WEBVTT

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Prof: Here we are,
talking about--recapitulating

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the work done on--
in reading part of the poem,

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selections of this poem.

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It's a little difficult;
of course, I'm not going to

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tell you exactly what we have
been talking about.

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We have been reading from the
work outside of the Divine

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Comedy;
we started there with the

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Vita nuova,
which we read as you recall,

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as a visionary text,
as a story of an education,

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as an autobiography and we
tried to explore what those

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terms mean and how they interact
with each other.

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How does one term shed light on
the other?

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What does it mean to write an
autobiography and at the same

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time having an education?

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The two converge,
of course, in Dante's

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imagination.

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You can only write an
education--a story of your

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education if you have a sense of
what your whole life is about.

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If you have some pattern of
coherence and intelligibility

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that you can impose on,
and extract from,

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respectively,
the sense of your life.

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But above all,
I was interested in that

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partial,
because it's sort of--it's

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truncated at the end as a sort
of interruption--

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deliberate interruption,
because what kind of

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preparation it gives us.

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To what extent is it repeated
that adventure Dante narrates in

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the Vita nuova is kind of
an adumbration of the Divine

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Comedy?

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In many ways the two texts
really are implicating each

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other in the sense that Dante
finishes the Vita nuova--

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stops writing the Vita
nuova,

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that's the inconclusive,
the unfinished quality of the

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text so that he can go on
writing the Divine

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Comedy,
if you see what I'm saying.

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The Vita nuova ends with
the statement of a project,

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of a project to come,
which therefore will be in a

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certain way the fulfillment of
what is only hinted at in the

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Vita nuova.

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The two texts are literally one
is preparing for the other,

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the other one--then the
Divine Comedy turns out the

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way we were reading the
Divine Comedy last time.

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The Divine Comedy itself
has a sort of inconclusive

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quality about it.

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Dante reaches and experiences
the beatific vision,

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and yet his text succumbs to
the enormity of the task of

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describing it,
and there were a number of

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reasons why we said Dante does
that.

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What seems to be,
and is, a defeat at the level

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of the imagination turns out to
be a great triumph for Dante's

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own theology,
right?

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The measure in which that the
poem ends in a kind of defeat,

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in sort of the--with the
admission of the impossibility

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for Dante--
the poet's language to contain

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and therefore reify,
circumscribe that which he has

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seen, right?

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He's sort of ending with this
question mark,

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this vision of effigy as he
says, our own image.

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That's all that is left for him
to recall,

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which really means that--in the
refusal to pinpoint,

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describe, and define the so
called beatific vision,

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some people could be very
disappointed;

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why doesn't he tell us what he
really saw?

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Because that would be the
statement valid for him;

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he wants us,
at the end of the poem to

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adventure,
to take our own journey and

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make our own discoveries about
that which remains the essential

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point of the Divine
Comedy,

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as is the essential point of
all great texts about tradition:

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the encounter between the human
and the Divine.

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That is the point of all the
great epics.

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Whether it is in the form
the Aeneid where the hero

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is always uncertain about what
the gods are telling him,

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uncertain as how to decipher
it, and yet he nonetheless

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pursues what he takes to be--
and makes mistakes--Aeneas,

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along the way--
but what he takes to be God's

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will.

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This is the way he can live out
his own sense of ethical

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imperative to himself,
to his people,

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the refugees that are coming
from Asia Minor and going toward

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an unknown land,
and the Divine imperative,

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or whether it's going to be the
renaissance text from Spencer's

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Fairy Queen to Tasso's,
to Milton, to Lucretius,

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who writes in a theological
epic.

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The idea he wants to cure his
readers,

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he has one reader in mind:
the young epicurean,

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and this is Lucretius,
whom Dante had never read--

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he read in parts and was very
fascinated by what he read,

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who wants to educate one young
man,

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Manaus, a young epicurean to
the real and bitter truth of

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what the epicurean philosophy
may be and that bitter truth,

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the harsh truth--Lucretius
thinks that there is no such

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thing.

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That ours--the Roman world is a
desecrated world,

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that the gods have fled,
that's the--

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but that is still in the mode
of an atheist,

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it is still a theological
concern because the implication

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of what I'm saying is that
atheism itself may be a way of

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addressing,
of course, it's a way of

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addressing the question of God,
the un-knowability of God,

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the distance of God,
maybe the non-existence of the

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gods.

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The Divine Comedy from
this point of view partakes of

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this extraordinary tradition.

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But he does it in a way which
is remarkably different;

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Dante does his theology in a
way which is remarkably

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different from anything else
that has gone on before him and,

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in many ways,
after him.

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I think there is a mode of
recapitulation,

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this is what I have to--I will
have to briefly illustrate and

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give you the chance to ask more
questions specifically about the

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poem.

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Some of these things that I
have said to you--the whole poem

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moves towards this kind of
theology.

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Condensed in Canto XXXIII of
Paradise,

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recapitulated right there.

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Of course Inferno goes
on talking about issues of

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politics,
which is not that they are

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easy, they are very complicated,
but in some ways they are

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rooted in Dante's own theology.

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That is, it's too easy to
believe that,

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you know, this is politics,
this is theology;

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they are always implicated with
one another.

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In fact, sometimes the best way
to understand the theology is to

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talk about the politics,
and the best way to understand

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the politics is to really talk
about the theology.

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They are completely,
always implicating each other.

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Inferno talks about the
ethics and the politics,

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Purgatorio talks about
aesthetics and ethics above all.

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The possibility of
reconstructing the human beings;

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so flawed they seem to be,
so incredibly sunk into the

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ditches of their own
perversions, of our perversions.

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How do you--so radical,
Dante's condemnation of the

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political realities,
of civil war,

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people cannibalizing each
other,

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and not in a metaphor that man
is a wolf to man,

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but literally they are doing
this.

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How do you get out of it?

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It's very difficult to be
so--to ostracize politics from

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the possibility of the human
imagination and then at one

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point saying,
well I still need this.

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How are you going to make a
persuasive case for your

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readers?

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This was the great challenge of
Purgatorio.

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We saw the question of time,
the great problem of freedom,

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that all of a sudden seemed to
surface in Purgatorio

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with Cato's suicide,
you remember,

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with the debate about the soul,
and created freedom,

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and by an act of freedom,
God's freedom to the attainment

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of the free will.

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Around this extraordinary
concern of freedom,

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and therefore the possibilities
of the moral life,

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we came to the conclusion of
Purgatorio with a garden,

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the Garden of Eden,
the place of pleasures,

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the place where pleasures are
not damned in and of themselves.

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The question becomes now,
because that is the Sabbath,

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that is the moment where
you--pleasure can be seen as the

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crown of work that which crowns,
the correlation of one's own

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labors and so on.

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That is also rooted in theology.

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Then we ended up in
Paradise where we really

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talked directly,
because I think that's really

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the substance of
Paradise,

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the possibility of thinking of
an aesthetic theology.

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How art and theology go hand in
hand,

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because what joins them is the
question of--

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not just the question of the
art being the temptation,

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ethical temptation,
but now the question of beauty

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as the mode of revelation of the
Divine.

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Therefore, the implication was,
and let's hope--

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I have said that very clearly,
that art becomes a way to know

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God,
a way to know the Divine,

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so we are moving away from
traditional assumptions about

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what is the path to go and
encounter God.

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What is really the discovery of
the Sacred;

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is the Sacred going to be
found, some texts in Dante seems

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to have believed that at some
point in a particular--

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in the animation of nature,
is it going to be found in the

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love that you have for your
Beatrice,

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or you, or Beatrice's for your
Dante, or whatever.

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He goes on thinking about these
concerns and how everything that

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belongs to the world of art is
the part of the path to the

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Divine.

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Theology and aesthetics not
just as--well,

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aesthetics as a way of making
beautiful the reality,

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the theological content of
Dante's faith.

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Not just that,
but--that's no longer the

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question of an ornamentation.

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That was the problem,
by the way, of Lucretius who at

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one point says,
I wanted to write poetry

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because I want to make pleasant
the bitter medicine that

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Epicurus goes on administering
to you.

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The way he says it,
that the gods have fled,

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that there is no such a thing
as sacredness in the cosmos,

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that's too bitter to bear.

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I'm going to say it nicely,
now that's really--not so for

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Dante.

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How the actual exercise of art,
it's an ascetic exercise.

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You move through art,
you refine, you think,

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and you question all the
things.

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It's not just an
ornamentation--ornamentation of

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being the word for cosmetics,
for beautifying that which one

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has--that which he will say.

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These were the concerns and we
came to Canto XXXIII of

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Paradise,
and I maintain to you and as

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way of recapitulation,
I think I have said to you,

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I hope that I have said it all
to you,

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but I will gladly go over it
and I hope that if you see more

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or not quite,
haven't seen what I think I've

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been saying,
say it, that's really your last

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chance as far as I go in this
public mode here.

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The first thing that we
understand about Dante's

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theology is the extraordinary
rootedness of this theology in

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the human reality.

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Canto XXXIII is the canto of
prayer, and we'll talk more

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about the prayer as a mode of
theologizing.

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Why is it a special mode of
theologizing?

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The first thing is that it is a
prayer to the Virgin Mary,

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that is to say a way of
thinking about how the Divine

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has entered the world of history
and the human flesh.

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There's no such thing as an
extraordinary--

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and I think--even talking about
the cosmology of Dante I tried

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to hint,
tried to say--look the physical

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world and the metaphysical world
are all part of one universe.

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They are two separate
hemispheres and yet there is

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always a cross,
there is a chiasmus that will

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connect them,
but will make them because

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that's the irony of every
chiasmus.

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You know what I mean by
chiasmus?

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It comes from the Greek letter
chi in Greek,

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that's a chiasmus,
an X, and wherever a chiasmus

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you have a point of intersection
of the two arms,

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but that becomes also a point
of flight.

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Things come together and can be
seen to come together,

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but things also seem to be
divergent, seem to be going away

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from each other,
okay.

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This is the cosmos of Dante;
it's an extension of what he

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will say in the prayer to the
Virgin.

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The human rootedness of the
Divine, not dualities,

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okay, that's really a primary
item.

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This will conclude,
with the idea that with the--

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and makes it persuasive that
what Dante sees and remembers at

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the end is our effigy,
which is clearly a throwback to

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Genesis.

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Let us make man in our image
and likeness,

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that's what Dante will see,
but this also means that we are

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in the world of images,
that Dante's own journey ends

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in the world of images,
but not in images as deceptive

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appearances,
only--that which we saw the

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whole of Purgatorio is
full of,

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now somehow the image probably
because of our,

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the shared quality of that
image becomes the locus

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of the Sacred itself.

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It becomes, not something that
just hides, but also reveals the

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Divine.

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The second thing that I think
that we have learned to

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understand about this theology
of Dante is freedom.

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That the foundation of Dante's
own--the foundation of his

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beliefs, the foundation of his
theological beliefs,

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is in freedom.

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We talked about the theological
virtues,

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as you recall,
the theological virtues faith,

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hope, and charity:
XXIV, XXV, and XXVI with the

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various examinations that Dante
goes on.

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If you recall,
we were talking about the fact

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that Dante thinks of faith as an
act of freedom.

15:00.788 --> 15:05.198
That's not unusual for those
who have any theological

15:05.201 --> 15:10.291
interest to even find traces and
implications of this kind of

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statement.

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Faith is, for Dante,
a way of knowing;

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he connects it with knowledge,
which is not just a way of

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saying that faith intervenes
when knowledge stops because

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someone who is interested in his
curiosity of knowing--

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now I don't know I'll try hard,
maybe tomorrow I will know,

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I don't need any faith, right?

15:31.710 --> 15:34.300
If you really think about the
relationship between knowledge

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and faith,
you can't say faith emerges at

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the boundary line of knowledge
because that boundary line is

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always shifting,
and that would imply the

15:42.980 --> 15:47.370
progressive reduction of a kind
of receding,

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and diminishing fragment of the
dimension of faith.

15:54.250 --> 15:57.830
Dante's saying by connecting a
university examination and the

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problem of faith is that faith
itself is a way of knowing I

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have faith,
and that means that I see the

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world in an entirely different
way;

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I can see myself disengaged
from everything around me.

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I can see that nothing really
matters;

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that all the patterns and
parameters of reasons are going

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to be found wanting.

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That's really--so it's tied
with freedom.

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Hope introduces the question of
the future, and you cannot have

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freedom without the future.

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We talked about these temporal
issues.

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You can only think about the
possibility of a future if you

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believe that it is a novelty,
if there is a freedom--if you

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are in bondage you cannot really
think of that.

16:38.889 --> 16:42.299
Theologically,
because I don't want to confuse

16:42.303 --> 16:46.863
you at all, you remember that
all three cantos were literally

16:46.857 --> 16:49.587
woven with references to Exodus.

16:49.590 --> 16:54.400
All three cantos and the story
of Exodus, which is crucial to

16:54.398 --> 16:58.648
Dante's poetic figuration,
is the story of the freedom

16:58.645 --> 17:00.885
from a state of bondage.

17:00.889 --> 17:04.989
This is the way we understand
him, but Dante also knows that

17:04.990 --> 17:09.440
freedom can--you only have to
shift--this is Luther of course;

17:09.440 --> 17:12.090
freedom and faith are one in
the same thing.

17:12.088 --> 17:13.908
In his attack--you remember
that?

17:13.910 --> 17:16.680
I mentioned this to you,
it doesn't concern Dante but

17:16.675 --> 17:19.545
concerns the issue and so we'll
mention for clarity.

17:19.548 --> 17:21.238
They debated,
the two of them,

17:21.242 --> 17:24.692
Luther and Erasmus over the
idea of what freedom of the will

17:24.686 --> 17:26.816
means,
and they are really debating a

17:26.818 --> 17:29.798
text written a century earlier
by one humanist by the name of

17:29.798 --> 17:32.478
Valla and they disagree about
what that text means.

17:32.480 --> 17:38.800
Luther says to Erasmus,
you really are interested in

17:38.801 --> 17:42.151
faith as a form of order.

17:42.150 --> 17:46.150
I'm interested in faith as a
form of freedom because that

17:46.147 --> 17:48.287
frees me from all loyalties.

17:48.288 --> 17:52.228
It's madness by the sublime
quality of the statement,

17:52.230 --> 17:55.930
but you only have to shift the
ground a little bit and realize

17:55.929 --> 17:58.439
that freedom,
can really become,

17:58.441 --> 18:01.011
and is the source of atheism.

18:01.009 --> 18:05.469
Atheism, all of a sudden,
becomes important because human

18:05.468 --> 18:09.208
beings don't want to be
subjected to anybody.

18:09.210 --> 18:12.260
It's part of the project to say
I am my own man,

18:12.258 --> 18:15.178
I am my own woman,
I want to do exactly what I

18:15.175 --> 18:15.755
want.

18:15.759 --> 18:20.109
I don't want to have any
loyalties or accept anything

18:20.111 --> 18:22.121
that I don't even see.

18:22.118 --> 18:27.228
We can bear with the master
that we see and maybe has a

18:27.230 --> 18:30.520
knife at us,
but someone as distant and

18:30.523 --> 18:33.893
remote we--
Dante then says that's the

18:33.893 --> 18:38.423
peculiarity of this religious
belief of mine,

18:38.420 --> 18:43.090
which is really all about
freedom, including the freedom

18:43.086 --> 18:45.036
to deny the divinity.

18:45.038 --> 18:47.768
This is extraordinary,
never heard of in the history

18:47.772 --> 18:51.152
of--as far as I know and I have
a very limited knowledge believe

18:51.150 --> 18:54.180
me, it's no rhetoric;
very limited knowledge but I

18:54.178 --> 18:56.348
have never seen anything like
this.

18:56.348 --> 19:00.558
The third element about this
theology is really the great

19:00.563 --> 19:03.803
element of love,
to discover that the way to

19:03.798 --> 19:07.368
God, yes it's hard;
there are many ways first of

19:07.371 --> 19:08.161
all to God.

19:08.160 --> 19:11.510
There is the philosophical of
going through knowing,

19:11.511 --> 19:14.671
there is the linguistic way
through the language,

19:14.666 --> 19:17.556
and I'll come to this issue in
a moment.

19:17.558 --> 19:20.418
There is poetry,
there is the world of beauty,

19:20.419 --> 19:24.109
then there's the language of
the heart, but primarily it is

19:24.105 --> 19:26.325
the path to the Divine is love.

19:26.328 --> 19:30.418
Dante understands,
I wasn't saying that love is so

19:30.423 --> 19:35.193
mysterious because I know that
deep down you are all young

19:35.186 --> 19:37.346
people,
many of you are,

19:37.346 --> 19:41.106
a couple here are younger,
much younger than I am but not

19:41.108 --> 19:43.698
really that young,
so they are not surprised by

19:43.699 --> 19:44.209
any this.

19:44.210 --> 19:47.110
But I know that deep down,
I remember being young,

19:47.108 --> 19:49.168
how I think about the mystery
of love,

19:49.170 --> 19:51.980
ah… that really speaks
to everybody's heart.

19:51.980 --> 19:53.480
I wasn't meaning it that way.

19:53.480 --> 19:57.670
It is really a thought point
that the principle of election,

19:57.674 --> 20:01.444
which is so crucial to love,
it really cannot be quite

20:01.443 --> 20:02.443
explained.

20:02.440 --> 20:06.110
I really was meaning it in this
theological way as possible.

20:06.108 --> 20:09.698
I was already thinking about
the statements that I was going

20:09.703 --> 20:12.083
to make today about Dante's
theology.

20:12.078 --> 20:15.228
These are some of the issues
that Dante has.

20:15.230 --> 20:18.910
The other day,
yesterday, the day before I was

20:18.905 --> 20:23.885
asked the question about one
line in Dante and I was very--

20:23.890 --> 20:26.920
it was a very good question
about the fact that Dante's

20:26.919 --> 20:30.139
allowed to see the truth,
that the light he saw was the

20:30.141 --> 20:30.541
truth.

20:30.539 --> 20:31.949
That was a very good question.

20:31.950 --> 20:33.640
What does it mean?

20:33.640 --> 20:36.260
To me it was so clear,
and I apologize,

20:36.256 --> 20:40.316
because I said well this is
really the biblical idea in your

20:40.317 --> 20:43.207
light, which your notes will
tell you.

20:43.210 --> 20:46.550
In your light I see the light,
we see the light,

20:46.551 --> 20:48.261
and what does it mean?

20:48.259 --> 20:49.909
In your light we see the light.

20:49.910 --> 20:54.840
What it is that it's part of
this mystery that if you are a

20:54.838 --> 20:59.858
mystic and you think that the
Divine is wrapped in a kind of

20:59.855 --> 21:03.775
transcendent darkness,
that's the language,

21:03.778 --> 21:08.418
or that it is really all
wrapped in impenetrable light,

21:08.420 --> 21:11.890
it's both the same because
neither light has the

21:11.887 --> 21:16.387
peculiarity never letting you
see the origin of the light,

21:16.390 --> 21:19.670
and darkness has the
peculiarity of never letting you

21:19.674 --> 21:21.764
see the origin of the darkness.

21:21.759 --> 21:24.239
When Dante reaches
Paradiso XXXIII,

21:24.238 --> 21:27.318
and that's the meaning your
light, we see the light,

21:27.319 --> 21:29.919
Dante sees finally the origin
of light.

21:29.920 --> 21:31.930
That's the point.

21:31.930 --> 21:36.070
There are moments where his
sight can become so incredibly

21:36.074 --> 21:40.004
sharp and so penetrating,
so look at all these ways.

21:40.000 --> 21:43.340
The ways--there are many ways
in which we can take available

21:43.344 --> 21:46.404
to us and it seems that we are
always stumbling against

21:46.404 --> 21:49.414
something that in the long run
you have to stop,

21:49.410 --> 21:54.680
and yet if you love,
if you think that beauty is

21:54.682 --> 21:57.152
part--
which is part of love,

21:57.145 --> 22:00.955
beauty is part of--
love is the hunger for beauty

22:00.955 --> 22:03.255
the neo-Platonist will say.

22:03.259 --> 22:07.159
In the Florentine neo-Platonist
Lorenzo--I don't know where he

22:07.162 --> 22:12.032
found it probably in Plotinus;
love is the hunger for beauty.

22:12.028 --> 22:15.658
All of these are ways that
Dante keeps opening for us in

22:15.659 --> 22:19.219
our journey to the Divine,
and then there is the prayer

22:19.221 --> 22:21.731
which is the question of
language.

22:21.730 --> 22:27.260
That has also become one of the
ways in which I indicate that

22:27.261 --> 22:32.611
there is a theological root to
the question of language.

22:32.608 --> 22:37.678
Not only that we speak out of
speaking and language is an

22:37.682 --> 22:41.632
allegory,
a parable of our desires,

22:41.627 --> 22:46.817
a parable of what we lack,
we speak because we don't have.

22:46.818 --> 22:51.268
That's the specific--and we
speak because we--the seat mate

22:51.273 --> 22:55.503
and we are pointing maybe
without really knowing to what

22:55.498 --> 22:56.418
we need.

22:56.420 --> 22:57.960
It's always a question of need.

22:57.960 --> 23:01.580
Dante has always had a way of
connecting language and desire,

23:01.579 --> 23:04.299
we talked about that,
that's one the themes we

23:04.295 --> 23:05.135
discussed.

23:05.140 --> 23:08.170
Then all of a sudden in
Paradiso XXXIII,

23:08.165 --> 23:11.715
though I said to you,
look the language now changes.

23:11.720 --> 23:16.170
First of all,
the prayer to the Virgin is all

23:16.171 --> 23:20.521
about longing,
this state of longing but not

23:20.520 --> 23:22.140
languishing.

23:22.140 --> 23:25.200
There is an etymological
connection there somewhere which

23:25.202 --> 23:27.432
is not--
I'm not going to get into but

23:27.432 --> 23:30.912
there's a longing for the Divine
to show itself to Bernard of

23:30.912 --> 23:32.712
Clairvaux, the great mystic.

23:32.710 --> 23:37.130
He who is the great fierce
opponent of Abelard,

23:37.130 --> 23:39.190
appears on the scene and
therefore they--

23:39.190 --> 23:42.240
you can overhear the polemics
which we haven't got time for,

23:42.240 --> 23:45.630
the polemics between Abelard
and Bernard that are clearly

23:45.631 --> 23:48.661
behind his apparition in
Paradiso XXXIII.

23:48.660 --> 23:52.490
They all are waiting for the
Divine to show itself forth,

23:52.490 --> 23:57.240
right, and this language--and
yet this desire all of a sudden

23:57.242 --> 24:00.732
becomes the language of joy,
of enjoyment.

24:00.730 --> 24:04.060
That's such an extraordinary
shift.

24:04.059 --> 24:05.479
Why?

24:05.480 --> 24:10.090
Because Dante understands the
problem with desire;

24:10.088 --> 24:15.318
of course, we like to--we're
always talking about how much--

24:15.318 --> 24:19.118
how permanent we like to be,
in a state of permanent desires

24:19.119 --> 24:21.889
because that's what makes us
feel alive,

24:21.890 --> 24:25.480
young, to desire,
you want something.

24:25.480 --> 24:32.620
It's true, it's part of the
great power of desire,

24:32.618 --> 24:37.278
and the language of desire,
but if desire were without an

24:37.281 --> 24:42.281
object ever then desire becomes
of the greatest absurdity and

24:42.277 --> 24:43.357
futility.

24:43.358 --> 24:47.378
If we go around thinking that
we are in a labyrinth of desires

24:47.383 --> 24:51.213
then really that is--it's a
joke, desire becomes a joke.

24:51.210 --> 24:55.280
Dante places this idea of
enjoyment, the possibility of

24:55.276 --> 24:58.586
this sweetness that instills in
his heart.

24:58.589 --> 24:59.909
These are the issues.

24:59.910 --> 25:02.210
Then finally,
this idea of prayer,

25:02.209 --> 25:04.089
and I want to stop there.

25:04.088 --> 25:08.148
Let me stop with the question
of prayer and then get your

25:08.150 --> 25:09.020
questions.

25:09.019 --> 25:13.179
The whole poem,
I think, from the perspective

25:13.183 --> 25:17.943
of Paradiso XXXIII,
taking retrospectively the

25:17.943 --> 25:22.213
view, not only the fact that
there are references to the

25:22.205 --> 25:26.695
first words Dante uses in
Inferno I is a prayer.

25:26.700 --> 25:28.530
"Miserere di
me,"

25:28.526 --> 25:31.676
"Have mercy on me,"
he doesn't even know whether

25:31.680 --> 25:34.270
you are a shade or a man,
he sees something,

25:34.271 --> 25:36.751
a shape indistinct,
turns out to be Virgil,

25:36.749 --> 25:38.199
turns out to be poetry.

25:38.200 --> 25:42.360
This is the poetry that lends
itself, offers itself completely

25:42.355 --> 25:42.965
freely.

25:42.970 --> 25:45.550
You can go to the library and
pick up a book,

25:45.548 --> 25:47.538
a free act of someone's
generosity.

25:47.541 --> 25:48.481
There it is.

25:48.480 --> 25:50.820
He turns to it and begins with
a prayer,

25:50.818 --> 25:54.408
and the poem ends with a
prayer, and ends with--

25:54.410 --> 25:56.460
it begins with a prayer--the
whole poem,

25:56.460 --> 26:00.950
the real quality and nature of
language is to be a prayer.

26:00.950 --> 26:05.880
A prayer implying the tension
that we have all the time told

26:05.876 --> 26:08.966
what, for Dante,
told what necessarily

26:08.965 --> 26:10.465
transcends us.

26:10.470 --> 26:17.160
There's always a reality that
is touched directly by the hand

26:17.157 --> 26:22.507
of God, but escapes the world of
the human plans,

26:22.509 --> 26:25.519
and the human projects.

26:25.519 --> 26:30.209
This is what I think the whole
poem is about,

26:30.208 --> 26:35.428
and it's above all a poem
addressed to the future,

26:35.429 --> 26:37.559
addressed to us.

26:37.558 --> 26:39.978
That is to say,
it's not a poem about the past,

26:39.980 --> 26:42.710
Dante is the least nostalgic of
poets,

26:42.710 --> 26:45.220
it's so easy,
if you really go wherever and

26:45.224 --> 26:47.924
you tell your grandchildren you
read Dante.

26:47.920 --> 26:50.150
I thought that Dante is a nice
little story about the Middle

26:50.154 --> 26:51.984
Ages;
we are all nostalgic about the

26:51.981 --> 26:52.661
Middle Ages.

26:52.660 --> 26:54.880
Maybe some of you are here--how
were these guys,

26:54.875 --> 26:55.955
how were they living?

26:55.960 --> 26:58.950
In a world of absolute
certainties, right?

26:58.950 --> 27:05.540
Dante is the poet of openness,
the poet who understands

27:05.538 --> 27:09.808
reason, and understands the
risk.

27:09.808 --> 27:12.828
Now, that's really what this
poem is about,

27:12.828 --> 27:15.508
a poem about the future,
the poem addressed with a

27:15.509 --> 27:17.479
number of apostrophes to
readers,

27:17.480 --> 27:19.630
and whenever you read
apostrophe to readers from

27:19.632 --> 27:22.382
beginning of Inferno to
roughly Paradiso X,

27:22.380 --> 27:24.690
every so often Dante addresses
us.

27:24.690 --> 27:26.900
You remember I said,
at one point he stops,

27:26.898 --> 27:29.318
he made this point,
what are these addresses to

27:29.317 --> 27:29.947
readers?

27:29.950 --> 27:31.790
We can read it--whenever you
have a kind of--

27:31.788 --> 27:34.518
up to the eighteenth century
you always read novels,

27:34.519 --> 27:37.439
now my dear reader,
now my gentle reader,

27:37.440 --> 27:38.880
they are coaxing you,
pretending they're coaxing you,

27:38.880 --> 27:42.460
they couldn't care whether you
read it or not I don't think

27:42.458 --> 27:43.258
ultimately.

27:43.259 --> 27:45.519
Dante doesn't really care
whether we are reading him or

27:45.519 --> 27:45.769
not.

27:45.769 --> 27:49.819
Now you're following the little
shape of poetry,

27:49.817 --> 27:53.177
the few of you,
and I think he means it,

27:53.178 --> 27:57.398
who are not afraid of how rough
the seas are.

27:57.400 --> 27:59.680
You could shipwreck and all of
that--

27:59.680 --> 28:04.190
of course you could read those
apostrophes as a way of saying,

28:04.190 --> 28:08.280
look I need you readers because
if I have readers I'm

28:08.278 --> 28:11.188
constituting myself into an
author.

28:11.190 --> 28:15.670
The measure in which there are
readers, then I am the author,

28:15.670 --> 28:19.780
I am an author because I
have--because the poem has made

28:19.777 --> 28:21.417
me into an author.

28:21.420 --> 28:26.150
Of course there is that,
but what I think this is about

28:26.145 --> 28:31.485
is you are going to use my poem
as the boat with which you can

28:31.486 --> 28:33.846
start your own journey.

28:33.848 --> 28:35.898
That's the understanding of the
future.

28:35.900 --> 28:39.470
The poet, Dante,
is a poet of the future,

28:39.470 --> 28:42.570
which is a way of saying there
is a little bit of irony as I

28:42.568 --> 28:45.358
say this,
that Dante's not a poet of the

28:45.355 --> 28:48.265
past,
he is the poet toward which we

28:48.267 --> 28:49.147
are going.

28:49.150 --> 28:52.520
The Middle Ages may not be a
time of the past,

28:52.519 --> 28:55.849
it may be the Middle ages in a
different form or certainly will

28:55.851 --> 28:58.351
come back,
will probably come back in the

28:58.348 --> 28:58.828
future.

28:58.828 --> 29:01.188
This is what Dante clearly
thinks.

29:01.190 --> 29:02.930
So let's go now with your
questions.

29:02.930 --> 29:09.510
I hope you have many and--not
many, a few so that we can talk

29:09.507 --> 29:11.587
a bit about this.

29:11.588 --> 29:15.808
Yes, whoever wants to--you came
in late so I must say--

29:15.808 --> 29:19.368
must repeat this--you have to
sign and there is that beautiful

29:19.372 --> 29:21.932
young woman right there,
Maria Derlipanska,

29:21.926 --> 29:24.256
that adjective,
you forgive me but it's true

29:24.262 --> 29:28.692
but also--
the other thing is you have to

29:28.685 --> 29:33.265
talk very closely to the
microphone.

29:33.269 --> 29:35.369
Student:  Well,
I wanted to talk a little bit

29:35.366 --> 29:37.916
more about desire and I'm glad
you brought that up because it's

29:37.915 --> 29:39.885
been on my mind for the last
couple of days.

29:39.890 --> 29:43.910
I was just reading
Shakespeare's 147^(th) sonnet

29:43.912 --> 29:48.582
yesterday in which he says,
"desire is death,"

29:48.578 --> 29:53.078
and it struck me how different
Dante's inception of desire is

29:53.078 --> 29:57.648
and it's something that he seems
to want to stay in and relish

29:57.654 --> 30:00.134
and it's almost life to him.

30:00.130 --> 30:05.280
We started this course with the
Vita nuova and I got so

30:05.276 --> 30:08.226
frustrated reading it because
I--

30:08.230 --> 30:10.650
part of me was saying if you
love this woman so much why

30:10.652 --> 30:12.152
don't you do something about it?

30:12.150 --> 30:17.020
But it's like Dante no,
he wants to stay in this place

30:17.023 --> 30:21.373
of longing;
longing is life for him in some

30:21.371 --> 30:21.881
way.

30:21.880 --> 30:25.750
That seems to me something
vitally important to

30:25.748 --> 30:31.128
understanding what the Divine
Comedy means and I wonder if

30:31.130 --> 30:36.260
you could just go back and talk
a little bit about the courtly

30:36.259 --> 30:40.849
love tradition,
how that might have influenced

30:40.853 --> 30:46.643
Dante's thinking about desire,
and more specifically,

30:46.635 --> 30:52.605
in a spiritual sense as to
Dante's theology,

30:52.608 --> 30:56.678
how desire played a role in
Dante's conception of his

30:56.678 --> 30:58.398
relationship to God?

30:58.400 --> 31:01.120
Prof: Yes, okay.

31:01.119 --> 31:04.639
Well good question.

31:04.640 --> 31:07.880
I like the fact that you bring
in, I will take the points as I

31:07.884 --> 31:10.124
remember them,
but also following at my own

31:10.117 --> 31:10.967
inner logic.

31:10.970 --> 31:14.800
I like the way you bring in
Shakespeare's understanding of

31:14.795 --> 31:18.785
desire and that desire--
it's not that it's really death

31:18.788 --> 31:22.168
but ends in death,
that the desire leads you to

31:22.174 --> 31:22.664
death.

31:22.660 --> 31:29.400
That this is a kind of--that is
in many ways also a view largely

31:29.400 --> 31:35.070
shared by Dante in this sense,
but it's not only that,

31:35.069 --> 31:38.279
Dante does not stop there.

31:38.279 --> 31:42.479
In this sense that you have to
understand that there's such a

31:42.480 --> 31:44.930
thing as a metaphysics of
desire.

31:44.930 --> 31:48.810
I don't know if the term is new
to you or not.

31:48.808 --> 31:52.018
What could that phrase possibly
mean?

31:52.019 --> 31:54.969
Why do we talk--what does it
mean?

31:54.970 --> 31:56.480
Metaphysics of desire,
to some of you,

31:56.480 --> 32:00.850
it may be a little bit unusual,
it really means this,

32:00.848 --> 32:04.098
that desire--there is a
dialectics to desire,

32:04.098 --> 32:08.848
a movement to desire that
necessarily I want this today

32:08.849 --> 32:12.309
then I want that,
the desire is inexhaustible,

32:12.311 --> 32:13.651
that's what it means.

32:13.650 --> 32:17.780
From that point of view it's
very important for all those

32:17.782 --> 32:21.112
like Augustine,
it's part of this restlessness

32:21.105 --> 32:22.505
of the heart as St.

32:22.508 --> 32:24.278
Augustine mentions.

32:24.278 --> 32:27.008
That's the--a theological
understanding of desire.

32:27.009 --> 32:30.739
We call it metaphysical because
it really wants the absolutes.

32:30.740 --> 32:34.340
Desire, by definition,
I want now this,

32:34.338 --> 32:38.308
the smoking of a cigarette for
a great novelist,

32:38.308 --> 32:41.868
an Italian novelist at the
beginning of the last century

32:41.872 --> 32:45.982
was the true emblem of desire,
ending in ashes but always like

32:45.984 --> 32:48.284
a phoenix you can start over
again.

32:48.279 --> 32:53.349
It really means that it
always--it will come to an end

32:53.347 --> 32:56.597
either in death,
in nothingness;

32:56.598 --> 33:01.058
finally you renounce all desire
which is the death of desire or

33:01.055 --> 33:03.565
some idea of the absolute of
God.

33:03.568 --> 33:08.098
That's really--that's what we
mean by the absolute--this

33:08.097 --> 33:11.307
absolute tension that desire
entails.

33:11.308 --> 33:15.148
Now then you asked me to talk
about the Vita nuova and

33:15.150 --> 33:16.750
the uneasiness you had.

33:16.750 --> 33:18.510
I mean, you expressed the
uneasiness and I respect your

33:18.507 --> 33:18.927
uneasiness.

33:18.930 --> 33:23.220
I know a man of action like
you, a student of philosophy as

33:23.215 --> 33:27.795
you are, then you obviously have
that kind--I think that you're

33:27.798 --> 33:29.718
supposed to have that.

33:29.720 --> 33:33.930
There is such a thing as a
passivity of the state of

33:33.934 --> 33:37.854
dejection,
the sense of the mastery of

33:37.845 --> 33:41.935
love that throws the lover poet
into--

33:41.940 --> 33:44.650
who doesn't really understand
what love is at this point,

33:44.650 --> 33:46.390
that's what part of the
education is.

33:46.390 --> 33:49.320
He wants to--the story of the
Vita nuova is the story

33:49.317 --> 33:52.507
of a poet who knows--
he doesn't know Beatrice,

33:52.509 --> 33:57.099
he calls her Beatrice only
because in the nearness of her

33:57.103 --> 34:00.783
he would feel beatitudes;
that's what he says,

34:00.778 --> 34:03.878
so there's a kind of
arbitrariness to names.

34:03.880 --> 34:08.470
We don't care about that now,
we go on with--there is this

34:08.472 --> 34:12.422
idea that he is--the power of
love dejects him.

34:12.420 --> 34:15.220
It's not yet a virtue,
it's a passion,

34:15.217 --> 34:18.467
and the word passion really
implies that.

34:18.469 --> 34:22.359
We think that a passion is what
makes us go but Dante makes a

34:22.364 --> 34:26.134
careful distinction of the will
that becomes paralyzed,

34:26.130 --> 34:30.980
the desire to be discovered by
the woman he loves.

34:30.980 --> 34:34.070
It's very important for him
that she says "hi"

34:34.070 --> 34:36.320
when they meet in the streets
and he--

34:36.320 --> 34:38.750
she won't say "hi"
and so he goes home and he's

34:38.753 --> 34:40.453
dejected and says I'm worthless,
etc.

34:40.449 --> 34:44.779
That is--he's explaining the
kind of--that sort of state of

34:44.784 --> 34:49.204
dejection that love can bring
in--or the passion of love can

34:49.195 --> 34:50.985
bring into the mind.

34:50.989 --> 34:55.529
The mind is clouded,
unable to think straight but

34:55.529 --> 35:01.389
that--for him also sheds light
on the way he understands poetry

35:01.393 --> 35:04.423
because he waits for poetry.

35:04.420 --> 35:07.050
He's a sort of poet,
very romantic poet,

35:07.050 --> 35:10.490
who doesn't think that poetry
entails discipline.

35:10.489 --> 35:13.329
It's almost like somebody else
says,

35:13.329 --> 35:15.949
it's almost like going to the
office at 7:00 a.m.,

35:15.949 --> 35:18.969
you sit down at the desk,
and keep at it,

35:18.969 --> 35:22.639
and then maybe you'll manage to
come up with a great line.

35:22.639 --> 35:26.929
He hopes for--romantically for
poetry to come to him,

35:26.929 --> 35:30.679
for inspiration to come to him,
and then he realizes that his

35:30.684 --> 35:33.504
understanding of love was as
wrong as his--

35:33.500 --> 35:36.230
of the love passion was as
wrong as his understanding of

35:36.233 --> 35:38.453
poetry,
that you've got to really get

35:38.454 --> 35:40.364
down and do something about it.

35:40.360 --> 35:43.100
When he understands it,
it's too late for him,

35:43.099 --> 35:47.319
because Beatrice has died,
so now the poem--

35:47.320 --> 35:49.380
the project of the Divine
Comedy--

35:49.380 --> 35:54.690
she may be--he has a vision,
he sees her at the foot of

35:54.692 --> 36:00.402
God's majesty and says I want to
go there an meet with her,

36:00.398 --> 36:02.168
that's action.

36:02.170 --> 36:06.540
You agree that that really is
quite--has completely changed.

36:06.539 --> 36:11.169
How does this understanding of
love connect with the courtly

36:11.173 --> 36:12.513
love tradition?

36:12.510 --> 36:15.100
That is really not a difficult
question.

36:15.099 --> 36:19.779
In fact I would give you a
little bit of a bibliography

36:19.780 --> 36:24.370
that C.S. Lewis has written a
very good book on The

36:24.373 --> 36:28.803
Allegory of Love,
a book written probably in the

36:28.804 --> 36:31.154
late 50s,
but last time I read it which

36:31.152 --> 36:33.212
was recently some twenty years
ago,

36:33.210 --> 36:35.540
it was still very good,
very powerful.

36:35.539 --> 36:39.919
The idea is this that--and I'm
really paraphrasing C.S. Lewis

36:39.920 --> 36:43.130
more or less,
I mean with a lot of gaps in my

36:43.132 --> 36:46.202
mind about the richness of the
text.

36:46.199 --> 36:49.239
That clearly what we think of
love today as a romantic

36:49.239 --> 36:51.759
understanding,
it's really a discovery of the

36:51.762 --> 36:52.682
Middle Ages.

36:52.679 --> 36:56.039
I have been talking about the
fact that, you may all recall,

36:56.041 --> 36:59.121
the Greeks did not have this
romantic understanding.

36:59.119 --> 37:01.919
The Romans didn't have this
understanding of love.

37:01.920 --> 37:07.310
When you read Catullus,
the passion for a woman is

37:07.309 --> 37:12.919
something that he's always a
little uneasy about.

37:12.920 --> 37:15.900
That's not what a virtuous man
should be doing.

37:15.900 --> 37:17.840
It's a weakness of the will.

37:17.840 --> 37:19.880
The weakness of the will,
it's a vice,

37:19.876 --> 37:22.406
what can you do,
we are fallible--we are Romans

37:22.411 --> 37:25.221
but we are also occasionally a
little fallible.

37:25.219 --> 37:30.549
The idea of romantic love comes
with Provencal poets in the

37:30.545 --> 37:34.765
south of France,
what you call courtly love.

37:34.768 --> 37:36.968
I would distinguish that,
that's all, the only thing I

37:36.974 --> 37:37.854
would say about it.

37:37.849 --> 37:41.509
You don't read the C.S. Lewis
who ends up with love and the

37:41.507 --> 37:44.907
history of love in the--how it
changes, that is to say,

37:44.913 --> 37:46.493
in the Renaissance.

37:46.489 --> 37:48.049
I would distinguish between the
two;

37:48.050 --> 37:50.680
I would not use
indiscriminately courtly love

37:50.682 --> 37:52.422
and medieval ideas of love.

37:52.420 --> 37:56.080
Courtly love implies a
formalization of love and it

37:56.077 --> 37:58.307
goes back--
some of you I know are writing

37:58.311 --> 38:00.541
a paper on this,
on Andreas Capellanus,

38:00.536 --> 38:05.386
The Art of Courtly Love,
which is a way of setting rules

38:05.393 --> 38:09.813
for loves,
in the perception that love is

38:09.811 --> 38:16.131
a potentially disruptive
experience and so let us make it

38:16.126 --> 38:19.316
into a joke,
that's the idea.

38:19.320 --> 38:24.090
Let us establish protocols,
a code by means of which the

38:24.085 --> 38:28.935
woman and the man can really
interact and tell each other

38:28.936 --> 38:30.926
what this is about.

38:30.929 --> 38:34.819
Don't hope marriage because
that's a serious business

38:34.818 --> 38:38.758
concerning property,
and wealth, and status so

38:38.762 --> 38:43.472
within the fairly close
boundaries of the courtly love

38:43.474 --> 38:46.514
tradition,
then you go on making such

38:46.505 --> 38:48.905
assumptions about yourself
about--

38:48.909 --> 38:55.979
you can play about the
greatness of women,

38:55.980 --> 38:59.860
the secret of love,
there's a certain code.

38:59.860 --> 39:04.940
In the other forms of courtly
love, or the sweet new style,

39:04.940 --> 39:07.220
and the way it develops.

39:07.219 --> 39:14.899
Another book I could mention to
you is Valency which is love

39:14.898 --> 39:18.188
something--
I can't even remember the

39:18.190 --> 39:22.190
title, Maurice Valency,
he also discusses the shifts

39:22.193 --> 39:27.513
between Provencal understanding
of love and the sweet new style

39:27.514 --> 39:31.724
articulated by Dante and his
coterie of poets.

39:31.719 --> 39:33.759
That makes it I hope.

39:33.760 --> 39:44.400


39:44.400 --> 39:47.290
Student:  Thank you for
an extraordinary series of

39:47.291 --> 39:47.861
lectures.

39:47.860 --> 39:51.460
I was curious about the ending
and I wondered if you could

39:51.460 --> 39:54.240
comment on Dante's views about
the papacy?

39:54.239 --> 39:58.519
I thought his choice of Bernard
of Clairvaux was very curious

39:58.521 --> 40:02.521
and throughout the Divine
Comedy he previously was

40:02.516 --> 40:05.866
grumbling about papal
intervention over temporal

40:05.871 --> 40:08.031
powers,
so I wondered if you could

40:08.030 --> 40:09.280
comment on that conclusion.

40:09.280 --> 40:12.300
Prof: Yeah,
very good question.

40:12.300 --> 40:16.020
Of course I didn't talk about
it, and I think that what you're

40:16.018 --> 40:18.278
really referring to,
I don't know,

40:18.284 --> 40:21.744
but I think what you're
referring to is the fact that

40:21.739 --> 40:25.129
Bernard of Clairvaux wrote a
great book called,

40:25.130 --> 40:28.310
On Consideration,
which seems to be about

40:28.309 --> 40:29.729
contemplative life.

40:29.730 --> 40:33.980
He's the great reformer of the
Benedictine movement,

40:33.980 --> 40:39.760
monastic movement in France,
and the so called Cistercian

40:39.762 --> 40:45.652
monasteries which became the
centers of culture where they

40:45.646 --> 40:48.096
would copy--
they would do poetry,

40:48.103 --> 40:51.743
they would write music,
they would sing.

40:51.739 --> 40:54.739
I mean the arts,
the way we know them,

40:54.739 --> 40:57.089
really originated with him.

40:57.090 --> 40:59.060
He wrote this text On
Consideration which

40:59.056 --> 41:00.946
actually,
in spite of the title,

41:00.954 --> 41:04.194
because you know what
consideration is a step before

41:04.190 --> 41:06.030
you come to contemplation.

41:06.030 --> 41:09.940
There are a number--reflection,
consideration,

41:09.938 --> 41:12.108
and then contemplation.

41:12.110 --> 41:14.980
He chooses to write on
consideration.

41:14.980 --> 41:20.460
He dedicates the book to--this
treatise to Pope Eugene IV who

41:20.463 --> 41:24.783
had been his disciple,
he had been a--a Frenchman who

41:24.775 --> 41:28.015
had been a Benedictine monk with
him and it's--

41:28.018 --> 41:32.428
and this is probably one reason
why Dante chooses Bernard.

41:32.429 --> 41:36.569
Bernard, the contemplative
monk, the reformer,

41:36.570 --> 41:40.820
all of Paradise is
populated with founders and

41:40.817 --> 41:45.137
great reformers,
founders of orders or Justinian

41:45.141 --> 41:46.751
and the law, etc.

41:46.750 --> 41:49.860
France is Benedict,
Dominic, Bernard and so in

41:49.860 --> 41:53.110
spite of the fact that he's a
contemplative,

41:53.110 --> 41:58.140
Bernard did not hesitate to
write a text for the spiritual

41:58.139 --> 42:02.329
edification of his ex-disciple,
Eugene the IV,

42:02.329 --> 42:06.839
who is now a Pope and he's
aware how the office of the

42:06.838 --> 42:11.518
shepherd of the church can
distract him from the loftier

42:11.516 --> 42:16.666
spiritual aims and the longings,
so it's really a sequence of

42:16.672 --> 42:19.012
arguments about what you
should--

42:19.010 --> 42:23.220
how should you administer your
time so that you are never

42:23.219 --> 42:27.049
really going to lose sight of
what your true aim is,

42:27.052 --> 42:27.882
Heaven.

42:27.880 --> 42:30.470
Dante mentions this text,
by the way,

42:30.469 --> 42:34.499
in a letter that so many--not
I, go on challenging the

42:34.501 --> 42:37.371
authority of,
the letter to Cangrande that

42:37.373 --> 42:38.973
maybe I have--
no not with you,

42:38.967 --> 42:40.997
with my graduate students we
have gone over,

42:41.000 --> 42:43.970
but to me that is actually the
indication,

42:43.969 --> 42:48.149
the fact that he refers to the
treatise by Bernard that the

42:48.146 --> 42:50.756
authority of--
he is the author of that letter.

42:50.760 --> 42:54.360
Now, you see it clearly another
way in which I can understand

42:54.364 --> 42:57.554
your question is that you see
some kind of divergence,

42:57.547 --> 42:58.927
some sort of break.

42:58.929 --> 43:02.659
On the one hand this kind of
invective, the mode of the

43:02.657 --> 43:05.897
invective in Dante when talking
about Peter, St.

43:05.902 --> 43:08.322
Peter in Paradiso XXVII.

43:08.320 --> 43:13.660
I mean, he doesn't--he looks
back after the examination on

43:13.664 --> 43:16.534
faith,
he looks back and he starts

43:16.534 --> 43:20.214
attacking what he takes to be
the use of patience,

43:20.210 --> 43:22.470
my place;
remember that,

43:22.474 --> 43:28.324
an incredibly moral voice that
rises right at the very end.

43:28.320 --> 43:32.100
You seem to be worried about
the fact that Dante seems to be

43:32.103 --> 43:34.813
so moral and--
when it comes about the popes

43:34.806 --> 43:37.346
and then becomes mystical all of
a sudden,

43:37.349 --> 43:38.919
is that really one of your
concerns?

43:38.920 --> 43:40.910
It could be,
it could become one of your

43:40.907 --> 43:43.047
concerns in asking this question
about--

43:43.050 --> 43:46.420
at the end of Paradise
XXXIII he talks about Bernard

43:46.420 --> 43:49.850
such a mystic and yet all over
he has been talking about the

43:49.849 --> 43:50.489
papacy.

43:50.489 --> 43:55.569
If you were interested in that
I would say there is no

43:55.567 --> 44:01.597
divergence in Dante between the
prophetic voice and the mystical

44:01.601 --> 44:02.561
voice.

44:02.559 --> 44:08.609
That is something--even those
who read the Bible would go on

44:08.610 --> 44:13.330
saying, well,
the prophets were visionaries.

44:13.329 --> 44:15.999
In a way it's true but in a way
it's not true,

44:15.998 --> 44:19.028
the prophets were not
visionaries, the prophets were

44:19.025 --> 44:20.385
readers of history.

44:20.389 --> 44:24.899
They don't need to have Daniel
give an interpretation;

44:24.900 --> 44:28.040
Ezekiel has visions,
but Isaiah doesn't have visions

44:28.043 --> 44:30.203
so it's--you see what I'm
saying?

44:30.199 --> 44:33.709
There is no clear-cut
distinction between the

44:33.706 --> 44:37.926
prophetic and the mystical,
certainly not in Dante.

44:37.929 --> 44:41.889
The two belong together so
that's--I don't know that I'm

44:41.889 --> 44:46.209
answering your concerns but I
overheard a number of let's say

44:46.208 --> 44:48.438
rumblings in your question.

44:48.440 --> 44:50.140
I'm trying to take care of them.

44:50.139 --> 44:53.859
Student:  Is it a
reconciliation with the papacy?

44:53.860 --> 44:57.420
Prof: No,
not in the sense--no.

44:57.420 --> 45:03.110
To talk about--even Bernard is
someone who understands how

45:03.105 --> 45:09.385
waylaying the office can be and
he was obviously writing because

45:09.389 --> 45:14.879
he must be aware of what has
been happening and what was

45:14.875 --> 45:17.165
likely to happen.

45:17.170 --> 45:20.930
You don't have to become a
chronicler or an historian to do

45:20.934 --> 45:23.804
that;
you can imagine this can happen.

45:23.800 --> 45:26.140
No, there is not that.

45:26.139 --> 45:31.849
I think that's Dante's judgment
about history is always very

45:31.847 --> 45:34.457
clear until the very end.

45:34.460 --> 45:41.230
History needs a reform and of
course he would say,

45:41.230 --> 45:44.610
because he's one who believes
in the sacramentality and

45:44.608 --> 45:48.838
presence of the self,
how the self is crucial--before

45:48.844 --> 45:53.874
I start talking about how the
world needs reforming let me

45:53.873 --> 45:55.553
just begin here.

45:55.550 --> 46:00.100
That would be an obvious way to
say it,

46:00.099 --> 46:03.399
so I call it the language of
presence in him,

46:03.400 --> 46:07.230
a sense of, I am present to my
own self and therefore I have

46:07.228 --> 46:10.798
responsibilities toward my own
self before I became--

46:10.800 --> 46:16.320
I started using the megaphones
and let's reform the world.

46:16.320 --> 46:20.390
That probably--if there were
ever to come and Dante's not a

46:20.387 --> 46:23.367
utopian thinker,
it would come only because so

46:23.365 --> 46:27.015
many people of good will,
men and women of good will,

46:27.018 --> 46:30.758
his saints,
his blessed--the blessed souls

46:30.764 --> 46:35.674
that he meets are willing to do
something about that.

46:35.670 --> 46:39.010
No, no reconciliation,
not a sense of finally things

46:39.012 --> 46:41.832
will be becoming together,
I don't think.

46:41.829 --> 46:44.249
Actually I hold onto that.

46:44.250 --> 46:54.050


46:54.050 --> 46:58.250
Student:  Just thinking
more about desire and wealth and

46:58.251 --> 47:01.981
the fact that the will is what
loves and the will always

47:01.978 --> 47:05.398
contains some element of lack,
or desire it seems,

47:05.400 --> 47:08.390
so even if it can attain
plentitude it still seems that

47:08.391 --> 47:12.101
Dante in talking so much about
the will and the will as loving,

47:12.099 --> 47:15.659
Dante says that love always has
some element of lack.

47:15.659 --> 47:17.599
It's not just lack,
there is plentitude,

47:17.599 --> 47:20.489
but still there's always this
restlessness and so the love at

47:20.489 --> 47:22.849
the end where there is
plentitude it seems to be a

47:22.851 --> 47:25.261
completely transformed
understanding of love,

47:25.260 --> 47:28.540
that it's not possible to
go--to return from in the

47:28.539 --> 47:29.719
beatific vision.

47:29.719 --> 47:32.529
If you have this plentitude,
is it possible to go back

47:32.532 --> 47:35.402
because it does seem like it's a
completely transformed

47:35.398 --> 47:38.688
understanding of love when you
have just the plentitude and not

47:38.688 --> 47:40.968
lack anymore so with that mind
does--

47:40.969 --> 47:44.039
is Dante ever able to attain
this love because this love that

47:44.036 --> 47:47.256
does have plentitude seems like
it should end in silence with no

47:47.257 --> 47:49.657
language and Dante does go back
and speak,

47:49.659 --> 47:53.599
and he does--he is still--he is
a pilgrim and a poet and so does

47:53.596 --> 47:57.156
he really ever move from the
images to the essences and is

47:57.157 --> 48:00.837
the uncertainty at the end not
just because we have to go on

48:00.844 --> 48:04.974
the journey our self but because
he is still on the journey?

48:04.969 --> 48:12.719
Prof: Well,
you are really voicing a very

48:12.724 --> 48:17.514
delicate issue in the poem.

48:17.510 --> 48:23.840
It's a very controversial issue
because that also implies the

48:23.835 --> 48:26.045
status of the poem.

48:26.050 --> 48:27.700
Do you understand what I'm
saying?

48:27.699 --> 48:30.929
In other words,
if you really think that Dante

48:30.927 --> 48:33.277
has seen--
has had a beatific vision and

48:33.277 --> 48:36.337
he has,
and now he's writing the poem

48:36.338 --> 48:39.968
to tell us about it,
then you're really saying that

48:39.974 --> 48:42.974
the poem itself belongs to a
higher level of experience

48:42.972 --> 48:46.252
because it's written by someone
who is in full possession of

48:46.248 --> 48:46.858
grace.

48:46.860 --> 48:48.430
That's your point, right?

48:48.429 --> 48:52.869
That's a very delicate point
because I have not been teaching

48:52.867 --> 48:55.527
Dante that way,
right, I have not.

48:55.530 --> 48:58.600
We are right to say this,
at the moment of

48:58.599 --> 49:02.039
recapitulation,
I probably would--I have wasted

49:02.043 --> 49:03.843
your time all along.

49:03.840 --> 49:07.380
One little detail that I want
to bring to your attention and

49:07.380 --> 49:10.080
then I will go to the more
general problem;

49:10.079 --> 49:13.919
when Dante meets Beatrice in
Purgatorio XXXI,

49:13.920 --> 49:16.220
this is getting really to be a
recapitulation,

49:16.219 --> 49:18.219
we're talking about everything
in the poem now,

49:18.219 --> 49:21.819
he meets Beatrice in
Purgatorio XXX and then

49:21.820 --> 49:22.540
in XXXI.

49:22.539 --> 49:26.279
In Purgatorio XXXI
Beatrice forces Dante to go into

49:26.275 --> 49:27.255
a confession.

49:27.260 --> 49:31.060
You have to go into an
admission of who you are,

49:31.059 --> 49:34.989
and has to be public;
cannot say I know you know,

49:34.990 --> 49:39.590
but you have to be duly ashamed
because only that way you can

49:39.594 --> 49:43.664
transcend whatever it is that
you have within you.

49:43.659 --> 49:49.629
Dante reluctantly will agree to
do that and then Beatrice will

49:49.634 --> 49:52.594
say,
I want you to go through this

49:52.594 --> 49:56.004
so that another time,
the future tense,

49:56.003 --> 50:00.473
when you will see,
will meet the siren I want you

50:00.465 --> 50:01.835
to be stronger.

50:01.840 --> 50:05.800
This to me implies,
that's one of the many--Dante

50:05.797 --> 50:09.507
sees Casella,
another aesthetic temptation.

50:09.510 --> 50:12.070
One doesn't have to have the
temptation to kill someone,

50:12.070 --> 50:16.100
to really feel that what is
out--has fallen out of grace but

50:16.097 --> 50:18.917
this is--
he meets Casella and he

50:18.920 --> 50:24.140
remembers how sweet was that
song he heard from Casella and

50:24.139 --> 50:28.009
that sweetness still resounds
within me.

50:28.010 --> 50:33.080
Now Dante is writing--is
talking as a poet--he meets

50:33.077 --> 50:37.247
Ulysses, I grieve then and I
grieve now.

50:37.250 --> 50:43.400
There is a way in which states
within the pilgrim do not really

50:43.402 --> 50:46.342
go on changing;
they are the same,

50:46.335 --> 50:50.005
implying that there is some
kind of continuity between

50:50.005 --> 50:52.285
pilgrimage and poetry writing.

50:52.289 --> 50:57.519
To me, the writing of poetry is
an extension of the pilgrimage.

50:57.519 --> 51:02.429
Dante though goes on saying;
I have had the beatific vision.

51:02.429 --> 51:05.939
I am now--I know what enjoyment
means,

51:05.940 --> 51:09.040
not just desire,
but I'm coming back to the

51:09.039 --> 51:12.949
Earth and therefore I cannot
come back to the Earth as

51:12.951 --> 51:17.011
anything less than a human being
with one project,

51:17.010 --> 51:21.240
the project to write a poem,
because I want to retrieve that

51:21.244 --> 51:24.334
joy and because I want to share
that joy.

51:24.329 --> 51:27.499
So I have set down two things
in my answer to you.

51:27.500 --> 51:31.900
One talking about the question
of the pilgrim's experience and

51:31.896 --> 51:35.496
the relationship of the
pilgrim's experience to the

51:35.501 --> 51:40.501
writing of a poem,
but I have also said that the

51:40.496 --> 51:43.946
poem stands as a sign for us.

51:43.949 --> 51:49.649
A hermeneutical moment;
Dante means it for us so that

51:49.646 --> 51:52.686
we can--his journey continues.

51:52.690 --> 51:55.790
That's my answer.

51:55.789 --> 51:59.019
You don't have to agree with it
because there are--

51:59.018 --> 52:02.478
I know there is--there are
other people,

52:02.480 --> 52:05.630
I have been fighting those
people for a long time in my

52:05.632 --> 52:07.612
life,
I don't want to go back to

52:07.608 --> 52:10.348
those fights,
but I think that that this my

52:10.351 --> 52:12.161
way of looking at it,
okay.

52:12.159 --> 52:13.679
I can give you more
bibliography;

52:13.679 --> 52:16.599
I would rather not actually,
to tell you the truth.

52:16.599 --> 52:19.009
I don't want to tell you about
those people who are writing the

52:19.012 --> 52:19.482
other way.

52:19.480 --> 52:23.780
I have written about them in my
books.

52:23.780 --> 52:33.030


52:33.030 --> 52:34.920
Student:  I was
wondering if you could talk a

52:34.922 --> 52:37.002
little bit more about how Dante
views other religions.

52:37.000 --> 52:40.660
In particular,
Judaism and if it sort of falls

52:40.664 --> 52:44.414
underneath his idea of religion
as freedom,

52:44.409 --> 52:48.269
and that if you have the
freedom to become an atheist you

52:48.269 --> 52:52.479
also have the freedom to choose
a different religion and if he

52:52.476 --> 52:56.466
views Judaism and Christianity
as sort of a continuity both

52:56.474 --> 53:00.414
deriving from the same basis or
if he ascribes the idea of

53:00.405 --> 53:04.195
secessionism that Christianity
has succeeded Judaism and

53:04.197 --> 53:07.377
invalidates it,
and for that reason we don't

53:07.376 --> 53:10.706
find, from what I can remember,
and Jews in Paradise.

53:10.710 --> 53:12.160
Prof: Oh yes you do.

53:12.159 --> 53:12.989
Student:  You do?

53:12.989 --> 53:13.639
Okay then that's my fault.

53:13.639 --> 53:15.789
Prof: Well,
now I have to correct you

53:15.793 --> 53:17.823
immediately because then maybe
you rephrase it--

53:17.820 --> 53:20.010
stay there--because you
probably will rephrase the

53:20.007 --> 53:20.497
question.

53:20.500 --> 53:26.430
When Dante goes on listing,
in the mystical rose,

53:26.425 --> 53:32.965
we even are told that Beatrice
sits next to Rachel.

53:32.969 --> 53:38.129
She has a way of elevating her
and then he goes on describing

53:38.128 --> 53:42.938
all the other--we talked at
length about Solomon who is a

53:42.942 --> 53:44.922
Jew, I think right?

53:44.920 --> 53:46.680
He was a Jew in the Bible.

53:46.679 --> 53:51.229
We went on talking about
Nathan, I tried to make light of

53:51.226 --> 53:56.256
it because I wanted to tell you
that Dante saw his own name but

53:56.259 --> 53:59.049
it's Nathan,
a prophet of David,

53:59.050 --> 54:03.730
and also in the harrowing of
hell which is Inferno IV,

54:03.730 --> 54:07.540
where Dante describes what
happens to Jesus after his

54:07.539 --> 54:09.779
death,
what does he do?

54:09.780 --> 54:11.570
He harrows hell.

54:11.570 --> 54:12.370
He goes into hell.

54:12.369 --> 54:13.739
What is he doing in hell?

54:13.739 --> 54:16.719
He goes there to take the
patriarchs and the women of

54:16.719 --> 54:18.609
Israel and take them to heaven.

54:18.610 --> 54:22.260
That's--these are facts--you
want to change your question or

54:22.255 --> 54:25.955
I can go on telling you more and
answering the real questions

54:25.963 --> 54:29.513
that you are raising,
that is to say the relationship

54:29.505 --> 54:33.125
between Christianity and Judaism
and the other religions.

54:33.130 --> 54:34.980
You want me to talk about that?

54:34.980 --> 54:37.300
Student:  That's
definitely the issue that I

54:37.295 --> 54:37.615
have.

54:37.619 --> 54:38.989
Whether Dante--I guess like I
said before,

54:38.989 --> 54:43.279
I guess by having Jews in
Paradise and having the

54:43.275 --> 54:47.555
figure of Christ come in and
collect the patriarchs,

54:47.559 --> 54:52.109
if he's trying to integrate
Judaism within Christianity or

54:52.114 --> 54:55.314
somehow to find a way between
the two?

54:55.309 --> 54:56.399
Prof: Yes.

54:56.402 --> 55:00.202
That is--so you're interested
especially about Dante's sense

55:00.195 --> 55:03.855
of--the relationship between
Christianity and Judaism?

55:03.860 --> 55:07.340
Do you want me to also address
the other issue of the way he

55:07.338 --> 55:09.578
looks at the Hindus and the
Muslims?

55:09.579 --> 55:12.469
We talked about Dante and the
other religions.

55:12.469 --> 55:15.739
In fact, when I--when we talked
about Dante's relationship with

55:15.740 --> 55:18.380
a sense of Christianity to the
other religions,

55:18.380 --> 55:22.300
I never mentioned the Jews and
probably that to you may have

55:22.300 --> 55:24.560
been a kind of glaring omission.

55:24.559 --> 55:27.199
This guy is talking about the
big religions,

55:27.202 --> 55:29.972
what about the matriarchs of
the religions?

55:29.969 --> 55:34.199
The Judaism--it's likely--I
occasionally thought maybe I

55:34.202 --> 55:37.392
should say something,
and then I said no because

55:37.391 --> 55:39.821
Dante doesn't talk about it and
so I wouldn't.

55:39.820 --> 55:44.950
Dante does talk when he
has--and he is not the only one,

55:44.949 --> 55:48.919
centuries before him they were
talking--

55:48.920 --> 55:54.480
a man like--a great theologian
by the name of Bonaventure,

55:54.480 --> 55:56.960
a professor of theology at the
University of Paris.

55:56.960 --> 56:03.220
I mentioned that text I'm sure,
and the year 1274 which is also

56:03.217 --> 56:07.387
the year of his death,
he was invited to Paris,

56:07.389 --> 56:10.069
he was teaching there,
because he was invited to

56:10.065 --> 56:12.485
deliver a number of lectures and
he gives these lectures,

56:12.489 --> 56:16.919
and then he goes on talking
about the other religions,

56:16.920 --> 56:22.410
the religions he knows:
Hindu and the Muslim religion.

56:22.409 --> 56:26.619
It's an argument--I mention
that because it seems to me that

56:26.621 --> 56:31.191
Dante follows Bonaventure fairly
closely when in the canto of St.

56:31.190 --> 56:34.400
Francis, Canto X,
the description of the--that

56:34.402 --> 56:35.332
legend of St.

56:35.331 --> 56:39.401
Francis, Francis is said to
have gone to the sultan to try

56:39.400 --> 56:45.350
to convert him and fails,
and then Dante also talks of

56:45.347 --> 56:49.237
the Hindus,
with the reference to the

56:49.237 --> 56:49.967
Ganges.

56:49.969 --> 56:53.449
When talking about justice,
Dante is talking about Europe,

56:53.449 --> 56:57.279
but in between he alludes to
the--he talks about the Persians

56:57.282 --> 57:00.432
and the Hindu,
the guy from the Hin who is

57:00.434 --> 57:04.024
born on the river Hindus,
he says you are of the Hindus.

57:04.019 --> 57:07.509
What is the conception there?

57:07.510 --> 57:10.430
The critique,
they are talking as Christians

57:10.434 --> 57:14.654
and they are talking from the
point of view of Christianity.

57:14.650 --> 57:19.440
The position that Bonaventure
will have, and Dante I think

57:19.440 --> 57:22.130
follows him, is the following.

57:22.130 --> 57:26.080
How does it--how it can be--can
they be distinguished?

57:26.079 --> 57:27.409
What do they share?

57:27.409 --> 57:29.039
They talk about what they share.

57:29.039 --> 57:30.729
What do they have in common?

57:30.730 --> 57:35.860
They have in common,
especially with the case of the

57:35.860 --> 57:40.490
Muslims, the biblical--the
Jewish tradition.

57:40.489 --> 57:44.389
Let me just not mince words
here, the Jewish tradition,

57:44.393 --> 57:47.433
that's really the common matrix
for him.

57:47.429 --> 57:51.679
He also notices differences,
that for instance,

57:51.679 --> 57:56.299
the theology of the Hindus is
one that presumes the

57:56.300 --> 58:00.090
diffusiveness of God into all
things.

58:00.090 --> 58:04.540
That's not--I don't think
that's something that unusual.

58:04.539 --> 58:05.999
What does it imply?

58:06.000 --> 58:10.880
Because they become critical of
it, it then implies the

58:10.878 --> 58:16.298
difficulty of making judgments
about what's good and evil.

58:16.300 --> 58:20.520
If God is everywhere you have
to--the sacrality of all things,

58:20.518 --> 58:23.228
which is a great idea,
and yet there are some aspects

58:23.228 --> 58:26.198
of reality where you don't like
to think that they are all

58:26.197 --> 58:26.717
alike.

58:26.719 --> 58:31.379
There is a way in which--this
is pantheism and can become--

58:31.380 --> 58:36.030
therefore can become--can be
critiqued as the lack of

58:36.027 --> 58:40.047
distinctions and hierarchies,
and ordering.

58:40.050 --> 58:44.420
When they come to the Muslims,
since the Muslim religion is

58:44.422 --> 58:48.572
one that talks about the
absolute impenetrability of the

58:48.570 --> 58:52.870
human mind cannot ever hope to
understand the Divine.

58:52.869 --> 58:57.729
We are here at the mercy of God
and we live only by the mercy of

58:57.726 --> 58:58.186
God.

58:58.190 --> 59:01.600
We cannot go on and say,
but I live by reason and I die

59:01.597 --> 59:04.057
by reason, and I can get to know
God.

59:04.059 --> 59:07.869
There is a great distance
between the human and the

59:07.873 --> 59:08.563
Divine.

59:08.559 --> 59:10.229
That's the critique.

59:10.230 --> 59:13.650
If this is true then we have
nothing to--

59:13.650 --> 59:16.390
there is an absolute
transcendence and he sees

59:16.387 --> 59:19.787
Christianity as that which
literally mediates between the

59:19.793 --> 59:22.903
two because there is that
transcendence and absolute

59:22.896 --> 59:26.596
transcendence of God,
the way the Muslims understand

59:26.601 --> 59:30.071
it, but there is also a
possibility of a mediation.

59:30.070 --> 59:33.010
Not total mediation the way the
Hindus understand it,

59:33.010 --> 59:35.890
but the mediation of the cross,
the mediation of the

59:35.894 --> 59:36.804
incarnation.

59:36.800 --> 59:39.220
This is the way Dante takes the
other religions.

59:39.219 --> 59:42.269
When it comes to the pagan
religions,

59:42.268 --> 59:45.768
not because they are the pagan
religions for instance,

59:45.768 --> 59:51.318
and Dante there follows very
much the pagan religion,

59:51.320 --> 59:53.770
the religion of the Greeks,
the religion of the Romans.

59:53.768 --> 59:55.788
Dante follows very much St.

59:55.793 --> 59:59.993
Augustine, who is the one who
talks at length about these

59:59.989 --> 1:00:00.739
issues.

1:00:00.739 --> 1:00:06.079
That's the ambiguity;
there are adumbrations of the

1:00:06.079 --> 1:00:10.639
Divine, but at the same time,
they can become also

1:00:10.641 --> 1:00:14.741
blasphemous idols of the
infernal powers.

1:00:14.739 --> 1:00:17.759
There is this way of really the
smashing, if you wish,

1:00:17.755 --> 1:00:18.605
of the idols.

1:00:18.610 --> 1:00:22.760
When it comes to Judaism,
which is really the question

1:00:22.757 --> 1:00:25.887
that--with which you started
actually.

1:00:25.889 --> 1:00:31.889
I think that Dante is--I talked
about that.

1:00:31.889 --> 1:00:33.579
I shouldn't say that I didn't
talk about it.

1:00:33.579 --> 1:00:39.059
You may recall that I made a
point in--

1:00:39.059 --> 1:00:42.689
at the beginning of the
readings of the poem,

1:00:42.690 --> 1:00:47.550
maybe I was not--it didn't seem
to be very important,

1:00:47.550 --> 1:00:51.470
it was important to me;
I sort of went on talking a

1:00:51.469 --> 1:00:56.209
little bit at length about the
question of birth.

1:00:56.210 --> 1:01:00.830
You remember how there are some
characters, representations,

1:01:00.829 --> 1:01:02.159
all characters?

1:01:02.159 --> 1:01:04.329
Dante continues,
I could have said the same

1:01:04.329 --> 1:01:06.189
thing in the prayer to the
Virgin;

1:01:06.190 --> 1:01:09.730
Virgin, mother,
daughter of your son;

1:01:09.730 --> 1:01:14.530
two birds in one stone,
in half a line as it were.

1:01:14.530 --> 1:01:18.210
Daughter of your son,
Dante focuses on birth.

1:01:18.210 --> 1:01:20.870
I did say, I went on talking
since--

1:01:20.869 --> 1:01:22.379
Dante talks like this about
Virgil,

1:01:22.380 --> 1:01:25.840
then talks about the birth of
Francesca,

1:01:25.840 --> 1:01:30.070
Giacco in Canto VI,
Farinata in Canto X,

1:01:30.070 --> 1:01:32.430
endlessly talks about this
whole issue.

1:01:32.429 --> 1:01:36.869
Then I went on talking,
this concern with birth is

1:01:36.871 --> 1:01:39.501
specifically Roman,
I said.

1:01:39.500 --> 1:01:44.760
This is really a Roman insight
into the importance--it's really

1:01:44.757 --> 1:01:49.927
what distinguishes the Greek
tragic understanding of birth.

1:01:49.929 --> 1:01:52.499
Children can really become a
curse in--

1:01:52.500 --> 1:01:56.270
when you read the
Thebaid, for instance,

1:01:56.268 --> 1:01:57.928
where you read the story of
Oedipus,

1:01:57.929 --> 1:02:02.349
with Statius being half Greek,
sort of incorporates.

1:02:02.349 --> 1:02:05.009
Then I added,
after saying that this a Roman

1:02:05.007 --> 1:02:08.407
concern, because it's the
whole--it's tied to the notion

1:02:08.407 --> 1:02:09.517
of foundation.

1:02:09.518 --> 1:02:12.988
The Roman idea that you can
start things over and over again

1:02:12.987 --> 1:02:16.507
with the foundations of cities
and the birth being the way in

1:02:16.514 --> 1:02:19.504
which nature becomes historical,
and therefore,

1:02:19.498 --> 1:02:22.448
I potentially like all of you
potentially can change

1:02:22.445 --> 1:02:23.885
everything around you.

1:02:23.889 --> 1:02:26.189
It's not true,
as someone at a round table the

1:02:26.188 --> 1:02:29.048
other night in my department,
was saying that you have no

1:02:29.050 --> 1:02:30.890
experience, there are no events.

1:02:30.889 --> 1:02:33.219
Of course there are experiences
and events,

1:02:33.219 --> 1:02:36.399
every birth is an event,
that's Dante's understanding

1:02:36.400 --> 1:02:39.470
because he can change history,
he can change the future.

1:02:39.469 --> 1:02:42.549
After making these statements
that that's a Roman idea,

1:02:42.545 --> 1:02:45.275
and or Dante that's crucial
because he's a Roman,

1:02:45.280 --> 1:02:47.560
and he thinks of himself as a
Roman;

1:02:47.559 --> 1:02:50.269
Florence is the daughter of
Rome.

1:02:50.268 --> 1:02:55.698
Then I added that this is also
a Jewish idea of creation.

1:02:55.699 --> 1:02:59.189
That that's really what we
have, mainly the great invention

1:02:59.186 --> 1:03:03.586
that we have in the Bible,
that the world was created and

1:03:03.588 --> 1:03:06.868
that Dante is connecting two
ideas,

1:03:06.869 --> 1:03:10.679
a Roman and a Jewish idea,
which are miraculously

1:03:10.677 --> 1:03:11.707
convergent.

1:03:11.710 --> 1:03:16.000
Is this an act of useful
patience because that's really

1:03:16.000 --> 1:03:18.860
the--what I read in your
question.

1:03:18.860 --> 1:03:21.070
Is that an appropriation?

1:03:21.065 --> 1:03:22.295
It's culture.

1:03:22.300 --> 1:03:25.630
I think that that's really what
you do, but you can say that

1:03:25.625 --> 1:03:26.635
about the Bible.

1:03:26.639 --> 1:03:30.509
You read, the Bible is a
reading of history,

1:03:30.514 --> 1:03:33.764
over 800 years of its
composition.

1:03:33.760 --> 1:03:37.950
It's a reading of events around
them and the culture,

1:03:37.949 --> 1:03:40.929
and that's exactly what Dante
does.

1:03:40.929 --> 1:03:46.649
How does he look at--he thinks
that the Jews--

1:03:46.650 --> 1:03:50.260
I guess he's really saying they
are not Christians but they

1:03:50.259 --> 1:03:53.619
believe in a Christ to come and
that will save them.

1:03:53.619 --> 1:03:58.389
This really means that there is
an acknowledgement of the

1:03:58.393 --> 1:04:02.743
dignity and certainly
originality of that vision.

1:04:02.739 --> 1:04:05.289
I answered clearly;
you may agree,

1:04:05.291 --> 1:04:07.351
you may not agree,
but it's clear.

1:04:07.349 --> 1:04:08.839
We agree about that.

1:04:08.840 --> 1:04:21.840


1:04:21.840 --> 1:04:30.610
Student:  I was
wondering if you could just

1:04:30.608 --> 1:04:34.018
brief--
I was wondering if you could

1:04:34.023 --> 1:04:38.153
discuss the presence of violence
in all of these texts that we've

1:04:38.148 --> 1:04:39.178
been reading.

1:04:39.179 --> 1:04:44.169
I'm thinking particularly about
the Vita nuova and the

1:04:44.166 --> 1:04:49.156
depiction of violence in these
dreams filled with passion and

1:04:49.155 --> 1:04:54.055
very strange representations of
the color red and all--

1:04:54.059 --> 1:04:59.139
as both a lustful color,
the fear of death in these

1:04:59.141 --> 1:05:05.641
depictions of love which reminds
me of courtly love and this idea

1:05:05.643 --> 1:05:12.253
that our passions are sort of
transcendental violent dreams,

1:05:12.250 --> 1:05:14.080
and images that come to us.

1:05:14.079 --> 1:05:17.399
That's one question,
one part, but the other is the

1:05:17.398 --> 1:05:21.578
presence of violence and violent
imagery in Paradiso,

1:05:21.579 --> 1:05:25.699
I'm thinking particularly about
marshes at the beginning in

1:05:25.699 --> 1:05:26.409
Canto I?

1:05:26.409 --> 1:05:31.659
Also, the implied moral
violation of Piccarda and these

1:05:31.657 --> 1:05:37.877
continuous images that remind us
of human violence and passion as

1:05:37.878 --> 1:05:42.858
violence,
and I wonder how they fit in

1:05:42.855 --> 1:05:49.435
with the final vision of
beatitude and human love?

1:05:49.440 --> 1:05:55.280
Prof: That brings us
right back to the relationship

1:05:55.280 --> 1:05:59.380
between the historical and the
sacred.

1:05:59.380 --> 1:06:05.960
Violence is a parody almost of
the sacred,

1:06:05.960 --> 1:06:09.040
and in many ways,
the alibi for the sacred

1:06:09.041 --> 1:06:13.401
because the sacred has to be
understood as that which tries

1:06:13.400 --> 1:06:15.430
to redeem the violence.

1:06:15.429 --> 1:06:20.749
And Dante, you're absolutely
right, never flinches from the

1:06:20.753 --> 1:06:26.263
understanding that the world of
history is an economy of this

1:06:26.262 --> 1:06:27.822
ongoing violence.

1:06:27.822 --> 1:06:29.202
It's true.

1:06:29.199 --> 1:06:35.009
He even addresses you, right.

1:06:35.010 --> 1:06:39.170
The human beings,
the Cato who kills himself

1:06:39.170 --> 1:06:44.780
hoping that with his death he
can bring an end to the civil

1:06:44.782 --> 1:06:49.042
war in Rome between Caesar and
Pompeii,

1:06:49.039 --> 1:06:53.519
but then the violence
that--someone like Piccarda.

1:06:53.518 --> 1:06:57.148
How love engenders violence,
it's an incredibly thing,

1:06:57.152 --> 1:06:59.692
because then they have
perversions.

1:06:59.690 --> 1:07:03.830
It's not just that I killed
because I want to steal

1:07:03.827 --> 1:07:07.357
someone's shoes,
but then there is a way in

1:07:07.360 --> 1:07:12.190
which I think I'm engaged a more
tragic understanding of violence

1:07:12.190 --> 1:07:15.820
because a sort it--
it's so mediated and so

1:07:15.815 --> 1:07:17.435
disguised as love.

1:07:17.440 --> 1:07:21.580
I can love, from Paolo and
Francesca, and yet that

1:07:21.583 --> 1:07:24.123
engenders a lot of violence.

1:07:24.119 --> 1:07:28.499
Dante has gone through all the
phases for this sort of

1:07:28.500 --> 1:07:29.410
thinking.

1:07:29.409 --> 1:07:32.509
That of thinking that maybe
that's really what history is

1:07:32.507 --> 1:07:35.337
about;
it's all about violence and

1:07:35.338 --> 1:07:40.668
that any effort at redemption,
Christ's redemption of

1:07:40.666 --> 1:07:47.016
violence, that's really what the
whole story of Christian

1:07:47.023 --> 1:07:49.523
salvation is about.

1:07:49.518 --> 1:07:52.628
Dante mentions that,
this is not a kind of an

1:07:52.630 --> 1:07:56.730
opinion, Dante will mention it
in Inferno XXXIII.

1:07:56.730 --> 1:08:00.760
Remember, with the story of
Ugolino,

1:08:00.760 --> 1:08:05.350
in the background of that
scene, of that famous

1:08:05.351 --> 1:08:09.251
cannibalizing,
that is the story of the

1:08:09.246 --> 1:08:13.176
children have been killed,
two of his children,

1:08:13.182 --> 1:08:17.032
and that's always the death of
the innocent is really the

1:08:17.028 --> 1:08:19.278
beginning--
what happens to the children?

1:08:19.279 --> 1:08:22.909
We can go on arguing but what
about these kids?

1:08:22.908 --> 1:08:25.568
We have no response of what is
innocent as Dante says,

1:08:25.569 --> 1:08:28.759
and then you overhear in the
background,

1:08:28.760 --> 1:08:33.710
and I think that Dante wants us
to overhear the experience of

1:08:33.712 --> 1:08:38.332
the cross that was meant to
redeem of violence but didn't

1:08:38.333 --> 1:08:41.993
seem to work,
so there is a way in which he

1:08:41.992 --> 1:08:45.722
thinks violence has--
to the notion and to the god of

1:08:45.720 --> 1:08:50.060
violence,
even the redemption succumbs to

1:08:50.060 --> 1:08:51.570
that vision.

1:08:51.569 --> 1:08:56.659
The idea of redemption loses in
connection with--and in relation

1:08:56.658 --> 1:08:57.788
to violence.

1:08:57.788 --> 1:09:04.058
That would be the way we can
come to understand it.

1:09:04.060 --> 1:09:06.180
There are a number of other
extensions,

1:09:06.180 --> 1:09:10.390
even when we read Dante will
say, when we read,

1:09:10.390 --> 1:09:13.490
it seems to be such an
innocuous bland operation that

1:09:13.494 --> 1:09:17.194
we're engaged in,
in the quiet of our studies,

1:09:17.194 --> 1:09:21.934
etc., then we are still
violating the integrity of the

1:09:21.934 --> 1:09:22.654
text.

1:09:22.649 --> 1:09:26.219
We still extract,
we still break up that unity,

1:09:26.220 --> 1:09:30.970
we isolate the passage,
we make part of what we want,

1:09:30.970 --> 1:09:34.720
what we want it to signify,
hermeneutics is linked,

1:09:34.720 --> 1:09:37.340
interpretation is linked to an
experience of violence.

1:09:37.340 --> 1:09:38.900
What gives?

1:09:38.899 --> 1:09:41.899
We agree there,
that was your question,

1:09:41.904 --> 1:09:46.734
how does Dante get beyond that
and somehow manage to arrive to

1:09:46.729 --> 1:09:48.469
a beatific vision?

1:09:48.470 --> 1:09:53.370
I think that what Dante is
doing is denouncing all forms of

1:09:53.368 --> 1:09:57.088
violence, confessing to them,
admitting them,

1:09:57.086 --> 1:09:58.856
dramatizing them.

1:09:58.859 --> 1:10:01.689
It doesn't mean that he's
espousing them or he shares

1:10:01.685 --> 1:10:04.025
them,
the whole point of the

1:10:04.028 --> 1:10:08.148
Divine Comedy is to
acknowledge that it lodges --

1:10:08.149 --> 1:10:11.849
it, violence -- lodges even in
him and within him,

1:10:11.850 --> 1:10:16.870
but he wants to move beyond it
and that's the ascetic aspect of

1:10:16.868 --> 1:10:20.248
his text,
ascetic in the sense that he's

1:10:20.252 --> 1:10:25.162
literally climbing up the ladder
of transcending that which is

1:10:25.159 --> 1:10:26.769
holding him back.

1:10:26.770 --> 1:10:30.870
I don't think that--if you are
looking for way that--does he

1:10:30.868 --> 1:10:32.188
get away from it?

1:10:32.189 --> 1:10:36.369
That's really the other
question, does he ever get away?

1:10:36.368 --> 1:10:40.708
Not in the measure in which
he's human and wants to remain

1:10:40.712 --> 1:10:44.372
human, open to these temptations
all the time.

1:10:44.369 --> 1:10:53.289


1:10:53.289 --> 1:10:54.449
Please.

1:10:54.449 --> 1:11:01.259


1:11:01.260 --> 1:11:05.230
Student:  As a pilgrim
who has become a senior citizen

1:11:05.228 --> 1:11:08.798
I have had a question throughout
the entire course,

1:11:08.800 --> 1:11:13.340
and having read Auerbach and
Thomas Bergen and Mary Reynolds

1:11:13.341 --> 1:11:15.741
and others,
the question has not been

1:11:15.743 --> 1:11:18.343
answered for me and I'm not sure
you can either.

1:11:18.340 --> 1:11:22.760
The question is who is Dante?

1:11:22.760 --> 1:11:25.620
As we've been responding to
these--you've been responding to

1:11:25.623 --> 1:11:28.533
these questions here,
I've jotted down human,

1:11:28.527 --> 1:11:31.307
man, citizen,
exile, lover,

1:11:31.306 --> 1:11:34.726
poet, pilgrim,
visionary,

1:11:34.729 --> 1:11:42.639
theologian, saint,
Paul, Teresa of Avila,

1:11:42.640 --> 1:11:45.200
John of the Cross,
Bernard of Clairvaux had their

1:11:45.198 --> 1:11:46.958
visions and they became saints.

1:11:46.960 --> 1:11:48.470
Is this man a saint?

1:11:48.470 --> 1:11:56.750
Prof: Well,
I'm taking a little bit of time

1:11:56.746 --> 1:12:04.296
to answer because you must know;
I think you know that actually

1:12:04.300 --> 1:12:07.680
there are people who think that
he should be canonized.

1:12:07.680 --> 1:12:09.400
You probably do not know that.

1:12:09.399 --> 1:12:11.769
Who think that he should be
canonized.

1:12:11.770 --> 1:12:14.710
Actually, I was actually
interviewed once about

1:12:14.712 --> 1:12:16.122
soliciting my ideas.

1:12:16.118 --> 1:12:21.158
I said I hope not because I
want to teach him for what I

1:12:21.163 --> 1:12:24.923
think he is a poet,
a man of extraordinary

1:12:24.923 --> 1:12:28.413
imagination who divinies our
time.

1:12:28.408 --> 1:12:31.658
That's what I think he is,
the power of the imagination,

1:12:31.658 --> 1:12:36.418
and who understands that the
greatest call on him and on us

1:12:36.416 --> 1:12:41.416
is really the possibility of the
encounter with the Divine.

1:12:41.420 --> 1:12:44.530
I don't know--I hate the
idea--if I were to make a movie

1:12:44.530 --> 1:12:47.280
about Dante--
I have been--sometimes when

1:12:47.280 --> 1:12:51.900
people have been--
I have been mentioning it to

1:12:51.904 --> 1:12:59.414
people actually I would make him
into a rebellious type who seems

1:12:59.411 --> 1:13:04.691
to understand everything that he
touches,

1:13:04.689 --> 1:13:08.549
but he also has a way and
takes, as he should from

1:13:08.546 --> 1:13:10.976
everything,
and transforms it,

1:13:10.975 --> 1:13:14.215
so he has a vision from that
point of view.

1:13:14.220 --> 1:13:18.270
The vision of how the world is
and--he invents the world,

1:13:18.270 --> 1:13:21.740
his world, the world of the
Divine Comedy,

1:13:21.744 --> 1:13:24.354
it's an extraordinary
invention.

1:13:24.350 --> 1:13:26.910
But a saint?

1:13:26.908 --> 1:13:32.388
I don't know what these other
guys have done exactly to make

1:13:32.387 --> 1:13:37.677
them deserving of sainthood but
maybe I'll leave it there,

1:13:37.680 --> 1:13:39.260
I don't know.

1:13:39.260 --> 1:13:39.880
Thank you.

1:13:39.876 --> 1:13:40.976
I think it's time.

1:13:40.984 --> 1:13:43.574
Thank you so much for your
great questions,

1:13:43.572 --> 1:13:44.252
thanks.

1:13:44.250 --> 1:13:46.890
>

1:13:46.890 --> 1:13:53.000