Dante's Lyric Poetry

by Dante Alighieri

  Although the drama of Purgatorio 30–31 is at the centre of a vast historical and theological panorama, its personal core reflects with strange accuracy the episode of the donna gentile, which ends when Beatrice appears to Dante in “una forte imaginazione [an intense vision]” (VN XXXIX.1 [28.1]). This vision is recalled in the encounter in the earthly paradise, when Beatrice says: “in sogno e altrimenti / lo rivocai [in dream and other ways I called him back]” (Purg. 30.134–5). But, while in the Vita Nuova the vision of Beatrice serves to bring Dante back to the “diritta via [straight path],” according to Beatrice in her purgatorial reprimand stronger methods were required, and therefore it was necessary to show him the realm of the damned:

  Né l’impetrare ispirazion mi valse,

  con le quali e in sogno e altrimenti

  lo rivocai: sì poco a lui ne calse!

  Tanto giù cadde, che tutti argomenti

  a la salute sua eran già corti,

  fuor che mostrarli le perdute genti.

  (Purg. 30.133–8)

  [Nor did praying for inspiration avail me, with which in dream and other ways I called him back: so little to him did it matter!

  So far down did he fall, that all arguments for his salvation were already inadequate except for showing him the lost souls.]

  Here Beatrice states that after her death Dante did not remain faithful to his memory of her, that he was deaf to her continual attempts to “call him back.” What she accuses him of in this scene in the earthly paradise can be classified a form of oblivion, of forgetfulness – thus harkening back to the verb obliare used twice in precisely this way in L’amaro lagrimar (verses 5 and 13). In essence Beatrice reprimands Dante for having forgotten her, in a context in which it is taken for granted that such oblivion will lead to negative moral consequences.

  The moral implications of forgetting madonna are specified for the first time in the sonnet L’amaro lagrimar, where the lover’s duty not to forget is clearly enunciated in a moral contract that stipulates that not even her death makes such oblivion acceptable:

  Voi non dovreste mai, se non per morte,

  la vostra donna, ch’è morta, obliare.

  [Unless you die, you should not ever be

  forgetful of your lady who has died.]

  (L’amaro lagrimar, 12–13)

  Here is an early variant of Beatrice’s position in the earthly paradise, all the more interesting because one has the impression that Dante knows he is staking new ground. He words his precept in a way that forces the reader to come to terms with the new reality: semantic ambivalence leads to an immediate default understanding of verse 12 that is then corrected by what follows in verse 13. The stipulation that you should never forget your lady se non per morte (unless through death) is at first misleading, suggesting that her death will release him, and it is only the subsequent information that she is already dead – la vostra donna, ch’è morta – that brings clarity: the reference to the morte that releases is to his death, not hers. Thus, Dante overturns life as we know it, in which the death of the beloved releases us to “move on” (nowadays psychologists use the label “complicated grief” for the inability to move on).133 In the world as Dante creates it only the lover’s own death is sufficient to release him from his obligation to remember her.

  The new moral precept distilled in verses 12–13 of L’amaro lagrimar is also noteworthy because it flies in the face of the courtly penchant to engage in afterlife hyperbole regarding the beloved’s effects on the lover even after his death. We recall that in Lo doloroso amor the poet declares that his soul will be so intent on imagining his lady that it will be immunized from the pains of hell (Lo doloroso amor, 38–40). And Donne ch’avete shows God reporting the speech of “someone who foresees / her loss and who will say in Hell: ‘Lost souls, I have beheld the hope of all the blessed’” (Donne ch’avete, 27–8). All of this is part of the old narcissism and self-pity of the courtly lover, who imagines his torments in death and hyperbolically affirms that love will render them irrelevant: “sì·cche se ’n questo mo[n]do i’ l’ho perduto,/Amor nell’altro me ·n darà tributo [and thus if I have lost it in this world,/Love in the other will repay me well]” [41–2]). All of this is swept away by the moral rigour and clarity of L’amaro lagrimar, which shows no interest in what will happen to the lover after his death. Rather, the focus is on his unremitting obligation to remember his lady even after her death.

  L’amaro lagrimar reprises the situation of the lover’s grieving and of the consequent pity of “altre persone [other persons]” (3). Rather than investigating the psychology or eroticism of the dynamic between his grief and the pity of others, as in Videro gli occhi miei and Color d’amore, this sonnet passes immediately to the moral danger of the forgetfulness that could result: “Ora mi par che voi l’obliereste [And now it seems that this you would forget]” (5). His grief ought not to lead the lover astray from the memory of her; the aim of weeping is not to solicit pity but to remind him of her: “membrandovi colei cui voi piangeste [by reminding you of her for whom you weep]” (8). Any other objective for his grief constitutes a moral error, a “vanità” that has literally “frightening” moral consequences (the verb spaventare means “to frighten”): “La vostra vanità mi fa pensare,/e spaventami sì, ch’io temo forte / del viso d’una donna che vi mira [Your lack of constancy distresses me / and is so shocking that I greatly dread / the face of her who often looks at you]” (9–11).

  The octave begins “La vostra vanità,” throwing the word vanità, a word that occurs only here in Dante’s lyrics, into high relief. (The fact that vanità is a hapax gives L’amaro lagrimar an unacknowledged importance among Dante’s lyric poems.)134 The use of a word with such explicit moral connotations as vanità – levity, lack of moral constancy and moral grounding – is a clear indication of the special position of L’amaro lagrimar in the Vita Nuova. The term vanità is the index of the sonnet’s special role: it is the only poetic text of this group that contains within itself the explicit moralism that is usually present only in the prose. For example, the prose that introduces the sonnet Lasso, per forza describes the experience of the donna gentile as “a wicked desire and vain temptation” – “desiderio malvagio e vana tentazione” (VN XXXIX.6 [28.6]) – but the “vana tentazione” of the prose is not in the sonnet Lasso, per forza. Only in L’amaro lagrimar is there language that is so clearly moral-istic as “vostra vanità” (9), language that accurately reflects the strong position taken in this sonnet: not staying faithful to one’s original beloved, even if she is dead, is a grave moral error.

  Dante shows us in L’amaro lagrimar that he is already fully capable of bringing a radically new moral perspective into poetry that is only apparently governed by the courtly protocols that he inherited.

  53 (B XXXIII; FB 53; VN XXXVII.6–8 [26.6–8])

  “L’amaro lagrimar che voi faceste, oi occhi miei, così lunga stagione,

  “The bitter weeping you have carried out, O eyes, for such a prolonged interval,

  facea lagrimar l’altre persone

  has made the eyes of others weep as well

  4

  de la pietate, come voi vedeste. Ora mi par che voi l’obliereste, s’io fosse dal mio lato sì fellone, ch’i’ non ven disturbasse ogne cagione,

  for pity’s sake, as you yourselves have seen. And now it seems that this you would forget should I, for my part, be so recreant as not to take away the cause of this,

  8

  membrandovi colei cui voi piangeste.

  by reminding you of her for whom you wept.

  La vostra vanità mi fa pensare, e spaventami sì, ch’io temo forte

  Your lack of constancy distresses me and is so shocking that I greatly dread

  11

  del viso d’una donna che vi mira. Voi non dovreste mai, se non per morte, la vostra donna, ch’è morta, obliare.”

  the face of her who often looks at you. Unless you die, you should not ever be forgetful of your lady who
has died.”

  14

  Così dice ’l meo core, e poi sospira.

  So speaks my heart, and afterwards it sighs.

  METRE: sonnet ABBA ABBA CDE DCE.

  54 Gentil pensero che parla di vui

  Like L’amaro lagrimar, the sonnet Gentil pensero is preserved only in the redaction in the Vita Nuova, although for both these poems De Robertis does not exclude the possibility of a first redaction that has not reached us: “it may be that this poem [L’amaro lagrimar] and the following poem, Gentil pensero, had their own tradition prior to the book [Vita Nuova], without however there being any textual divergence” (ed. comm., p. 411). Even without the existence of a pre–Vita Nuova redaction, Gentil pensero has a substantial part to play in reconstructing Dante’s poetic autobiography. The first canzone of the Convivio, Voi che ’ntendendo il terzo ciel movete, is essentially an extension of Gentil pensero; the second canzone of the Convivio, Amor che nella mente mi ragiona, draws its incipit from the sonnet’s third line (“e ragiona d’amor sì dolcemente” [3]).135

  The canzone Voi che ’ntendendo describes the same conflict between the old love and the new love described in the Vita Nuova. The big difference is that, while the Vita Nuova resolves the conflict in favour of Beatrice, the canzone resolves the situation in favour of the new lady. As a result of its divergent disposition, the canzone does not accommodate the insults towards the new love that we find in the prose of Vita Nuova XXXVIII (27). Even in the Vita Nuova, it is important to note that it is really the prose that escalates the conflict between old and new loves and presents the conflict in harsh and extreme language. The sonnet Gentil pensero is not at all conflictual – although the prose presents it as though it were. In reality, Gentil pensero reports a highly civilized dialogue between the heart and the soul, not weighed down by the heavy moralism added by the prose.

  The prose of the Vita Nuova chapter in which Gentil pensero is located uses Cavalcantian tropes to dramatize a “battaglia de’ pensieri [battle of thoughts]” (VN XXXVIII.4 [27.4]). However, although the mannerisms of speaking thoughts and animated body parts reflect Guido’s poetics, in its essence this battle is not at all Cavalcantian. Throughout the episode of the donna gentile, the Cavalcantian manner is transposed from an existential key to an ethical key: from a genuinely Cavalcantian situation, in which the lover is fragmented, dejected, and “dying” on account of his own existential conflict (see, for example, the introductory essay on Cavalcando l’altr’ier), to one in which the lover has to face an ethical conflict caused by the death of his beloved. The prose of Vita Nuova XXXVIII (27) describes the moral conflict beween the thought of the donna gentile and the thought that stays faithful to Beatrice, blow by blow, starting with the thought of the gentile: “Questa è una donna gentile, bella, giovane e savia, e apparita forse per volontade d’Amore, acciò che la mia vita si riposi [This is a woman who is gracious, beautiful, young, and wise, and perhaps she appeared by Love’s will so that my life might find rest]” (VN XXXVIII.1 [27.1]). To this replies the thought faithful to Beatrice, abrasively defining the new thought in explicitly negative terms: “Deo, che pensero è questo, che in così vile modo vuole consolare me e non mi lascia quasi altro pensare? [God, what thought is this, which in such a base manner wants to console me and leaves me thinking about almost nothing else?]” (VN XXXVIII.2 [27.2]). Here the prose moralizes at the expense of the thought about the new lady, describing in harsh language the consolation that comes from her, which is said to operate on him “in così vile modo [in such a base manner].”

  Another thought arises to defend the new love, calling it “uno spiramento d’Amore [a fresh breath of Love]” (VN XXXVIII.3 [27.3]), but the narrator curtly interrupts the debate to impose his bluntly moralistic and negative judgment. The thought of the new woman is “vilissimo”: “e dico ‘gentile’ in quanto ragionava di gentile donna, ché per altro era vilissimo [and I say ‘gracious’ because it discussed the gracious woman, while in other ways it was entirely base]” (VN XXXVIII.4 [27.4]). Moreover, not trusting the interpretative capacities of the readers of the Vita Nuova and wanting to ensure that they interpret the sonnet correctly, Dante adjoins the allegorical key to reading it: the heart corresponds to appetite and the soul corresponds to reason.

  Let me digress here briefly to note that Dante is aware of the contradiction between Gentil pensero, where the heart plays the “negative” role and must be reprimanded by the soul, and L’amaro lagrimar, where instead the heart plays the “positive” role and reprimands the eyes: “Vero è che nel precedente sonetto io fo la parte del cuore contra quella de li occhi, e ciò pare contrario di quello che io dico nel presente [It is true that in the previous sonnet I take the side of the heart against the eyes, which seems to contradict what I am saying here]” (VN XXXVIII.6 [27.6]). This overt acknowledgment of self-contradiction in the prose of the Vita Nuova is an indication of the authorial manipulations that render the textual terrain in the zone of the donna gentile particularly unstable: it suggests the ways in which Dante is plugging sonnets into the moralizing prose frame willy-nilly and his attempts to manage the reader’s response, which include acknowledging the suture marks of the new construction. These signs of textual stress anticipate the more radical and irreconcilable contradictions between the Vita Nuova and Convivio. The fact that Dante is so overt about his self-contradictions already in the Vita Nuova throws further doubt on the current of critical thought that undertakes to believe what Dante says about the donna gentile in the Convivio – that she was really Lady Philosophy all along – and to make the Vita Nuova conform to the later work.136

  As we were saying, in Gentil pensero the heart corresponds to appetite and the soul to reason. These equivalences, between heart and appetite and between soul and reason, make transparent the ethical parameters: this conflict pits appetite against reason. An identical ethical framework governs the circle of the lustful in Dante’s hell, where the “carnal sinners” are those who allow appetite to dominate reason: “che la ragion sommettono al talento [who subordinate reason to desire]” (Inf. 5.39). The link to the donna gentile episode of the Vita Nuova is evident: although Francesca falls short in fidelity to a living husband, as someone who died for love she belongs to Dido’s sphere (“la schiera ov’è Dido [the group where Dido is]” [Inf. 5.85]), and Dante writes of Dido that she failed to keep faith with a dead husband: “ruppe fede al cener di Sicheo [she broke faith with the ashes of Sicheus]” (Inf. 5.62). With these words Inferno 5 evokes the precise dynamic, although with an inversion of gender roles, of the donna gentile episode.

  But there is no trace in the sonnet Gentil pensero of the ethical framework whereby the thought of the new lady represents the appetite (and is therefore a negative thought) and the thought of the dead lady represents reason (and is therefore positive). In the sonnet the dialogue between heart and soul unfolds in a highly civil manner, without insults and without one thought being presented as “good” and the other “bad.” There is no clear ideological position taken, and neither thought is declared winner over the other.

  The poet addresses himself to the new lady, “vui,” in the incipit, explaining that “A gentle thought reminding me of you” comes frequently to dwell with him and causes his heart to yield:

  Gentil pensero che parla di vui

  vene a dimorar meco sovente

  e ragiona d’amor sì dolcemente,

  che face consentir lo core in lui.

  (Gentil pensero, 1–4)

  [A gentle thought reminding me of you

  comes frequently to dwell awhile with me

  and talks of love with such great tenderness

  that it compels the heart to yield consent.]

  The ethical problem is here presented in a subtle way, in the idea of “yielding consent”: the thought of the new lady, discussing love so sweetly, compels the heart to consent to it (“face consentir”). The sonnet’s nuanced treatment is effectively submerged by the heavy-handed vitriol of the prose
, but a reading of the poem qua poem (and here we remember De Robertis’ suggestion that Gentil pensero might well have existed in a pre–Vita Nuova redaction, like other donna gentile sonnets) should work to establish and patrol its independent parameters.

  The soul reacts with a question that registers almost a sense of surprise with respect to the power of the new love. Asking who is this one who comes to console and drives away all other thoughts, the poet focuses on the theme of consolation and the spiritual compromises that consolation requires of us:

  L’anima dice al cor: “Chi è costui,

  che vene a consolar la nostra mente,

  ed è la sua vertù tanto possente,

  ch’altro penser non lascia star con nui?”

  (Gentil pensero, 5–8)