Dante's Commedia: Theology as Poetry

Introduction: Dante, Poetry, Theology

Introduction Dante, Poetry, Theology V I T T O R I O M O N T E M A G G I & M AT T H E W T R E H E R N E Dante’s “Commedia”: Theology as Poetry has its origins in an international conference of the same title, held in Robinson College, Cambridge, on December 12–14, 2003. The aim of the conference was to bring together theologians and Dante scholars to address two related questions suggested by our title. First, what are the theological implications of Dante’s poetic narrative? Second, what light do theological considerations throw on Dante’s poem as a literary text? We invited contributors to the conference to offer readings of the Commedia that either examine Dante’s poem as a theological enterprise or explore the intersection in Dante’s poem between theological and literary concerns. When we set about organizing the conference, we were driven by a sense that theologians and dantisti had much to offer each other, and that opportunities for dialogue were much needed. We felt, on the one hand, that theological modes of inquiry could cast new light on Dante’s text; and, on the other, that a close and detailed engagement with Dante’s poetic voice might significantly enrich theological reflection. This sense of the potential value of dialogue between Dante studies and theology was confirmed by the conference, not only in the papers delivered but also in the formal and informal conversations that took place over the course of the conference; and, indeed, by the ways in which the papers originally presented and discussed have developed into the essays gathered in this volume. 1 The title of this volume makes the claim that theology is fully integrated with poetry in the Commedia. However, the notion of Dante’s “theology as poetry,” which the essays collected here variously explore, requires introduction. Most immediately, it is important to remind ourselves that for many of Dante’s readers—from the Middle Ages to the present—the idea of an intersection between theology and poetry in the Commedia has not been uncontroversial.1 In the context of modern Dante scholarship, for example, the frequently cited distinction by Benedetto Croce between poesia and non-poesia in the Commedia—as though the “nonpoetic” elements, including the theological, were an add-on, and an undesirable one at that, to the true lyrical and dramatic work of poetry—suggests a differentiation between form and content, between poetry and theology.2 More recent scholarship, however, has worked to remove such dichotomies. Critics as different as Erich Auerbach and Charles Singleton, in the mid-twentieth century, have provided an important foundation in moving beyond the tendency to denigrate the theological in Dante’s Commedia.3 Further vital possibilities have been opened up by the seminal works of other twentieth-century critics working in different traditions, such as Bruno Nardi, Étienne Gilson, and Kenelm Foster.4 Successive works of scholarship have shown, first, that Dante’s theology is intellectually dynamic and in many ways highly original; and, second, that the theological and the poetic are inextricably intertwined in his work. The study of theological aspects of the Commedia continues to develop in richly varied ways. One of the clearest indications of this is in the wide range of theological sources and affinities which are being identi fied in Dante’s text (although Dante’s direct knowledge of individual texts is often difficult to prove). For example, Thomas Aquinas—once seen as the primary theological influence over the poet—now tends to be viewed as a vital but not necessarily dominant part of Dante’s intellectual formation.5 This is partly due to an increasing recognition of the poet’s engagement with broader Aristotelian strands in medieval thought.6 At the same time, scholarship continues to demonstrate the centrality of Christian Neoplatonism, and the importance of Franciscan as well as Dominican currents for Dante’s thought.7 In searching for sources and affinities, moreover, scholars have turned their attention not only to the content but also to the narrative and poetic form of Dante’s theological 2 V ITTORIO MONTEMAGGI & MATTHEW TREHERNE discourse. It has been suggested, for example, that the Commedia can be read in relation to Augustinian frameworks of conversion and confession, or to the rhetorical and intellectual structures of medieval contemplative traditions.8 Most importantly, however...