In a message dated 8/29/00 11:44:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
> Dante's shades (except for the suicides) will get their bodies back
> at Judgment Day, and the reunification will make their torment more
> complete. So any separation is temporary.
>
> Regards,
> Jim Kerbaugh
Does he actually say this (if so, where)? Or do you just mean we can safely
assume that this was the theological belief of his day?
To me, it's an important distinction. I find Dante deeply pious and
completely orthodox. But he's also a highly innovative poet, who often says
old things in new ways. As a result, the Commedia is loaded with passages
that _seem_ unorthodox...until one studies them closely and perhaps goes back
to the Biblical sources he uses so often. Then one realizes what he's saying
is perfectly conventional. I suppose it's the passages that at first glance
might seem unorthodox that fuel, say, a Harold Bloom, who finds Dante to be
"a rebel," an assessment with which I can't concur.
I should admit people might want to question my rule-of-thumb criterion for
orthodoxy. It seems to me Dante is a very close reader of the Bible. Also
that he takes it very seriously in its traditional sense as Holy Writ, the
word of God. When I find he's based a passage on Biblical verses, I catalogue
that in my mind as orthodox, because it's orthodox (and pious) to treat the
Bible as a supreme authority. Catholicism actually has a divided authority,
because the Bible is taken seriously but so are the practices of the Fathers.
If there were a conflict between what the Church said and what the Bible
said, my sense is that Dante would give the Bible more weight--he just seems
that intense about it. And I'm not the person best qualified to evaluate what
this means in assessing his orthodoxy. Sometimes he plays with fairly obscure
Biblical verses, not the ones people usually remember. Also, artists tend to
remember one kind of Biblical passage (the kind with striking visual images)
and theologians tend to remember another (the kind with obvious "theological"
messages). So there's a disparity right off the bat between Dante and many
of his annotators.
In any case, Jim, if what you mean is that there were certain theological
beliefs in Dante's day, and we can expect him to say the usual thing in the
usual way, I'd want to be more cautious. I find him more likely to say the
usual thing in an unusual way...sometimes so unusual that one doesn't
immediately see the connection.
pat
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