Dante in Purgatory: States of Affect (review)

Jeremy Tambling's volume provides a compelling focus on a complex and intriguing aspect of human experience, i.e. the study of affective states. Viewing Dante's poetic output through the lens of emotion, Tambling explores the myriad ways in which Dante represents the subjective self in his fictional schema of the afterlife. While Dante in Purgatory is primarily centred on the poet's representation of affective states through the figures located in the second canticle, the discussion also incorporates examples from both the Comedy and a selection of the poet's minor works (Convivio, Monarchia, and the Rime).

In the course of reflecting on historical conceptions of the emotional life, in contrast to our contemporary reading of affective states, Tambling acknowledges that Dante's depiction of emotional states in the Purgatorio is not always straightforward or easily captured but, rather, is undergoing a process of transformation. At the same time, Tambling draws the distinction between our contemporary understanding of affective states and the historic dialogue, articulated by scholars over the centuries, about the motivating forces that animate subjectivity and the development of states of affect.

In Dante's Purgatory, the exploration of affective states is evidenced in relation to the seven capital vices. Tambling argues that while Dante adheres to defined notions of emotional states in some instances in the poem, in others he captures a shifting, metamorphic quality, one that is not readily definable.

The notion of transience is particularly suited to the second otherworldly realm, where the purgatorial souls are undergoing a transitional spiritual journey. According to Tambling's assessment of the affective representation of the contrite souls in Dante's Purgatory: 'the possibility of completeness of definition, or assessment of any affective state, has been taken away: states are in excess of what can be held to account, or even confessed. The text's 'modern' quality, in contrast to its ordered medievalism, lies in its extraordinarily engaged attention to such double and shifting states of affect' (p. 263).

The author makes connections with the influential thinkers of the past and present, starting with a discussion of the meanings of emotion and passion as depicted through the ages by Aristotle, Augustine, Heidegger, and others, and then tracing the psychoanalytical understanding of affect as expressed, for example, by Otto Rank, Sigmund Freud, and Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen. This historicization of emotion provides a solid grounding for the author's conceptualization of Dante's scheme of affective states traced through the cardinal vices.

Commencing with the eight temptations (or logismoi) identified by Evagrius of Pontus (the Latin equivalents are gula, luxuria, avaritia, tristitia, ira, acedia, vana Gloria, and superbia), Tambling considers the codification undertaken by Gregory the Great who reduced the eight temptations to seven cardinal sins (or 'tendencies' as they are called on p. 31). In the analysis of the portrayal of vices and virtues that are enacted on the purgatorial cornices, the author provides a synthetic review of the philosophical, biblical, doctrinal, classical, and literary sources from which Dante drew inspiration for his dramatic representations of individual passions, with avarice identified as 'the predominant negative emotion' (p. 195).

Interwoven among the textual exemplars, Dante in Purgatory also offers an illuminating survey of visual representations of vices, for example, in the discussion of Giotto's noteworthy public representation of virtues and vices in the famous Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. In this section, the exploration of the dramatic figure of Envy, who is depicted as a snake-tongued woman (p. 83), is particularly of interest. Similarly, the discussion of the Siren in Chapter 8 is informative and perceptive. Analysing the visual images witnessed by the protagonist Dante as he ascends the cornices of the mountain of Purgatory, Tambling makes the following observation: '[i]n implying an art of the fragment, rendering not a whole but cinders, an art which calcinates, Dante's work brings out the power of death' (p. 95).

In the final chapter, concerning the enigmatic figure of Matelda, Tambling explores...