Appreciating the Whole: Dante Now

I am sure that many teachers who teach Dante dwell on the chapter "Il canto di Ulisse" when they come to Inferno 26. And how could we not? Primo Levi's moving account of his struggle to remember the text and meaning of Dante's poem, his difficulties in explaining the details of the Commedia to his French companion Jean, and most importantly, his stunning evocation of Ulysses' dictum "Considerate la vostra semenza," provide an oasis within the horrors of Auschwitz recounted in Se questo è un uomo. When Levi recites those verses, it is as if he too is reborn and able to forget where he is: "Come se anch'io lo sentissi per la prima volta: come uno squillo di tromba, come la voce di Dio. Per un momento, ho dimenticato chi sono e dove sono."¹ If Ulysses' vision of a human potential that ever seeks new and greater knowledge can provide Levi something to hold on to, something to have faith in as he witnesses and is subjected to the most vile inhumanity that we are capable of, then surely we can make the case to our students in the global twenty-first century classroom that this is a poem worth reading. It reaches out well beyond its own moment to inspire us to rise above and embrace a vision of human excellence that defies boundaries of religion, culture, and class.

As Teodolinda Barolini argues, this is in line with Dante's non-stereotyping imagination. If Ulysses represents, in part, a deep and abiding respect for classical culture, Dante also steps out of line with the popular, orthodox culture of his moment in making his usurers of Inferno 16 not Jews but Christians hailing from his own city, with their moneybags prominently emblazoned with their family crests. Barolini notes that "Dante transfers the stereotypic image—the moneybags worn around the neck—from the stereotypic wearers—the Jews who were synonymous with usurers in much of Europe—to contemporary Florentines and one Paduan."²

But this is by no means the only representation of Jews in the Commedia. A full accounting must also consider the razing of the Temple by Titus framed in Paradiso 6.93 as just vengeance and the charge of deicide leveled against "Giudei" in Paradiso 7.47. Before we get to these moments, we have the spiritual competition over vows put forth in Paradiso 5 and Beatrice's exhortation to Christians that they not follow the pull of greed like sheep, lest they be subjected to the mockery of Jews: "Se mala cupidigia altro vi grida / uomini siate, e non pecore matte, / sì che 'l Giudeo di voi tra voi non rida" (Par. 5.79–81). And it is here that we can think once again of Primo Levi as a reader of Dante, as he homes in on a moment far less groundbreaking and far more typical of a cultural paradigm that marginalized him and his community. In Il sistema periodico, when he recounts the fraught atmosphere in the wake of the passing of the racial laws, Levi poignantly expresses his conflicted feelings with respect to how his fellow students and his teachers viewed him:

Da pochi mesi erano state proclamate le leggi raziali, e stavo diventando un isolato anch'io. I compagni cristiani erano gente civile, nessuno fra loro né fra i professori mi aveva indirizzato una parola o un gesto nemico, ma li sentivo allontanarsi, e, seguendo un comportamento antico, anch'io me ne allontanavo: ogni sguardo scambiato fra me e loro era accompagnato da un lampo minuscolo, ma percettibile, di diffidenza e di sospetto. Che pensi tu di me? Che cosa sono io per te? Lo stesso di sei mesi addietro, un tuo pari che non va a messa, o il giudeo che "di voi tra voi non rida"?³

Levi cites Paradiso 5 not in the vein of light and celebration, but as a way of pointing back to the ancient roots of the anti-Semitism that was being directed at him. He wonders if his old ties of friendship, education, and camaraderie still hold or whether the people...