At 17:08 01.12.97 +0100, you wrote:
>Dear members of the Italian studies list
>
>This particular discussion may now be outstaying its welcome on the list,
>but I still want to reply to some of Otfrieds latest points, so here goes:

Dear Tor,

Since nobody has complained, and since others have joined in (I am
particularly grateful for Gloria Allaire's pointer to the parallel between
Pg 5 and If 5, something which I had not yet taken into account, and for
John Barnes' reference to Peter Armours contribution), I think that we can
confidently assume that this discussion is not unwelcome.

In your analysis of how much or how little the souls in Pg 3-6 expect from
their living relatives, you wrote:

>[...] 4: Some souls are cheerfull about their
>prospects for intercession, others are unhappy, or despairing. This bit of
>Purgatorio, from Purg. 3 to 6 is that bit of the Commedia which is most
>preoccupied with the question of intercession, as all the souls
>Dante-wanderer meets between Manfredi and Pier da la Broccia speak of it.
>In those encounters which are referred in some length there is an
>alternation between confidence and non-confidence. Manfredi is confident
>that his daugher will, when reminded, pray for him,

A small point, but maybe not entirely irrelevant for the understanding of
Pg 5: neglect which needs a reminder is not an issue in the case of
Manfredi's "buona Costanza". I had earlier tried to explain how the problem
of violent/premature death is connected with the problem of intercession:
premature death was seen as a possible or even likely obstacle to
salvation, because it prevented repentance in life and thus could lead to
the assumption that the deceased was damned to Hell. In such cases
(especially in the case of Manfredi, who had been excommunicated) the
living had a reason -- though not a good or cogent reason -- to believe
that their prayers would be wasted and would even be against God's will.
This is why Manfredi and others who obtained salvation in their last hour
want the "vero" about their salvation to be known among the living. The
question how they expect the living and especially their living relatives
to respond is another matter, and you are certainly right to infer from
Manfredi's words that he is confident about Costanza's response.

 Belaqua implies, by his
>lethargy, non-confidence;

Belacqua is a case per se, not only because he seems not to be a case of
violent death, but also because not even the prospective of Dante-pilgrim's
testimony seems sufficient to raise him from his lethargy. According to his
own logic he is of course right not yet to change his attitude, because the
pilgrim is still on his way up the mountain (and we know from Pia's later
words that the way back to the living is long). But this should prevent us
from inferring how confident or in-confident he is about the **future**
response of the living.

 Iacopo implies confidence by his expression of
>trust in Dante-wanderer's will to help 'pur che 'l voler nonpossa non
>ricida',

This time I am with you, if you no longer insist that Iacopo clearly
expects his relatives or compatriotes to be already praying for him.

> Buonconte is explicit that Giovanna and the others do not care.

Yes and no. He is explicit that "Giovanna o altri non ha di me cura". But
he expresses his hopes, that Dante-pilgrim's testimony "tra' vivi" will
provide help in the future. We don't know whether he expects Giovanna to
respond, but somebody will, that much confidence we can infer.

>Which would lay a pressure, as it were, on my reading hypothesis that the
>next soul would be one confident of intercession. I will accept, however
>that the pressure is weak, and that this is not a point on which my
>argument can rest.

Frankly, I see no "pressure" at all, not even weak pressure. All we can
infer for the case of Pia is that a) she is in need of intercession
(because she had suffered a violent death, and because she asks
Dante-pilgrim for his help), and b) she hopes to obtain this intercession
with Dante-pilgrim's help (because otherwise she wouldn't ask for it). If
there is really a series of alternation at work -- which I doubt --, Pia is
a case like Iacopo, but this would not yet tell us anything about the hopes
she puts into her husband (Iacopo does not refer to his close relatives in
particular, but to the people at Fano in general). She expects help from
the "mondo" (like Buonconte), and her husband may or may not be a part of
this mondo which will pray for her. There is certainly nothing in the whole
development which supports your assumption that he is already praying for her.

 But, to make a more general point of this, these subtle
>ebbs and flows of the poetry are all we have to work with. You seem to
>imply, when you say that I infer too much from my understanding of the
>context here, that each individual episode of the poem should be understood
>in isolation. This is an understanding to which I very much take exception.

Tor, when I say that you make too much **of your understanding** of the
context I certainly do not say that you make too much of the context as
such. May I remind you of my paper which you heard last May at Kalamazoo,
and may I remind you of our private discussions from which you will
probably remember that I have written one and a half unpublished books
about the necessity of interpreting individual episodes as being
constitutive elements of greater compositional units? My papers and books
argue more specifically that in Dante's Commedia the smallest unit
appropriate for scholarly treatment is an entire canto. So we certainly
agree that individual episodes should **not** be understood in isolation,
although we may disagree in our understanding of the given episode and of
its context. In general, I am confident that we have or can have much more
to work with than only the "subtle ebbs and flows of the poetry". In my
work on Inf. 28 I believe to have worked out the precise plan of
composition, a plan based on biblical, exegetical, arithmetical and
aristotelian sources, and which allows, among other things, to correct the
established historical understanding of two of the historical allusions in
the text (the wars of the "Troiani" in v.10, mistaken by most modern
commentators to be wars of the Romans, and the identity of the "Noarese" in
v.59, mistaken by early and modern commentators as a synecdoche 'singularis
pro plurali'). So I am certainly not hostile to attempts of clarifying and
correcting our historical understanding by analyzing intratextual context.
Yet it has taken me quite a number of years to work this out for one single
canto (and with less reliable results for a few more episodes), and so I
may have reasons to be a bit slower than others in trusting their or my own
understanding of context in other episodes.

>One of the great things about Dante's poetic mastery, as I see it, is that
>all the wonderfully strong poetry is made to fit into the great scheme of
>the whole work. So, while I am quite willing to accept that I might at any
>one point (such as here in Purgatorio 5) have misunderstood where the poem
>is going, as it were, I really feel rather strongly that analysis of
>context should have far more weight than analysis of extra-textual
>material, such as old commentaries or other archival material.

I and probably all of us share your strong feelings about the relevance of
intratextual context. What regards me, I have equally strong feelings about
the relevance of extra-textual contexts -- especially contexts in sources
which Dante himself circumscribes as the "bread of the angels" -- if these
contexts can be proven to be the ones which Dante wanted to be associated
by his learned readers. "Old commentaries" are not top of my agenda,
because in my opinion Dante's early commentators (and also their modern
followers, who continue to gloss the text verse by verse) only divulgated
an understanding which Dante himself foresaw for those of his readers who
were travelling "in piccioletta barca". But I don't despise these old
commentaries where their glosses seem to help our understanding, and in the
case of Pia's reference to her husband I still fail to see how the early
glosses are contradicted by the text and its intra-textual context.

>
>>and using too much psychology in others (esp. in your
>>interpretation how much the three persons are still concerned or not
>>anymore concerned with their former lives).
>
>Actually I don't use any psychological reasoning there at all. It's more
>like a word count. [...] Pure quantity tells me that Iacopo's bit of text is
>most about life before death, Buonconte's most about life immediatly after
>death, and Pia's more about her present state, as a disembodied soul
>waiting to enter Purgatory proper. And I maintain that what they say bears
>out their different perspectives, their different degree of maturity.

I can follow your quantative analysis in the case of Iacopo and Buonconte,
but there is simply **not one single word** in Pia's brief speech which
deals with her present state specifically. She wants her present state to
be known "al mondo", that much is clear from the first three lines. Yet the
last three lines deal **exclusively** with her past life (and death).

>
>>b) You base too much on your assumptions on what Dante would have done or
>>would not have done. Pia's reference to her husband is placed in the
>>closing lines of the canto, in the textual position of greatest possible
>>effect, and we simply cannot expect that Dante never leaves anything to be
>>figured out by his readers.
>
>Of course I am assuming what Dante would or would not have done. In one
>sense literary critcism is all about second-guessing authorial intent. But
>your last point is, in fact, an argument for "my" interpratation. I am
>arguing precisely that Dante expects his readers to figure out what each
>bit of text means, not to check at the foot of the page and then go "ahh"
>at the beauty of the poetry.

If this is what you are arguing for, you seem to be addressing your
argument to the wrong audience, because nobody here wants anybody "to check
at the foot of the page and then go 'ahh' at the beauty of the poetry". But
it had been your point that Dante would not have accused Pia's husband of
murder without stating his accusation more clearly, and to this I had
replied as quoted above. Let's avoid to construct each others arguments as
being more nonsensical than they actually are, OK?

>
>>c) You still seem to have difficulties to understand the traditional
>>understanding of the phrasing "salsi colui": these words do **not** express
>>that Pia's husband knows "who she _is_", but they refer to the preceding
>>verse which describes who she **was** and how she **died**, and the
>>traditional reading relates "salsi" especially to this latter point, to her
>>violent death.
>
>Well, yes, I find it impossible, in fact. I feel that making the object of
>Nello's knowledge only the single clause 'disfece mi Maremma' is governed
>not by the text itself, but by the perceived need to make Pia refer to her
>murder by Nello. It would be more natural for the object of Nellos
>knowledge to be the clause "son la Pia" in v. 133, or both the clauses in
>v. 134: 'Siena mi fe', disfecemi Maremma', or all three affermations as a
>whole, rather than making it refer to the single clause 'disfecemi
>Maremma'. Here again there is no objective criterion on which to base the
>reading, it all hinges on a feeling of what the poem "is doing" here.

We are dealing with a case of intra-textual deixis. What we have is a
pronoun "l(o)" referring back to something stated in the text before. It is
certainly not "impossible", but quite to the contrary it is the least
farfetched understanding to refer this pronoun to the directly preceding
statement, "disfecemi Maremma", as most commentators do. It is also still
possible to include the last but one statement, "Siena mi fe'", although we
should be a bit more hesitant here, not only because of the strong caesura
between "Siena mi fe'" and "disfecemi Maremma", but also and mostly because
Pia's birthplace can be assumed to be a more common knowledge which does
not need to be stressed as being a particular knowledge held especially by
her husband. Nevertheless it is possible that "salsi" just means to say:
'my husband knows about my life and death'. In this case the statement
would seem to be trivial and one might wonder why it is made at all, but I
agree -- and I had agreed before -- that this understanding is still
possible, although it seems less preferable to me. But I cannot follow you
anymore if you want us to prefer the most farfetched solution by referring
"salsi" to "Io son la Pia". By this latter statement Pia names herself,
whereas it is only a guess -- or even less, a second guess, for which you
have not adduced any reasons -- that it might also imply the meaning "I am
the pious one".

Apparently -- but please correct me if I am wrong -- you want us to
understand Pia's reference in the sense: "I am a pious person, and was
pious in my life and death, and this can be testified by my husband (who is
still hopefully praying for me)." But this understanding cannot hinge on
anybody's "feeling", because it is clearly contradicted by the
intra-textual context (beginning with "Noi fummo tutti ... peccatori infino
a l'ultima ora" Pg 5,51s.).


>>It is true that the way how Pia refers to her husband does
>>not necessarily imply that he was responsible for this violent death, but
>>in my opinion it would be far more speculative to understand her as
>>referring to a loving widower who is praying for the salvation of his
>>somehow violently deceased wife.
>
>Yet that is the relation between politics and domestic life for the other
>encounters here. Iacopo, native of Fano, killed on the orders of the
>prince of Ferrara, seeks intercession from the people of Fano. Buonconte,
>killed in battle at Campaldino, laments the lack of due intercession from
>Giovanna. The 'forza' here is always political. Members of the family have
>the power, which, granted, they do not always use, to alleviate the
>suffering after death. About Pia's death we must assume that it was in some
>way an act of political violence, and that it took place, or had its cause
>in Maremma. Domestic violence is not a theme here, intercession by the
>living, based on affective links, is.

You obviously need to check your understanding of intercession. Members of
the family have no more and no less power to alleviate the sufferings of
the deceased than every other living soul has. Consanguinity is regarded as
causing a natural bond of affection which usually makes one more prompt
than others to pray for ones dead relatives. Marriage by vow and sacrament
establishes a special bond of mutual service which does not expire for the
remaining partner when one of the partners dies. That's why relatives and
husbands are the first to be expected to pray. If they don't pray, others
who had lived in less close relation or even in no relation at all with the
deceased need very strong reasons -- like Dante-pilgrim's testimony -- to
pray. We have consanguinity in the case of Manfredi and Costanza; we have
civil bonds -- and maybe more -- in the case of Iacopo, who hopes that
people at Fano (and maybe especially members of his own family) will pray
for him when they learn about his actual state; in the case of Buonconte we
have nuptial relations with regard to Giovanna (although we don't know
whether he expects her, too, to pray in future) and no specific relations
at all with regard to the "vivi"; and in the case of Pia we have no
specific relations with the "mondo" where she hopes to find living souls
ready to pray for her, and nuptial relations with her husbands, whom she
does not address explicitly as somebody who would or who would not pray for
her.

What regards the circumstances under which these persons were killed, there
is absolutely no reason why death on the battlefield (Manfredi, Buonconte)
and insidious murder for political motives (Iacopo) -- i.e. motives which
for Dante are not something which could be seen as relevant only on the
supra-individual level and disconnected from individual ambition and
avarice -- should not be followed in Dante's text by a case of insidious
uxoricide. On the other hand, there is also no reason why this uxoricide
should not have had political implications, especially if it is true that
Nello murdered Pia in order to marry Margherita Aldobrandeschi.

>
>
>>d) Lana's words "e seppelo fare si segretamente, che non si sa come
>>morisse" do not imply that there were no rumours about Pia's death. While
>>it is possible that Lana and his followers (I have not checked Cioffari's
>>Anonymus Latinus, who might have a gloss on Pia predating Lana's) inferred
>>their understanding of Nello's guilt only from Dante's verses, this
>>possibility nevertheless is only a possibility, and nothing more. As long
>>as we don't have better, independent sources, these early glosses are the
>>best we have, not good enough for us to reach a safe understanding of the
>>'intentio auctoris', but certainly good enough to document how Dante's
>>contemporaries understood the implications of his verse. And this should
>>have at least a certain weight, although it cannot be conclusive.
>
>Again here there is only guesswork (and I feel that there can only be
>guesswork). To my ear Lana's gloss has the flavour of gratuitous
>invention, and as to how he arrived at it one can but speculate. You seem
>here to come dangerously close to arguing that a generally unreliable
>source can be taken as reliable when nothing explicitly contradicts it.
>[...]

Lana is not a "generally unreliable source", but only a source which cannot
be trusted to give in every single case the exact historical informations
which Dante himself took for granted or wanted to be taken for granted by
his readers. Lana gives some correct historical details about Nello's
person which he (or an earlier gloss which may have been his source) cannot
have inferred from Dante's text. This does not yet prove that also the
detail regarding Pia's death is correct (or is at least the one which to
which Dante wanted to be understood), but as long as there is no
contradicting evidence I do in fact trust this account more than your
feelings about the flavour of it.

It is my impression that you are trying to turn more or less legitimate
doubts into strong convictions or even facts. It is legitimate to have some
doubts regarding the traditional understanding of Pia's words, because this
understanding regards a historical rumour not attested by independent
sources as a clue for the understanding of Dante's text. But in my opinion
this traditional understanding is still in much better harmony with the
text of the Pia episode and with its intra-textual context than your
attempts of reinterpretation. If we have only doubts, but not much or even
nothing to prove them, some moderation in the use of words like
"impossible" or "dangerous" might be in place.

Yours,

  Otfried

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