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Rudolfo BultmannBultmann, R. septuagenario

There are some twenty passages in the Commedia1 where DanteDante, interrupting the narrative, addresses his reader: urging him either to share in the poet’s experiences and feelings, or to give credence to some miraculous occurrence, or to understand some peculiarity of content or style, or to intensify his attention in order to get the true meaning, or even to discontinue his reading if he is not duly prepared to follow. Most of the passages concerned are highly dramatic, expressing, towards the reader, at the same time the intimacy of a brother and the superiority of a teaching prophet. Professor Hermann GmelinGmelin, H., who has listed and discussed them in a recently published paper,2 is certainly right in saying that the addresses to the reader are one of DanteDante’s most significant style patterns, and that they show a new relationship between reader and poet.

Indeed, it is difficult to find anything similar in earlier European literature. Formal address to the reader was never used in classical epic poetry, such as VergilVergil’s or LucanLukan’s. Elsewhere, it was not unknown, but almost never reached the level of dignity and intensity present in DanteDante. OvidOvid addresses his reader fairly often, mostly in the Tristia,3 apologizing, asking for pity, or thanking the reader for his favor which promises the poet eternal glory. These addresses are still more frequent in Martial’s Epigrams;4 MartialMartial creates an atmosphere of witty and polite intimacy between the public and himself. There are, indeed, a few passages on his literary fame which have an accent of earnestness and solemnity;5 but everywhere he considers the reader as his patron, and his attitude is that of a man whose main object is to win the reader’s favor. There are some casual addresses in ApuleiusApuleius’ Metamorphoses6 and in Phaedrus;7 that is all, as far as I know. One may perhaps add certain funeral inscriptions such as the famous epitaphEpitaph of a housewife: hospes quod deico, paullum est, asta et pellege …8 All these examples have little in common with DanteDante’s style.

In the Middle Ages, addressesMittelalterAnrede im MA to the reader, or to the listener, were rather frequent in poetry, both Latin and vernacular. But there, too, the form was mostly used somewhat casually and without much emphasis: asking for attention, announcing the content, apologizing for deficiencies, sometimes moralizing or asking the reader to pray for the writer. Examples from medieval Latin poetry can easily be found in the anthologies or in Raby’sRaby, F. J. E. History of Secular Latin Poetry in the Middle Ages.9 As for vernacular poetry, GmelinGmelin, H. has quoted (pp. 130–131) some introductory passages from ChrétienChrétien de Troyes de Troyes’ Cligès and Ivain, and from the Chanson d’AspremontChanson d’Aspremont (Plaist vos oïr bone cançun vallant …). Such addressesMittelalterAnrede im MA are very frequent in the Chansons de gesteChanson de geste,10 as they are in ancient Germanic poetry. One may add the beginning of the Passion of Clermont-FerrandPassion v. Clermont-Ferrand, or of Aucassin et NicoleteAucassin et Nicolete. In this latter poem, there is also the recurrent formula si com vos avés oï et entendu. Observe, finally, that the first chronicler in vernacular prose, VillehardouinVillehardouin, G. de, constantly addresses his narrative to the reader, using phrases such as: Or oiez … or Lor veïssiez. Most of these forms are not very emphatic; they help give to Villehardouin’s prose that air of solemn story-telling which is one of its charms. The tradition continued with many later chroniclers in the vernacular; it may have some importance for our problem, since VillehardouinVillehardouin, G. de was, like DanteDante, a man who tells the story of a journey to those who have remained at home.11

There appears in the Middle Ages another type of address to the reader, less casual and more urgent: the religious appeal. It is, obviously, nearer to DanteDante’s style than anything we have hitherto encountered. For if DanteDante’s sublimity is VergilianVergil, his urgency is AugustianAugustinus.12 Most of the medieval examples are not addressedMittelalterAnrede im MA to the reader as such; but to mankind in general, or to the hearers of a sermon. They are very numerous, typical specimens are Bernard of Morlaix’sBernhard v. Morlaix De contemptu mundi or Alexander Neckham’sAlexander Neckham De vita monachorum. Similar forms occur also in the vernaculars. One may recall the beginning of Marcabru’sMarcabru crusade-song, basically nothing but the usual call for attention; however, the subject confers upon it much greater intensity:

Pax in nomine Domini !

Fetz Marcabrus lo vers e’l so.

Auiatz que di !

Before ending this rapid inventory, let me say a few words regarding ancient and medieval theories of rhetoricRhetorik. The theorists have never described or listed the addressMittelalterAnrede im MA to the reader as a special figure of speech. That is quite understandable. Since the ancient orator always addresses a definite public – either a political body or the judges in a trial – the problem arises only in certain special cases, if, with an extraordinary rhetorical movement, he should address someone else, a persona iudicis aversus, as QuintilianQuintilian says. He may, in such a moment, call on somebody who is present, e. g. on his opponent, as did DemosthenesDemosthenes with AeschinesAeschines, or CiceroCicero with CatilineCatilina – or on someone absent, e. g. the gods, or any person, living or dead – or even an object, an allegorical personification – anything suitable to create an emotional effect. This rhetorical figure is called apostropheApostrophe,13 and it very often has the character of a solemn and dramatic invocation,14 which interrupts a comparatively calmer exposition of the facts. The classical apostrophe no doubt exercised a deep influence on DanteDante’s style; it was in his mind and in his ears. But it is not identical with the address to the reader; this address constitutes a special and independent development of the apostrophe.

Nor did the medieval theorists mention the addressMittelalterAnrede im MA to the reader as a special figure of speech, for they did nothing but imitate or adapt their precursors in Antiquity to their needs and to their horizon. They do describe the apostrophe; one of the most important, Geoffroi de VinsaufGeoffroi de Vinsauf, devoted some two hundred verses to such a description.15 He considers the apostropheApostrophe as a means of amplification and uses it for moral purposes: his examples are meant to serve as an admonition against pride and insolence, as an encouragement in adversity, as a caution against the instability of fortune, etc. They are highly, indeed pedantically, rhetorical; the purpose of ‘amplification’ is unpleasantly evident throughout. But they are put in the second person, and thus directly addressed to the persons or groups or countries which are supposed to invite criticism or admonition (Geoffroi uses the word castigare). In this respect they closely resemble ‘addresses to the reader’.

DanteDante’s address to the reader is a new creation, although some of its features appear in earlier texts. For its level of style, i. e. its dignity and intensity, it is nearest to the apostrophe of the ancients, – which, however, was seldom addressedMittelalterAnrede im MA to the reader. The compositional schema of DanteDante’s addresses recalls the classical apostrophe, especially the apostrophe of prayer and invocation (Musa, mihi causas memora …). In both cases the basic elements are a vocative and an imperative (Ricorditi, lettor, or Aguzza qui, lettor). Both may be paraphrased and, in some instances, replaced by other forms. The most frequent paraphrase of the vocative is the solemn invocation known from classical poetry: O voi che …, or its humbler variant, the simple relative clause: (Immagini) chi bene intender cupe (much as in the Old French introductions Qui vorroit bons vers oïr). The vocative is an essential element of the address to the reader as well as of the apostrophe in general; the imperative is not essential. The ancient invocational apostropheApostrophe can be complete without any verbal addition (μὰ τοὺς Μαραϑῶνι προϰινδυνεύσαντας …). The address to the reader may be introduced into any discourse or statement whatsoever. There are passages in DanteDante where the imperative is paraphrased by a rhetorical questionRhetorische Frage or by some other expression of the poet’s intention, as in the following verses from the Vita Nuova:

Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore,

i’ vo’ con voi de la mia donna dire, …

Others are even without any imperative intention at all (Inf. xxv, 46: Se tu se’ or, lettore, a creder lento; Purg. XXXIII, 136: S’io avessi, lettor, più lungo spazio …; Par. XXII, 106ff.: S’io torni mai, lettor. …). But these passages too possess the specific intensity of DanteDante’s addresses.

There are two passages in the Commedia where DanteDante uses the noblest and most suggestive pattern, the O voi che form with the imperative: one in Inf. ix: O voi ch’avete li intelletti sani, and the other in Par. II: O voi che siete in piccioletta barca … / Voi altri pochi che drizzaste il collo. … It is definitely a classical pattern; DanteDante knew many passages (apostrophesApostrophe, not addresses to the reader) from classical Latin poets which may have inspired him. There are frequent examples in earlier medieval Latin poetry also (see fn. 9), but DanteDante’s Italian verses have much more of the antique flavor and of what was then called ’the sublimesublimitas’ than any medieval Latin passage I happen to know. DanteDante has used this form long before he wrote the Commedia, at the time of his youthful Florentine poetry. The earliest example seems to be the second sonnet of the Vita Nuova (7). It is not addressed to the reader (no readers are mentioned in the Vita Nuova; the corresponding addressesMittelalterAnrede im MA in this work are either the Donne amorose or, more generally, the fedeli d’amoreFedeli d’amore, and, on one occasion, the pilgrims who pass through the city of Florence). This second sonnet begins as follows:

O voi che per la via d’Amor passate,

attendete e guardate

s’elli e dolore alcun, quanto ’l mio, grave.

This is, obviously, not a classical inspiration, but a paraphrase, or even a translation, of a passage from the Lamentations of Jeremiah (1, 12): O vos omnes qui transitis per viam, attendite et videte, si est dolor sicut dolor meus. Indeed, DanteDante has in some way diverted its meaning from the prophet’s original intention; he does not address everyone who happens to pass, but only those who pass by the rather esoteric way of love: the fedeli d’ AmoreFedeli d’amore. But a little later, in the final chapters after the death of Beatrice (29 and ff.), when he again quotes the Lamentations (Quomodo sedet sola civitas …), the development leads to a new address and apostropheApostrophe, this time directed to a much larger group of persons: Deh peregrini che pensosi andate … (Sonnet 24, ch. xli). And after many years, or even decades, he again several times chose to quote the motives of the first chapter of the Lamentations: in the apostrophe to Italy, Purg. VI, 78ff. (non donna di provincie, ma bordello), and in the Latin Epistola VIII written in 1314 to the Italian cardinals. In the meantime, his horizon had widened; he had long since ceased to address his verses to an esoteric minority. The range of his ideas now comprehended the whole world, physical, moral, and political; and he addressed himself to all Christians. The lettore in the Commedia is every Christian who happens to read his poem, just as the passage in the Lamentations was addressed to everyone who happened to pass through the streets of Jerusalem. DanteDante had reached a point where he conceived his own function much more as that of a vas d’elezione, a chosen vessel, than as that of a writer soliciting the favor of a literary public. Indeed, from the very beginning, he never had the attitude of such a writer. Although he expects glory and immortality, he does not strive for it by trying consciously to please the reader; he is too sure of his poetic power, too full of the revelations embodied in his message. Already in the Vita Nuova, his charm is a kind of magic coërcion; even though much of this work is an expression of grief and lamentation, his voice very often sounds no less commanding than imploring: calling up those who have intelletto d’amore, and ordering them into the magic circle of his verses (recall also the Casella episode in Purg. I).

But only in the Commedia does the accent of authoritative leadership and urgency reach its full strength – and it is there linked to the expression of brotherly solidarity with the reader. The Favete linguis of HoraceHoraz, the musarum sacerdos (Carm. I, 3), may be comparable to DanteDante’s addresses for its authoritative sublimity – still, it remains quite different. It lacks DanteDante’s actual urgency; DanteDante is much nearer to the reader; his appeal is that of a brother urging his fellow brother, the reader, to use his own spontaneous effort in order to share the poet’s experience and to prender frutto of the poet’s teaching. O voi ch’avete li intelletti sani, / mirate … It is as sublime as any ancient apostropheApostrophe, but has a distinctly more active function: incisive, straightforward, upon occasion almost violent, yet inspired by charity; a mobilization of the reader’s forces. To be sure, the imperative echoes VergilianVergil apostrophes, but these were not addressedMittelalterAnrede im MA to the reader; VergilVergil did not, as DanteDante does, interrupt an extremely tense situation by an adjuration, the content of which, in spite of its urgency, is an act of teaching. Inciting emotions and teaching were separated in ancient theory and very seldom combined in practice.16 DanteDante’s mirate presupposes the Christian vigilate; it presupposes a doctrine centered around the memory and the expectation of events. It occurs at a moment of present danger, immediately before the intervention of Grace – just as another passage, comparable in many respects, though lacking the figure O vos qui: Aguzza qui, lettor, ben li occhi al vero (Purg. VIII).17

Other addresses to the reader are less dramatic, but almost all contain an appeal to his own activity. Very often, the imperative is pensa (pensa per te stesso; pensa oramai per te, s’hai fior d’ingegno:18 in other passages it is ricorditi, leggi, immagini chi bene intender cupe, per te ti ciba, and so on. The pedagogical urgency is sometimes very strong, as in one passage just mentioned (Inf. XX, 19ff.):

Se Dio ti lasci, lettor, prender frutto

di tua lezione, or pensa per te stesso.

or in the following encouragement to the reader confronted by an example of very severe and deterrent punishment in the Purgatorio (X, 106ff.):

Non vo’ però, lettor, che tu ti smaghi

di buon proponimento per udire

come Dio vuol che ’l debito si paghi.

Non attender la forma del martire :

pensa la succession; pensa ch’ al peggio,

oltre la gran sentenza non può ire.

The most telling example of the pedagogical attitude is probably the passage on the movement of the celestial spheres, Par. X, 7ff.:

Leva dunque, lettore, a l’alte rote

meco la vista, …19

with its continuation:

Or ti riman, lettor, sovra ’l tuo banco,

dietro pensando a ciò che si preliba,

s’esser vuoi lieto assai prima che stanco.

Messo t’ho innanzi: ornai per te ti ciba.

There is, of course, a great variety of style in the addresses. They include the levels of horrible sublimity, of gloomy humor (O tu che leggi, udirai nuovo ludo, Inf. XXII, 118), of invocation (Inf. XVI, 127ff.; Par. XXII, 106ff.), of friendly advice, and many other intonations. Note one passage, among the most charming, possibly involving a shade of playful humor (though I have my doubts; friendly irony is a very infrequent phenomenon in DanteDante). It occurs in Par. V, 100ff., when in the heaven of Mercury the souls gather around Beatrice and DanteDante, just as fishes in a quiet and limpid pond gather around something which may be food – exclaiming: ‘Here is someone who will increase our fervor.’ At this juncture DanteDante interrupts:

Pensa, lettor, se quel che qui s’inizia

non procedesse, come tu avresti

di più savere angosciosa carizia;

e per te vederai …

Obviously, the originality of DanteDante’s addresses to the reader is a symptom of a new relationship between both, one which is based on DanteDante’s conception of his own rôle and function as a poet. With the utmost explicitness and consistency, he maintains the attitude of a man who, by special grace, after Aeneas and Paul, has been admitted to see the other world, and has been entrusted with a mission as important as theirs: to reveal to mankind God’s eternal order and, accordingly, to teach his fellow men what is wrong in the structure of human life at this special moment of history. The imperial power, ordained to unite and to govern human society, is despised and almost destroyed; the papacyPapsttum has forgotten its spiritual function, by transgressing its boundaries, by pursuing worldly ambitions and worldly avarice, it has ruined itself and has corrupted the entire human family. DanteDante goes so far as to describe this disorder as a second fall of man. True, such ideas were not unheard of: similar motifs had occurred at least since the time of the Investiture conflictInvestiturstreit.20 Yet a great poem in the vernacular with such a content and such an attitude of the writer was entirely new. It implied, indeed, it necessitated a kind of relation to the reader similar to a prophet’s to his hearers: authoritative, urgent, and, at the same time, inspired by Christian charity; trying, at every moment, to keep his hold upon the reader, and to let him share, as concretely and intensely as possible, in the whole experience reported in the poem. The form of the addresses, indeed, is often similar to that of classical apostrophesApostrophe; but whenever DanteDante adapted such a classical form in addressing his reader, he would Christianize it.

Yet there is a limit to DanteDante’s attempt to carry the reader along with him on the journey: the reader of the poem never becomes an actual companion of the journey. DanteDante alone, among the living, has been in Hell, in Purgatory, and in Heaven. One passage, an address to the reader, may seem to cast doubt on his claim. It is the most sublime of all, the beginning of Par. II, 1–15: O voi che siete in piccioletta barca … It is extremely tempting to interpret this apostropheApostrophe as addressed not to readers of a book, but to actual followers on a journey. If one isolates these fifteen verses from the remainder of the poem, such an interpretation would not be difficult. It would imply the explanation of qui (vs. 11–12: … al pan de li angeli, del quale / vivesi qui ma non sen vien satollo) not as ‘here on earth’, but as ‘here in heaven’. That makes sense since many authoritative texts, from AugustineAugustinus to Peter DamianiPetrus Damiani and Richard of St. VictorRichard v. St. Victor,21 describe the beatitude of the blessed as an insatiabilis satietas, where the celestial manna is given ad plenitudinem, sed numquam ad satietatem. One could even go on to demonstrate that only in Heaven one lives really on the bread of Divine Wisdom which is per se vivcativus …22 Yet all this would be misleading. The traditional explanation of qui as ‘here on earth’ is correct; DanteDante’s readers are summoned to interrupt (or to continue) the reading of a book, not a journey through Heaven. For it is not even certain whether, at the moment of this address, Beatrice and DanteDante have already entered Heaven. Furthermore, DanteDante, as the narrator, invariably uses qui for ‘here on earth’.23 Finally, just a short time ago (in Canto I, 4ff.) he has said that he has been in Heaven (nel ciel … fu io) and is now going to report his experiences:

Veramente quant’ io del regno santo

ne la mia mente potei far tesoro,

sarà ora matera del mio canto.

At this point, as always, he remains the man who has returned from the other world and records what he has seen, so that others may read it.

DanteDante was the writer of a book, and the vas d’elezione of a revelation which he had to report in that book. Hence, the book had to combine didactics and poetic fascination; a forceful charming of the soul which particularly suited his revelation, since this was shaped as a sequence of events, as a journey through the other world, highly emotional in all its parts, and linked at every moment to the most urgent problems of contemporary life. The Commedia is a special development of the tradition of the Gospels, which also were a revelation of a doctrine centered around an historical event. As the announcer of a revelation, the poet surpasses his readers: he knows something of the highest importance which they have to learn from him. In spite of the charity that he exercises towards his fellowmen, by imparting his knowledge, and of the fact that, as a human being, he is their equal before God, Divine Grace, by electing him for this special revelation, has rised him above all other mortals. The reader is not his equal. He may well repudiate DanteDante’s message, accuse him as a liar, a false prophet, an emissary of Hell, yet he cannot argue with him on a level of equality, he must ‘take it or leave it’. These last sentences, of course, are exaggerated; the contemporary reader already knew that all this: mission, journey, and actual revelation in Purgatory and Heaven, was poetical fiction. But a fiction so fused with reality that one easily forgets where its realm begins; and DanteDante’s narrative is so dense, so invariably consistent in its linking of true events that some of its realistic suggestion survives, at least temporarily, in many minds. At any rate, his relation to the reader, as expressed in the addresses, is inspired by this ‘poetic fiction’: DanteDante addresses the reader as if everything that he has to report were not only factual truth, but truth containing Divine Revelation. The reader, as envisioned by DanteDante (and in point of fact, DanteDante creates his reader), is a disciple. He is not expected to discuss or to judge, but to follow; using his own forces, but the way DanteDante orders him to do.

I know of, at least, one classical apostropheApostrophe, linked with an address to the hearer, which seems comparable to DanteDante’s loftiest addresses as regards its sublimity and its urgency. It is due to a man who is himself comparable to DanteDante – both had the same psychagogical power, the same partiality, the same vindictiveness and cruelty toward their enemies; also, both experienced an utter failure of all their political aspirations. I am thinking of DemosthenesDemosthenes. In 330 B. C., when Philip of MacedonPhilipp v. Makedonien was dead and his son AlexanderAlexander d. Große far advanced in the conquest of Persia, Demosthenes had to defend his policy of resisting Philip’s power in the past. At the time when he made his famous speech on the Crown, everyone, including himself, knew that the policy of resistance had failed. The battle of Chaironeia (338) had decided against Greek independence and against the course of Demosthenes. In a certain passage of the speech (199ff.), he raised the question whether a policy worthy of the Athenian tradition of defending Greek independence should be condemned because fate had denied it victory. His answer was, no.

Even had we been able, he says, to foresee what was to happen, we should have acted as we did. You followed my advice at that time. That is your glory as it is mine. If you now condemn this policy, as my opponent [Aeschines] requires you to do, that would rob you of the enduring praises of posterity; you would appear not as men who suffer the blows of insensible fate, but as men who have done wrongly.24 But it cannot be, no, men of Athens, it cannot be that you have acted wrong, in encountering danger bravely, for the liberty and the safety of all Greece. No! by those generous souls of ancient times who were exposed at Marathon, by those who stood arrayed at Plataeae, by those who encountered the Persian fleet at Salamis, who fought at Artemisium, by all the brave men whose remains lie deposited in the public monuments. All of whom received the same honorable interment from their country, Aeschines: not those only who prevailed, not those alone who were victorious. And with reason. What was the part of gallant men they all performed; their success was such as the deity dispensed to each.

This apostropheApostrophe of § 208: μὰ τοὺς Μαραϑῶνι προϰινδυνεύσαντας was the most famous passage of oratory in Graeco-Roman history. In modern times, as long as Greek was an essential part of higher education, many generations of students read and admired it. Read after more than twenty-two centuries, in a private study (not, as it once was, delivered in a stormy political assembly by an incomparable master of rhetoric), it still has the power to make the reader’s heart beat faster. It represents the most magnanimous, and also the most violent, attempt to win the support of the audience wich classical literature has bequeathed to us. Still, there can be no doubt that DemosthenesDemosthenes is arguing a cause, and that he awaits the decision of his hearers. He is not supported by the infallible judgment of the Divinity. On the contrary, this lack of an unerring ally becomes his strongest argument. He argues against the Divinity. For his divinity, FateFatum, decides only what happens; it cannot decide what is right or wrong. This decision belongs to the men of Athens, to their conscience, guided by the traditions of their city. Demosthenes, a man of Athens, appeals to the judgment of his equals, the citizens of a community proud of having been, since the days of Marathon, the champion and protector of Greek independence. He does not know the future; the object of his interpretation is the past; and his opponent, AeschinesAeschines, has the same right as he to submit another interpretation of that past to the decision of their fellow citizens.

DanteDante’s position is quite different. The Christian God is not only the ruler who governs the universe, he is also the sole source and the sole arbiter of justice. Therefore, whoever advocates a cause on earth, has to present it as the will of God. Now, God has disclosed his will; his revelation, linked through the Incarnation to human history, involves a providential plan of this history. But the revelation – the Holy Scriptures as well as earthly events taken as expressions of Divine Providence – may be interpreted in many different ways, especially if practical issues are at stake. The ambiguity of God’s revelation creates an uncertainty even greater than that facing DemosthenesDemosthenes and his contemporaries. Their criterion (i. e. their conscience as citizens of a polis) has lost its decisive authority; and the new criterion, God’s will, is inscrutable. Demosthenes’ argument, that one must not judge by the event, has not lost its strength. The argument stands, only its basis has changed. God does not reveal his decision on a particular earthly issue by bestowing victory upon the righteous. The victory of the righteous will be manifest only at the last judgment. On earth, evil will always play its part, and will very often prevail, since it has an essential function in the drama of human redemption.

The struggle over political issues (I use the word ‘political’ in its widest sense) had thus become a struggle over the interpretation of the will of God; DanteDante was not the first to present his interpretation as an authentic one. The appeal to divine authority was the natural and normal way to express strong political convictions in medieval civilisation, as it had been at the time of Jewish prophecy. Indeed, very few of DanteDante’s medieval predecessors had gone so far as to claim that a special revelation had been granted them; and never before had this claim been asserted with such an encyclopedic unity of vision and with such a power of poetic expression. Politically, it was a failure. DanteDante’s idea, the reestablishment of the Roman Empire as the providential form of united human and Christian society on earth, was a lost cause long before the Commedia became known. The life which the great poem won tra coloro che questo tempo chiameranno antico (Par. XVII, 119–120) is not due to its political doctrine, but to its poetic power. Yet DanteDante’s poetic power would not have reached its highest perfection, had it not been inspired by a visionary truth transcending the immediate and actual meaning. The Christian revival of the Imperium RomanumImperium Romanum is the first conception of political unity on earth, and the Christian interpretation of human life as fall and redemption is at the root of all dialectical understanding of history. DanteDante, in his vision, combined both. He reached conceptions far beyond the horizon of Demosthenes’Demosthenes Athenian democracy. Thus it may well be legitimate that he spoke to his readers, as he still speaks to us, with the authority and the urgency of a prophet.