Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot

by Frank Kermode

  definitely the scene which Dante has put before us iri the preceding lines.

  sh; looks like sleep,

  As she would catch another Antony

  In her strong toil of grace.

  The image of Shakespeare's is much more complicated than

  Dante's, and more complicated than it looks. It has the grammatical form of a kind of simile (the 'as if' form), but of course

  'catch in her toil' is a metaphor. But whereas the simile of Dante

  is merely to make you see more clearly how the people looked,

  and is explanatory, the figure of Shakespeare is expansive rather

  than intensive ; its purpose is to add to what you see (either on the

  stage or in your imagination) a reminder of that fascination of

  Cleopatra which shaped her history and that of the world, and of

  that fascination being so strong that it prevails even in death. It is

  more elusive, and it is less possible to convey without close

  knowledge of the English language. Between men who could

  make such inventions as these there can be no question of greater

  or less. But as the whole poem of Dante is, if you like, one vast

  metaphor, there is hardly any place for metaphor in the detail of it.

  There is all the more reason to acquaint oneself well with

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  Dante's poem first part by part, even dwelling specially on the

  parts that one likes most at first, because we cannot extract the full

  significance of any part without knowing the whole. We cannot

  understand the inscription at Hell Gate :

  Giustizia mosse il mio alto Fattore;

  fecemi Ia divina Potestate,

  Ia somma Sapienza e il primo Amore.

  Justice moved my high Maker ; what made me were the divine Power,

  the supreme Wisdom, and the primal Lo·r.:e.

  until we have ascended to the highest Heaven and returned. But

  we can understand the first Episode that strikes most readers, that

  of Paolo and Francesca, enough to be moved by it as much as by

  any poetry, on the first reading. It is introduced by two similes of

  the same explanatory nature as that which I have just quoted :

  E come gli stornei ne port an /'ali,

  nel freddo tempo, a schiera larga e piena,

  cost' que/ fiato gli spiriti mali;

  And as their wings bear along the starlings, at the cold season, in large

  full troop.

  E come i gru van cantando lor lai

  facendo in aer di se lunga riga;

  cosi vid' io venir, traendo guai,

  ombre portate dalla detta briga;

  And as the cranes go chanting their lays, making themselves a long

  streak in the air, so I saw the wailing shadows come, wailing, carried on

  the striving wind.

  We can see and feel the situation of the two lost lovers, though

  we do not yet understand the meaning which Dante gives it.

  Taking such an episode by itself, we can get as much out of it as

  we get from the reading of a whole single play of Shakespeare. We

  do not understand Shakespeare from a single reading, and

  certainly not from a single play. There is a relation between the

  various plays of Shakespeare, taken in order ; and it is a work of

  years to venture even one individual interpretation of the pattern

  in Shakespeare's carpet. It is not certain that Shakespeare himself

  knew what it was. It is perhaps a larger pattern than Dante's, but

  the pattern is less distinct. We can read with full comprehension

  the lines :

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  Noi leggevamo un -giorno per diletto

  di Lancillotto, come amor lo strinse;

  soli eravamo e senza alcun sospetto.

  Per piu fiate gli occhi ci sospinse

  quella lettura, e scolorocci if viso;

  ma solo un punto fu que/ che ci vime.

  Quando leggemmo il disiato riso

  esser baciato da cotanto amante,

  questi, che mai da me non fia diviso,

  La bocca me bacia tutto tremante:

  One day, for pastime, we read of Lancelot, how love constrained him ;

  we were alone, and without all suspicion. Several times that reading

  urged our eyes to meet, and changed the colour of our faces ; but one

  moment alone it was that overcame us. When we read how the fond

  smile was kissed by such a lover, he, who shall never be divided from

  me, kissed my mouth all trembling.

  When we come to fit the episode into its place in the whole

  Comedy, and see how this punishment is related to all other

  punishments and to purgations and rewards, we can appreciate

  better the subtle psychology of the simple line of F rancesca :

  se fosse amico if re dell' universo

  if the King of the Universe were our friend . . . .

  or of the line

  Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona

  Love, which to no loved one permits excuse for loving . . . .

  or indeed of the line already quoted :

  questi, che mai da me non fia diviso

  he, who shall never be divided from me . . . .

  Proceeding through the Inferno on a first reading, we get a succession of phantasmagoric but clear images, of images which are coherent, in that each reinforces the last ; of glimpses of individuals made memorable by a perfect phrase, like that of the proud Farinata degli Uberti :

  ed ei s' ergea col petto e colla fronte,

  come avesse lo inferno in gran dispitto.

  He rose upright with breast and countenance, as though he entertained

  great scorn of Hell.

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  and of particular longer episodes, which remain separately in the

  memory. I think that among those which impress themselves most

  at the first reading are the episode of Brunetto Latini (Canto

  XV), Ulysses (Canto XXVI), Bertrand de Born (Canto XXVII I),

  Adamo di Brescia (Canto XXX), and Ugolino (Canto XXXIII).

  Although I think it would be a mistake to skip, and find it much

  better to await these episodes until we come to them in due

  course, they certainly remain in my memory as the parts of the

  Inferno which first convinced me, and especially the Brunetto and

  the Ulysses episodes, for which I was unprepared by quotation or

  allusion. And the two may well be put together : for the first is

  Dante's testimony of a loved master of arts, the second his reconstruction of a legendary figure of ancient epic ; yet both have the quality of surprise which Poe declared to be essential to poetry.

  This surprise, at its highest, could by nothing be better illustrated

  than by the final lines with which Dante dismisses the damned

  master whom he loves and respects :

  Poi si rivolse, e parve di co/oro

  che coronno a Verona if drappo verde

  per Ia campagna; e parve di costoro

  quegli che vince e non colui che perde.

  Then he turned back, and seemed like one of those who run for the

  green cloth at Verona through the open field ; and of them he seemed

  like him who wins, and not like him who loses.

  One does not need to know anything about the race for the roll of

  green cloth, to be hit by these lines ; and in making Brunetto, so

  fallen, run like the winner, a quality is given to the punishment

  which belo
ngs only to the greatest poetry. So Ulysses, unseen in

  the horned wave of flame,

  Lo maggior C01'1to della fiamma antic a

  comincio a crollarsi mormorando,

  pur come quella cui vento affatica.

  Indi Ia cima qua e Ia menando,

  come Josse Ia lingua che parlasse,

  gitto voce di fuori e disse: 'Qyando

  mi diparti' da Circe, che sottrasse

  me piit d'un anno Ia presso a Gaeta . . . .

  The greater horn of the ancient flame began to shake itself, murmuring,

  like a flame struggling against the wind. Then moving to and fro the peak,

  as though it were the tongue that spoke, threw forth a voice and said :

  'When I left Circe, who kept me more than a year there near Gaeta . . . . '

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  is a creature o f the pure poetic imagination, apprehensible apart

  from place and time and the scheme of the poem. The Ulysses

  episode may strike us first as a kind·of excursion, an irrelevance, a

  self-indulgence on the part of Dante taking a holiday from his

  Christian scheme. But when we know the whole poem, we recognize how cunningly and convincingly Dante has made to fit in real men, his contemporaries, friends, and enemies, recent

  historical personages, legendary and Biblical figures, and figures

  of ancient fiction. He has been reproved or smiled at for satisfying

  personal grudges by putting in Hell men whom he knew and

  hated ; but these, as well as Ulysses, are transformed in the whole ;

  for the real and the unreal are all representative of types of sin,

  suffering, fault, and merit, and all become of the same reality and

  contemporary. The Ulysses episode is particularly 'readable', I

  think, because of its continuous straightforward narrative, and

  because to an English reader the comparison with Tennyson's

  poem - a perfect poem at that - is very instructive. It is worth

  while noticing the greatly superior degree of simplification of

  Dante's version. Tennyson, like most poets, like most even of

  those whom we can call great poets, has to get his effect with a

  certain amount of forcing. Thus the line about the sea which

  moans round with many voices,

  a true specimen of Tennyson-Virgilianism, is too poetical in

  comparison with Dante, to be the highest poetry. (Only Shakespeare can be so 'poetical' without giving any effect of overloading, or distracting us from the main issue :

  Put up your bright swords or the dew will rust them.)

  Ulysses and his shipmates pass through the pillars of Hercules,

  that 'narrow pass'

  ov' Ercole segno li suoi riguardi

  acciocche l'uom piu oltre non si metta.

  where Hercules set his marks, so that man should pass no farther.

  '0 frati', dissi, 'che per cento milia

  perigli siete giunti all'occidente,

  a questa tanto picciola vigilia

  de' vostri sensi, ch' e del rimanente,

  non vogliate negar I' esperienza

  di retro a! sol, del mondo senza gente.

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  Considerate Ia vostra semenza,

  fatti non foste a viver come bruti

  ma per seguir virtute e conoscenza.'

  '0 brothers !' Is said, 'who through a hundred thousand dangers have

  reached the West, deny not, to this so brief vigil of your senses that

  remains, experience of the world without men that lies behind the sun.

  Consider your nature, you were made not to live like beasts, but to

  pursue virtue and knowledge.'

  They fare forth until suddenly

  n' apparve una montagna bruna

  per Ia distanza, e parvemi alta tanto

  quanto veduta non n' aveva alcuna.

  Noi ci allegrammo, e tosto torno in pianto,

  che dalla nuova terra un turbo nacque,

  e percosse del legno il primo canto.

  T re volte il fe' girar con tutte I' acque,

  alia quarta levar Ia poppa in suso,

  e Ia prora ire in giu, com' altrui piacque,

  infin che il mar fu sopra noi richiuso.

  there appeared a mountain brown in the distance ; and it seemed to me

  the highest that I had ever seen. We rejoiced, but soon our joy was

  turned to lamentation : for a storm came up from the new land, and

  caught the stem of our ship. Three times it whirled her round with all

  the waters ; the fourth time it heaved up the stern and drove her down

  at the head, as pleased Another ; until the sea closed over us.

  The story of Ulysses, as told by Dante, reads like a straightforward piece of romance, a well-told seaman's yarn ; Tennyson's Ulysses is primarily a very self-conscious poet. But Tennyson's

  poem is flat, it has only two dimensions ; there is nothing more in

  it than what the average Englishman, with a feeling for verbal

  beauty, can see. We do not need, at first, to know what mountain

  the mountain was, or what the words mean as pleased Another, to

  feel that Dante's sense has further depths.

  It is worth pointing out again how very right was Dante to

  introduce among his historical characters at least one character

  who even to him could hardly have been more than a fiction. For

  the lnfemo is relieved from any question of pettiness or arbitrariness in Dante's selection of damned. It reminds us that Hell is not a place but a state ; that man is damned or blessed in the creatures

  of his imagination as well as in men who have actually lived ; and

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  that Hell, though a state, is a state which can only b e thought of,

  and perhaps only experienced, by the projection of sensory

  images ; and that the resurrection .of the body has perhaps a deeper

  meaning than we understand. But these are such thoughts as

  come only after many readings ; they are not necessary for the first

  poetic enjoyment ..

  The experience of a poem is the experience both of a moment

  and of a lifetime. It is very much like our intenser experiences of

  other human beings. There is a first, or an early moment which is

  unique, of shock and surprise, even of terror (Ego dominus tuus) ;

  a moment which can never be forgotten, but which is never

  repeated integrally ; and yet which would become destitute of

  significance if it did not survive in a larger whole of experience ;

  which survives inside a deeper and a calmer feeling. The majority

  of poems one outgrows and outlives, as one outgrows and outlives

  the majority of human passions : Dante's is one of those which one

  can only just hope to grow up to at the end of life.

  The last canto (XXXIV) is probably the most difficult on first

  reading. The vision of Satan may seem grotesque, especially if we

  have fixed in our minds the curly-haired Byronic hero of Milton ;

  it is too like a Satan in a fresco in Siena. Certainly no more than

  the Divine Spirit can the Essence of Evil be confined in one form

  and place ; and I confess that I tend to get from Dante the

  impression of a Devil suffering like the human damned souls ;

  whereas I feel that the kind of suffering experienced by the Spirit

  of Evil should be represented as utterly different. I can only say

  that Dante mad
e the best of a bad job. In putting Brutus, the

  noble Brutus, and Cassius with Judas Iscariot he will also disturb

  at first the English reader, for whom Brutus and Cassius must

  always be the Brutus and Cassius of Shakespeare : but if my

  justification of Ulysses is valid, then the presence of Brutus and

  Cassius is also. If anyone is repelled by the last canto of the

  Inferno, I can only ask him to wait until he has read and lived for

  years with the last canto of the Paradiso, which is to my thinking

  the highest point that poetry has ever reached or ever can reach,

  and in which Dante amply repairs any failure of Canto XXXIV of

  the Inferno ; but perhaps it is better, on our first reading of the

  Inferno, to omit the last canto and return to the beginning of

  Canto III :

  Per me si va nella citta dolente;

  per me si va nell' eterno do/ore;

  per me si va tra Ia perduta gellte.

  Giustizia mosse if mio alto Fattore;

  fecemi Ia divina Potestate,

  Ia somma Sapienza e if primo Amore.

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  T H E P UR G A TORIO A N D T H E PAR ADIS O

  For the science or art of writing verse, one has learned from the

  b�ferno that the greatest poetry can be written with the greatest

  economy of words, and with the greatest austerity in the use of

  metaphor, simile, verbal beauty, and elegance. When I affirm that

  more can be learned about how to write poetry from Dante than

  from any English poet, I do not at all mean that Dante's way is the

  only right way, or that Dante is thereby greater than Shakespeare

  or, indeed, any other English poet. I put my meaning into other

  words by saying that Dante can do less harm to anyone trying to

  learn to write verse, than can Shakespeare. Most great English

  poets are inimitable in a way in which Dante was not. If you try

  to imitate Shakespeare you will certainly produce a series of

  stilted, forced, and violent distortions of language. The language

  of each great English poet is his own language ; the language of

  Dante is the perfection of a common language. In a sense, it is

  more pedestrian than that of Dryden or Pope. If you follow

  Dante without talent, you will at worst be pedestrian and flat ; if

  you follow Shakespeare or Pope without talent, you will make an

  utter fool of yourself.

  But if one has learned this much from the Inferno, there are