36.150 --> 54:41.190 that has to do with the way I perceive the world. 54:41.190 --> 54:46.220 Why does he have to talk about an imagination which is so 54:46.224 --> 54:50.274 unbounded that it needs nothing of reality? 54:50.268 --> 54:53.228 I mean to say this that in the subject and I call it--I say 54:53.226 --> 54:55.926 well this is a visionary aspect of the imagination. 54:55.929 --> 54:59.609 It's a poet who thinks of himself as being the visionary 54:59.610 --> 55:00.080 poet. 55:00.079 --> 55:03.489 You have an idea of Romantic poets, 55:03.489 --> 55:06.509 for instance, English Romantic poets who 55:06.514 --> 55:10.474 distinguish between fantasy and the imagination, 55:10.469 --> 55:14.519 though Dante does it in terms of this imaginative power that 55:14.521 --> 55:17.201 removes me from the world of reality. 55:17.199 --> 55:21.679 It takes me away and opens up new spaces and the mind in 55:21.684 --> 55:22.424 itself. 55:22.420 --> 55:25.570 I ask this question though from another point of view, 55:25.567 --> 55:29.247 which I think is connected to what we have been saying here. 55:29.250 --> 55:33.420 Can Dante ever write this kind of poem by being bound to the 55:33.416 --> 55:37.436 world of reality and to the way in which the real world is 55:37.443 --> 55:38.153 known? 55:38.150 --> 55:39.840 Clearly the answer is no. 55:39.840 --> 55:44.690 The only way that Dante can come to God and the vision of 55:44.686 --> 55:47.886 God is by agreeing with this idea, 55:47.889 --> 55:51.349 yielding, surrendering to the power of the imagination that 55:51.351 --> 55:53.621 will take him out of the real world. 55:53.619 --> 55:57.639 You cannot really write a poem like the Divine Comedy by 55:57.635 --> 56:02.195 following rules and laws, whether they are rhetorical, 56:02.204 --> 56:06.734 or whether they are just pure ideas of style. 56:06.730 --> 56:11.420 You try to--you have to go on imagining things that don't 56:11.423 --> 56:15.033 really--are available to our perceptions. 56:15.030 --> 56:16.640 That, to me, is the issue, 56:16.639 --> 56:19.409 that's how I have been moving this issue. 56:19.409 --> 56:23.029 I think that the poem, that Dante's voice is suspended 56:23.025 --> 56:26.635 between these two possibilities of the imagination. 56:26.639 --> 56:29.619 An imagination that has to accept the world of reality, 56:29.619 --> 56:33.339 an ordinary imagination, and yet there is also another 56:33.335 --> 56:37.765 idea of the imagination, which is so much more powerful. 56:37.768 --> 56:40.658 But, if we accept this as being true for the poem, 56:40.661 --> 56:43.971 it follows we have to ask the question of, what about the 56:43.965 --> 56:44.845 moral life? 56:44.849 --> 56:49.249 Is the moral life then one that where Dante's saying, 56:49.250 --> 56:53.940 that in effect, all the language of blame and 56:53.943 --> 56:58.443 praise, which depends on accepting 56:58.438 --> 57:03.448 limits and free subjection to rules, 57:03.449 --> 57:06.279 is that--is he saying that that is also-- 57:06.280 --> 57:08.420 maybe it's arbitrary? 57:08.420 --> 57:11.330 That there may be some other law that he has to discover? 57:11.329 --> 57:14.499 I don't think that there is yet an answer here, 57:14.503 --> 57:18.163 but that's the problem that I was trying to convey. 57:18.159 --> 57:22.329 Does that answer your--provisionally--your 57:22.326 --> 57:24.456 perplexities, okay. 57:24.460 --> 57:28.410 57:28.409 --> 57:29.159 Yes. 57:29.159 --> 57:32.679 Student: Regarding Canto XVI with the 57:32.682 --> 57:37.352 vision of anger served--the beginning of anger that served 57:37.353 --> 57:42.433 as a polar opposite condition to love, why does he think anger? 57:42.432 --> 57:47.182 Prof: The question is does the sin of anger in Canto 57:47.184 --> 57:51.614 XVI, is that a kind of polar opposite to love? 57:51.610 --> 57:52.830 Student: And why does he begin with it? 57:52.831 --> 57:54.001 Prof: Why does it begin with that? 57:54.000 --> 57:57.710 Well I think that anger--I would define it as a form of 57:57.710 --> 57:59.360 madness to begin with. 57:59.360 --> 58:05.500 It's a kind of eclipse of all rationality and so it explains 58:05.498 --> 58:11.948 why Dante will have to go on retrieving the laws of reason, 58:11.949 --> 58:15.199 the laws of rationality to be opposed to the kind of-- 58:15.199 --> 58:20.799 to that--the experience of madness in Canto XVI. 58:20.800 --> 58:25.840 We go into Canto XVII and he's talking about a sort of love 58:25.840 --> 58:30.910 which is very rational, but then he is undoing it with 58:30.913 --> 58:35.513 something that stands between madness and love, 58:35.510 --> 58:36.480 and that's the imagination. 58:36.480 --> 58:39.900 See the connection? 58:39.900 --> 58:41.150 Okay. 58:41.150 --> 58:41.280 58:41.280 --> 58:43.570 Student: I'm a little confused about 58:43.568 --> 58:47.058 what you just said about how the moral life might present a power 58:47.056 --> 58:50.326 to the imagination--I just think if--what if an understanding 58:50.327 --> 58:52.997 from what you've been saying about why you use the 58:52.998 --> 58:56.318 imagination is because you're approaching mystery so it's hard 58:56.322 --> 58:58.392 to use the real world to approach this. 58:58.393 --> 59:01.663 So it seems like--and so you need the imagination and I guess 59:01.664 --> 59:04.234 if Dante is going to God, so if he's approaching 59:04.226 --> 59:07.656 mysteries, so it's hard for him to talk about this in a rational 59:07.659 --> 59:08.149 language. 59:08.150 --> 59:10.980 But isn't that more of like an acknowledgement of his 59:10.983 --> 59:12.733 limitations than a transgression, 59:12.728 --> 59:15.938 so doesn't it still fit with humility and fit with the moral 59:15.943 --> 59:16.223 life? 59:16.217 --> 59:19.757 Prof: That's an excellent point. 59:19.760 --> 59:24.440 You not only asked the question I think that you are clarifying 59:24.442 --> 59:26.182 some of the problems. 59:26.179 --> 59:30.719 The question is still about the whole issue of the imagination 59:30.724 --> 59:34.824 that on the one hand the imagination seems to be the way 59:34.822 --> 59:38.982 to so large and so-- such a force that will take 59:38.980 --> 59:42.230 Dante, I'm paraphrasing your point, 59:42.230 --> 59:45.300 take Dante all the way to see God. 59:45.300 --> 59:49.860 I seem to be saying that that is a kind of transgression, 59:49.860 --> 59:54.830 but you emphasize that that can be an acknowledgement of human 59:54.827 --> 59:56.127 limitations. 59:56.130 --> 1:00:02.850 I call it--maybe that's true, that's really what it is. 1:00:02.849 --> 1:00:08.069 It's--I call that a visionary power within him. 1:00:08.070 --> 1:00:11.810 It may be coming to him from the outside. 1:00:11.809 --> 1:00:15.669 He asks that question, does this visionary power come 1:00:15.670 --> 1:00:19.310 to me from the outside, or is it something that is 1:00:19.307 --> 1:00:21.087 within human beings? 1:00:21.090 --> 1:00:23.770 That's the question. 1:00:23.768 --> 1:00:26.788 He doesn't answer that question at that point. 1:00:26.789 --> 1:00:31.109 What he does say is, well this is the image that 1:00:31.108 --> 1:00:36.158 came to me, the image of a martyr who committed suicide, 1:00:36.161 --> 1:00:39.931 and he goes on with his three images. 1:00:39.929 --> 1:00:45.269 He doesn't answer that directly and I think that he wants to 1:00:45.271 --> 1:00:50.251 keep you guessing if this is a human transgression or an 1:00:50.250 --> 1:00:53.510 acknowledgement of human limits. 1:00:53.510 --> 1:00:58.050 He--I don't think that he knows yet, at this point, 1:00:58.052 --> 1:01:02.142 what the unfolding of that dilemma will be. 1:01:02.139 --> 1:01:06.589 He wants us to think in terms of that dilemma and that dilemma 1:01:06.594 --> 1:01:08.864 is at the heart of Purgatory. 1:01:08.860 --> 1:01:13.470 The dilemma between what is this power? 1:01:13.469 --> 1:01:17.259 I have a power within me that--without which I can never 1:01:17.257 --> 1:01:20.077 really go to God, and is this in any way a 1:01:20.079 --> 1:01:21.319 transgression? 1:01:21.320 --> 1:01:25.520 Do I need a transgression in order to come to God? 1:01:25.518 --> 1:01:29.728 Ulysses thought that there would be no knowledge without 1:01:29.733 --> 1:01:30.963 transgression. 1:01:30.960 --> 1:01:34.600 Maybe Adam in the Garden also thought that there would be no 1:01:34.599 --> 1:01:37.379 knowledge without transgression--that the real 1:01:37.376 --> 1:01:39.286 knowledge is to transgress. 1:01:39.289 --> 1:01:41.999 Is Dante thinking that way? 1:01:42.000 --> 1:01:46.140 Or maybe he's thinking that there is no transgression 1:01:46.144 --> 1:01:50.614 without, at the same time, a sense of the limitations. 1:01:50.610 --> 1:01:53.180 That indeed, that the idea of transgression 1:01:53.181 --> 1:01:55.571 depends on some sense of limitations. 1:01:55.570 --> 1:01:56.970 Do you see what I'm saying? 1:01:56.969 --> 1:02:00.849 What the argument seems to me could very well be, 1:02:00.851 --> 1:02:04.731 that in effect pride and humility are really more 1:02:04.733 --> 1:02:08.053 connected than what we like to think. 1:02:08.050 --> 1:02:14.070 We are always proud and Dante would say, it's good. 1:02:14.070 --> 1:02:17.920 To me that's what Canto X, XI, and XII were saying. 1:02:17.920 --> 1:02:20.950 You may not agree with that reading, that pride is good in 1:02:20.952 --> 1:02:24.522 the measure in which I can reach out for something really higher. 1:02:24.519 --> 1:02:26.019 That's not bad. 1:02:26.018 --> 1:02:30.218 What is bad is that that blinds me to something else. 1:02:30.219 --> 1:02:34.399 I take that to be Franciscan thinking. 1:02:34.400 --> 1:02:39.400 He is invoking the humblest voice of the whole literary 1:02:39.398 --> 1:02:43.838 tradition up to this time, the Canticle of all 1:02:43.842 --> 1:02:45.512 Creatures. 1:02:45.510 --> 1:02:50.170 I'm glad that you are giving me the opportunity to refocus on 1:02:50.166 --> 1:02:54.196 the fact that that dilemma between pride and humility 1:02:54.202 --> 1:02:58.552 reappears as a question of limits and transgressions with 1:02:58.548 --> 1:03:02.428 the imagination and knowledge and with love. 1:03:02.429 --> 1:03:07.739 Of course, Dante would say that there is such a thing of love 1:03:07.744 --> 1:03:11.154 within-- with laws and yet love is one 1:03:11.152 --> 1:03:16.202 of those experiences where we usually don't like to believe 1:03:16.197 --> 1:03:19.587 that there are limits, right? 1:03:19.590 --> 1:03:25.140 You don't want anybody to come--I hope--to come to your 1:03:25.139 --> 1:03:29.659 door and say, I love you in a very reasonable 1:03:29.663 --> 1:03:33.573 way and with a lot of limitations. 1:03:33.570 --> 1:03:40.120 I'm sure you'll give--kick him out. 1:03:40.119 --> 1:03:44.479 Love is one of those experiences exactly like the 1:03:44.478 --> 1:03:47.818 imagination, that the powers of which seem 1:03:47.824 --> 1:03:51.524 always to be transgressing whatever limitations we want 1:03:51.519 --> 1:03:53.819 to-- we wanted to transgress the 1:03:53.817 --> 1:03:56.997 limitations, rationally, reasonably we want 1:03:57.000 --> 1:03:58.270 to impose on it. 1:03:58.268 --> 1:04:00.428 This is the question that Dante is raising. 1:04:00.429 --> 1:04:05.009 You cannot have, I think that you are-- 1:04:05.010 --> 1:04:07.150 you are onto the right track with your-- 1:04:07.150 --> 1:04:10.440 in your paraphrasing the whole--in your asking the 1:04:10.443 --> 1:04:13.673 question that maybe transgression and limitations 1:04:13.670 --> 1:04:16.090 really have to be seen together. 1:04:16.090 --> 1:04:18.350 Pride and humility will have to be seen together; 1:04:18.349 --> 1:04:21.219 subjection and freedom will have to be seen together. 1:04:21.219 --> 1:04:26.619 They are not terms which are so far apart from each other. 1:04:26.619 --> 1:04:31.589 Each involves the other, that's why I call it a paradox, 1:04:31.592 --> 1:04:35.302 the knot that joins these things together, 1:04:35.300 --> 1:04:37.110 is exactly that. 1:04:37.110 --> 1:04:41.130 Is this--am I--did I confuse all of you today here? 1:04:41.130 --> 1:04:44.350 Oh my, then I will confuse you next time. 1:04:44.349 --> 1:04:46.589 Other questions that we have? 1:04:46.590 --> 1:04:48.950 1:04:48.949 --> 1:04:49.599 Yes. 1:04:49.599 --> 1:04:53.489 Student: Can you talk about the section 1:04:53.489 --> 1:04:58.849 in Canto XV where he's talking about how true love and the love 1:04:58.851 --> 1:05:00.931 of God is like a mirror? 1:05:00.925 --> 1:05:02.825 It's around line 70... 1:05:02.829 --> 1:05:05.249 Prof: Canto XV. 1:05:05.250 --> 1:05:07.300 Student: Line 75... 1:05:07.300 --> 1:05:08.860 Prof: Yes. 1:05:08.860 --> 1:05:11.650 Student: How love of God is like his 1:05:11.652 --> 1:05:14.442 mirror that--the more people that love God, 1:05:14.443 --> 1:05:18.433 the more love he gives back and it's like a mirror that keeps 1:05:18.432 --> 1:05:20.492 reflecting and amplifying love. 1:05:20.492 --> 1:05:24.152 And I was wondering--I was intrigued by the image of the 1:05:24.150 --> 1:05:28.200 mirror, so I was hoping that you could talk a little bit about 1:05:28.204 --> 1:05:32.264 how the image of the mirrors and the idea of mirrors maybe are 1:05:32.260 --> 1:05:34.390 part of Dante's way of thinking. 1:05:34.387 --> 1:05:37.047 Prof: The--this is around line 75, 1:05:37.047 --> 1:05:38.507 right? 1:05:38.510 --> 1:05:41.720 Let me just read this whole paragraph. 1:05:41.719 --> 1:05:48.639 Dante is in the--describing the virtue that is opposed to envy, 1:05:48.635 --> 1:05:55.105 mercy, the idea of--the notion of mercy and because--I read 1:05:55.105 --> 1:05:59.535 from 65 on: "Because thou still 1:05:59.539 --> 1:06:05.949 settest thy mind on earthly things, thou gatherest darkness 1:06:05.945 --> 1:06:09.145 from the very light." 1:06:09.150 --> 1:06:15.210 That's part of--sort of reversals that we--how light 1:06:15.208 --> 1:06:20.578 induces and generates darkness; it's a certain kind of light. 1:06:20.579 --> 1:06:25.059 We seem to believe or to think in terms of the light that is 1:06:25.056 --> 1:06:28.466 available to us, but that does not necessarily 1:06:28.472 --> 1:06:32.722 produce more light, but can dim our understanding 1:06:32.719 --> 1:06:35.929 about the way things really are. 1:06:35.929 --> 1:06:40.159 "That infinite and unspeakable good which is there 1:06:40.159 --> 1:06:44.779 above speeds to love as a sunbeam comes to a bright body; 1:06:44.780 --> 1:06:48.030 so much it gives of itself as it finds ardor, 1:06:48.030 --> 1:06:52.400 so the more charity extends the more does the eternal goodness 1:06:52.396 --> 1:06:55.696 increase upon it, and the more souls that are 1:06:55.702 --> 1:06:59.722 enamored there above the more there are to be rightly loved 1:06:59.722 --> 1:07:04.022 and the more love there is and like a mirror the one returns it 1:07:04.021 --> 1:07:05.271 to the other. 1:07:05.268 --> 1:07:09.408 And if my speech do not relieve thy hunger thou shalt see 1:07:09.414 --> 1:07:13.864 Beatrice and she will deliver thee wholly from this and every 1:07:13.856 --> 1:07:15.186 other craving. 1:07:15.190 --> 1:07:19.800 Strive only that soon may be erased, as the other two are 1:07:19.797 --> 1:07:23.827 already, the five wounds which are healed by being 1:07:23.829 --> 1:07:25.309 painful." 1:07:25.309 --> 1:07:29.109 The question is, you want me to say something 1:07:29.112 --> 1:07:33.262 about the mirror, the image of the mirror that is 1:07:33.260 --> 1:07:34.990 being used here. 1:07:34.989 --> 1:07:42.949 I think that this is a Platonic image of the notion that all of 1:07:42.945 --> 1:07:49.875 creation--this is The Celestial Hierarchy of the 1:07:49.875 --> 1:07:52.565 Pseudo-Dionysius. 1:07:52.570 --> 1:07:55.100 I don't know that I have ever spoken of him, 1:07:55.099 --> 1:07:58.299 I will because Dante mentions him in Paradise, 1:07:58.300 --> 1:08:00.070 but in The Celestial Hierarchy, 1:08:00.070 --> 1:08:03.900 Dante--the Pseudo-Dionysius--thinks of all 1:08:03.896 --> 1:08:07.346 creation being a kind of occasion-- 1:08:07.349 --> 1:08:14.599 being a kind of hall of mirrors where everything is reflected 1:08:14.603 --> 1:08:20.793 onto the other, a number of reflections that 1:08:20.786 --> 1:08:26.316 all give different light-- in different ways the light of 1:08:26.323 --> 1:08:29.323 God, this is so--that's where the 1:08:29.322 --> 1:08:33.532 problem of mercy places us, so this idea of charity. 1:08:33.529 --> 1:08:38.059 Dante is interested in two things, one the generative idea 1:08:38.064 --> 1:08:39.104 of charity. 1:08:39.100 --> 1:08:42.370 Charity produces more charity. 1:08:42.368 --> 1:08:47.718 It has a kind of power to generate itself and multiply 1:08:47.720 --> 1:08:51.180 itself, and the way he compares this 1:08:51.180 --> 1:08:54.330 is--he compares it to what I call-- 1:08:54.328 --> 1:08:57.178 what he calls here, obliquely, the hall of mirrors. 1:08:57.180 --> 1:09:02.220 Let me just say something else about Pseudo-Dionysius, 1:09:02.220 --> 1:09:06.990 when Pseudo-Dionysius wants to--mystical theology-- 1:09:06.988 --> 1:09:11.938 he wants to talk about the divine, he will think about the 1:09:11.938 --> 1:09:15.328 divine in terms of light, as you know. 1:09:15.328 --> 1:09:20.638 Light that is refracted and reflected throughout the orders 1:09:20.640 --> 1:09:22.840 and ranks of creation. 1:09:22.840 --> 1:09:29.720 The highest image of this light of the divine is the sun. 1:09:29.720 --> 1:09:33.790 The sun that is generous, in the sense, 1:09:33.788 --> 1:09:35.638 as I mean generous in a very peculiar sense, 1:09:35.640 --> 1:09:39.310 in the sense that it gives itself to all, 1:09:39.310 --> 1:09:43.760 without any distinction and it depends on us, 1:09:43.760 --> 1:09:47.570 whether we are going to be able to appreciate that light or not, 1:09:47.569 --> 1:09:51.759 but the sun is giving itself freely to all. 1:09:51.760 --> 1:09:54.600 This is the principle of mercy for Dante. 1:09:54.600 --> 1:09:58.870 Mirrors are reproducing that light endlessly; 1:09:58.868 --> 1:10:02.848 the whole of creation is sending back this kind of light, 1:10:02.851 --> 1:10:06.481 without any loss in itself of the original light. 1:10:06.479 --> 1:10:11.159 This is the metaphor and the metaphysics of mirror in Dante. 1:10:11.158 --> 1:10:14.488 The world is therefore, from the point of view of 1:10:14.487 --> 1:10:17.607 mercy, and not from the point of view of envy, 1:10:17.605 --> 1:10:20.305 where we do not even see the light. 1:10:20.310 --> 1:10:24.590 Envy means that we have no knowledge of anything that comes 1:10:24.592 --> 1:10:29.292 from the outside, but in the world of mercy we 1:10:29.288 --> 1:10:32.858 have an-- we understand this generous 1:10:32.863 --> 1:10:38.433 giving of the light which comes from God and the heat that goes 1:10:38.431 --> 1:10:39.421 with it. 1:10:39.420 --> 1:10:46.660 That's it, so it's a virtue that completely offsets the 1:10:46.663 --> 1:10:51.203 notion of envy, the idea of God who creates 1:10:51.201 --> 1:10:54.511 without envy, that's another way of thinking 1:10:54.505 --> 1:10:56.555 about the generosity of God. 1:10:56.560 --> 1:11:00.530 That is connected to the light and to the multiplications of 1:11:00.528 --> 1:11:02.208 the light from mirrors. 1:11:02.210 --> 1:11:07.990 Actually this is an image that really reappears in 1:11:07.988 --> 1:11:14.238 Paradise and we'll come back to this canto, 1:11:14.238 --> 1:11:19.848 the whole of Paradise organized through this hall, 1:11:19.850 --> 1:11:32.530 these infinite reflections of God's light. 1:11:32.529 --> 1:11:45.999