Alighieri, Dante (1265–1321)

For Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), one of the greatest poets in history, earthly time was intimately related to Judeo-Christian eternity, the timeless abode of God. In his treatise De vulgari eloquentia (written in the early 1300s; sometimes translated as On Eloquence in the Vernacular), he argues that the first language was created by God and would be spoken today if humanity's presumption in building the Tower of Babel had not spurred God to fracture that pure idiom into a myriad of different forms of speech. In both the Vita nuova (or New Life, early 1290s) and his Commedia (The Divine Comedy, c. 1310–1321), Dante transforms Beatrice, with whom he had fallen in love as a boy, into an agent of divine revelation. The allegory is developed systematically in the latter work, in which Beatrice assists the Dantean pilgrim in his quest for spiritual self-understanding and redemption. Significantly, God's grace comes to the protagonist of the Comedy (through the mediation of Beatrice and others) before he explicitly asks for divine mercy: This aspect of the poem is a literary rendering of the orthodox Roman Catholic teaching Dante knew well. Also in accord with the church, the Italian poet believed that human past, present, and future are enfolded in eternity, over which God presides. It is no wonder, then, that Dante should have portrayed the fictional pilgrim version of himself in the Comedy as a struggling penitent for whom, nevertheless, at least the potential for salvation had already been worked out ahead of time.

Dante Alighieri was born in 1265 in Florence, Italy. Although not descended from the most important families in his city, he nevertheless took part in its political life, serving for 2 months in 1300 as one of its seven “priors.” While he was away on a diplomatic mission to Pope Boniface VIII the following year, a rival faction took control of power and, once firmly established, banished various prominent political opponents from Florence. One of these was Dante, who wrote the Divine Comedy and other works in exile. He died in 1321 in Ravenna, where his remains are still located despite repeated entreaties by the Florentine [Page 12]civic authorities for their return. Although as a young man Dante had married Gemma Donati and had had three sons and a daughter with her, he idealized Beatrice Portinari, whom he had known when they were both children and who died in 1290. In the Comedy, this earthly woman attains supernatural stature: She symbolizes, among other things, divine revelation and helps to convey God's intentions for humanity to Dante directly.

Dante's view of time was heavily indebted to traditional Christian thought. He and his contemporaries believed that God dwells in eternity and that human beings, though temporarily confined within linear time, are ordained for higher, transcendent ends. Even from across the abyss between eternity and time, God, in this view, discloses his will to human beings in history rather than remaining wholly aloof from us. To be saved, we are obliged to conform our own individual wills to the divine order, though we are ultimately free to accept or reject that saving grace, as God intended.

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