The Michael Knowles Show - Michael Knowles EXPLAINS Dante’s Divine Comedy

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00:00:37.680 Please pardon this interruption to your regularly scheduled TikTok reactions and political hot takes.

00:00:43.980 We are going to have a much hotter political take because we together are going to delve through the politics of my favorite poet,

00:00:54.400 one of perhaps the greatest artist ever in history, Dante Elighieri, the author of The Inferno, as well as Purgatorio, as well as Paradiso, known together as The Divine Comedy.

00:01:09.000 I gave a lecture this summer at the ISI Honors Program on the politics of pilgrimage, the redemption of politics in Dante's Divine Comedy, as well as his other writings.

00:01:21.180 A little bit more academic and perhaps a little drier than much of what comes on this channel.

00:01:27.040 But I know that all of you out there are very serious people.

00:01:31.240 Crème de la crème.

00:01:32.580 Real kinds of sophisticated intellects.

00:01:36.600 And so I hope you enjoy this journey through hell and purgatory and heaven and politics.

00:01:43.100 Thank you so much for a warm introduction and a great plug for Mayflower Cigars.

00:01:49.380 It's wonderful to be here.

00:01:50.880 Thank you for having me.

00:01:52.280 A real privilege to join everyone for the ISI Honors Program.

00:01:57.120 I want especially to thank Johnny for indulging me with this invitation.

00:02:02.020 Virtually every other lecturer in this program is a scholar with advanced degrees and a laundry list of publications.

00:02:11.660 I, on the other hand, possess no particularly advanced degree.

00:02:17.020 I'm a podcaster and a cigar salesman.

00:02:20.820 I have written just two books and only one of them has any words in it.

00:02:25.340 I am here because over cigars one evening after a campus speaking event last year, Johnny asked me what I would most like to lecture on.

00:02:36.900 And I told him, Dante.

00:02:39.920 I told him I'm sick of talking about politics and I want to talk about something that really matters.

00:02:45.520 And then the moment he gave me this opportunity, I realized that I would still have to talk about politics.

00:02:50.860 Because Dante was a politician and even a political philosopher, and the occasion of writing his magnum opus, The Divine Comedy, came as a result of politics.

00:03:04.360 Before we get into the poem, we need some historical context.

00:03:08.940 Those of you who have read Dante before will notice this is a recurring theme.

00:03:13.620 You need a lot of context.

00:03:15.000 Dante served in political life for just over seven years, from 1295 to 1301.

00:03:23.080 There were two dominant political parties in Italy during his life, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.

00:03:29.460 The Guelphs supported the Pope.

00:03:32.040 The Ghibellines supported the Holy Roman Emperor.

00:03:35.160 Dante was a Guelph, and he fought the Ghibellines at the Battle of Campaldino in 1289.

00:03:40.160 The Guelphs won, and then immediately after the victory, they split into two factions.

00:03:46.700 The whites, who wanted to limit the temporal power of the Pope, and the blacks, who wanted even more temporal power for the Pope.

00:03:55.220 Dante was a white Guelph.

00:03:58.180 A pro-Pope, but also pro-Emperor kind of person.

00:04:02.660 He was the rhino of his age.

00:04:05.640 He was a guino, a Guelph in name only.

00:04:10.160 Eventually, the whites took control, and Dante ascended to Florence's Supreme Governing Council, which is the Priorette, on June 15th, 1300.

00:04:20.080 This is a very important date, because it occurs historically just two or three months after the action of the comedy.

00:04:28.640 Dante begins to write the comedy in 1308.

00:04:32.140 He finishes in 1321, but the events occur in the year 1300, over the course of seven days, from Maundy Thursday through Easter Wednesday.

00:04:42.320 Dante served in the Priorette for two months.

00:04:45.640 In 1301, the whites and the blacks appealed to Pope Boniface VIII to resolve the conflict.

00:04:51.180 You can infer what Dante thought of Pope Boniface VIII by the fact that Dante signals his damnation in hell three years before the Pope dies.

00:05:01.100 With some good reason, we might say.

00:05:05.680 While Dante was entreating Boniface to help settle the civil war in Florence, Boniface sent Charles of Valois, a brother of King Philip IV of France, into Florence with the black whelves to ransack the city, slaughter Dante's friends, and exile the whites.

00:05:22.760 Including Dante, who was stripped of his property and threatened with death, should he ever return to Florence, and he never saw his native city again.

00:05:31.920 Now, I know what you're thinking.

00:05:35.160 Who cares?

00:05:37.720 Why do I need to know about all these political minutiae to appreciate a poem about the afterlife?

00:05:45.820 Isn't the point of eternity that we don't need to care about all this historical trivia?

00:05:51.280 A friend of mine, a very intelligent, extraordinarily well-read friend, made this same complaint to me.

00:05:58.940 He said that he loves Dante because of the cosmic vision of the poem, but he hates Dante because Dante demands so much political and historical context.

00:06:09.860 The references are just so particular.

00:06:12.920 John Milton does not demand that we memorize the annual register of roundheads in order to enjoy Paradise Lost.

00:06:21.280 Dante insists that we learn about Faurese Donati, or Henry VII of Luxembourg, Charles of Anjou, and so many others.

00:06:31.780 This friend of mine, in his exasperation, said that the poem could really be titled,

00:06:36.580 The Divine Comedy, or Guido Pizzarelli Gets His.

00:06:40.420 But that's the point.

00:06:46.020 Politics and the particularity of politics are crucial to understanding Dante's vision because Dante understands that politics is the medium through which our salvation occurs.

00:06:59.160 We are pilgrims who will reach our final destination, wherever that may be, only through history.

00:07:06.660 The journey of our life will not occur through teleportation.

00:07:09.780 Our pilgrimages entail particular deeds done with particular people in particular places, as well as particular words said in particular languages.

00:07:22.700 Languages which are, as Dante's decision to write the comedy in the vernacular underscores, historically contingent and constantly changing.

00:07:31.900 If one were inclined toward academic jargon, one might say that Dante understands the whole cosmos through a hermeneutic of particularity.

00:07:42.260 There is no escaping history.

00:07:45.500 For us, there is no neutral or eternal standpoint.

00:07:48.400 We must always be moving in our minds, in our hearts, and in our bodies, because this is not our home.

00:07:58.340 We are all exiles.

00:08:00.820 The particularity of Dante's exile from Florence is a literal representation of humanity's allegorical condition since our first ancestors ate the forbidden fruit.

00:08:10.420 All of history is, and must be understood to be, a kind of exodus.

00:08:17.260 Dante makes this point explicit in a letter to his patron in Verona, Candrande della Scala.

00:08:22.580 Dante writes,

00:08:23.580 The sense of this work, of the comedy, is not simple.

00:08:28.060 The first sense is that which comes from the letter.

00:08:31.060 The second is that which is signified by the letter.

00:08:34.280 And the first is called the literal, and the second, allegorical, or moral, or anagogical.

00:08:41.420 Anagogical meaning from the end times, from the eschaton, a mystical sense.

00:08:46.320 Dante points to the story of Exodus.

00:08:48.560 He quotes Psalm 113, which he again quotes in Purgatory.

00:08:52.100 When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous people, Judea was made his sanctuary, Israel his dominion.

00:09:02.120 Dante says, in the letter to Candrande,

00:09:04.600 The literal meaning is, the exit of the children of Israel from Egypt at the time of Moses.

00:09:09.680 The allegorical meaning is, our redemption done by Christ.

00:09:13.740 The moral of the story is, the conversion of the soul from the struggle and misery of sin to the status of grace.

00:09:20.080 And the anagogical sense is, the leave-taking of the blessed soul from the slavery of this corruption to the freedom of eternal glory.

00:09:29.060 One line, four layers of meaning.

00:09:31.640 To ask why Dante needs to include all these obscure references to political figures of the 13th and 14th centuries,

00:09:41.680 is to ask why God needs to lead a particular people at a particular time from Egypt to Jerusalem.

00:09:48.700 It is to ask why God needs to send his particular son to be born of a particular woman in the fullness of time in a particular town under the rule of a particular emperor to die on a particular cross.

00:10:02.100 That is simply how God tells his story, which is to say, that is how the story is told.

00:10:08.660 We tell our stories with letters.

00:10:11.160 God tells his story with us.

00:10:12.980 Dante begins his story in a similar way, with the literal and the allegorical, the particular and the universal, all immediately apparent.

00:10:23.320 He begins,

00:10:24.600 In the middle of our life's journey, I found myself in a dark wood.

00:10:30.740 Dante is at this point 34 years old.

00:10:32.760 He's about to turn 35, which is middle age, according to Psalm 90,

00:10:37.080 which for some of us in this room will be the first of many harsh facts that come up in divine comedy.

00:10:45.040 Beyond the language of me and I, there is something even more particular going on in the first lines of the poem.

00:10:51.960 We notice the repetition of the same word three times.

00:10:55.880 Three, obviously, is an important number to Dante.

00:10:58.580 The poem is divided into three canticles, hell, purgatory, and paradise.

00:11:02.800 The rhyme scheme is what's called terza rima.

00:11:05.920 It's interlacing rhymes in triplets.

00:11:10.580 And three, obviously, is the number of the divinity.

00:11:13.920 The repeated word is selva, wood.

00:11:17.940 The translations don't preserve the repetition, but in the Italian we read,

00:11:21.900 Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,

00:11:27.260 che la dritta vera smerita, hai quanto a dir quale era cosa dura,

00:11:30.280 è sta selva, selvaggia, è aspre forte, che nel pensiero rinnova la paura.

00:11:35.100 Selva, selva, selvaggia.

00:11:37.100 So in selvaggia, there's the meaning of savage, too.

00:11:39.980 We maintain that also in our language here.

00:11:43.780 But it is as if Dante said,

00:11:46.620 there's a wood that's a woody wood.

00:11:48.400 Dante does not suffer from small vocabulary.

00:11:53.460 So why the repetition?

00:11:56.480 The answer, I believe, lies in canto six of Inferno,

00:12:00.900 which is the first of the three political cantos.

00:12:03.580 The comedy is so meticulously organized, it's so harmonious,

00:12:07.700 that it can be read not only vertically, but also horizontally.

00:12:11.760 So the sixes in the canticles are all political.

00:12:15.100 And the reason for this is that the sixth day is the final day of creation

00:12:20.220 before God rests, and it's the day when God creates man,

00:12:23.240 who is the political animal.

00:12:25.760 So canto six of Inferno is about the city,

00:12:28.680 of purgatory it's about the nation,

00:12:30.540 and of paradise it's about the empire.

00:12:33.480 In Inferno six, Dante refers to his political party,

00:12:36.860 the white Guelphs,

00:12:37.640 and he calls them la parte selvaggia,

00:12:42.600 the party from the woods.

00:12:44.160 And he does this because the central family of this party was the Cherokee,

00:12:47.900 and the Cherokee come from a rural part outside of Florence.

00:12:51.440 It seems to me,

00:12:52.600 though I have never seen it in any commentaries on the poem,

00:12:55.720 that this explains the repetition in the first lines.

00:12:58.460 Especially when we consider Dante's arrival in the dark wood

00:13:02.920 just before his ascent to the Priory,

00:13:06.100 it seems to me that Dante is calling our attention

00:13:08.700 immediately to the political cause of his losing the straight way.

00:13:13.700 Some additional evidence for this view comes from Dante himself,

00:13:17.820 in a letter preserved by the historian Leonardo Bruni.

00:13:21.640 Dante writes,

00:13:22.460 So if my interpretation is correct,

00:13:33.020 this means even the vaguest and most general scene in the poem,

00:13:37.220 Inferno one,

00:13:38.380 is rooted in highly particular historical experience.

00:13:43.340 Dante then encounters three beasts at the foot of a desert slope,

00:13:47.580 the desert slope, the place of exile.

00:13:49.380 He encounters a leopard, a lion, and a lupa, a she-wolf.

00:13:54.900 And the she-wolf scares him the most.

00:13:57.860 Why is that?

00:13:58.500 It seems to me,

00:13:59.940 oh, what do I know?

00:14:00.640 I'm not a medieval Florentine,

00:14:01.800 but it seems to me that a leopard and a lion are scarier than a she-wolf.

00:14:06.260 So what is it about the she-wolf?

00:14:08.740 We know later on Dante will connect the she-wolf with avarice.

00:14:13.380 Beyond that, we really don't know Dante's precise meaning.

00:14:17.180 And I suspect we're not supposed to know.

00:14:20.380 Because we usually don't understand the meaning of events as they occur.

00:14:25.560 This is not Pilgrim's progress.

00:14:28.160 In Dante's journey, just as in real life,

00:14:31.700 we don't encounter giant talking allegories.

00:14:34.780 We encounter literal events and figures

00:14:38.560 with allegorical significance, no doubt,

00:14:41.100 but allegorical significance that often eludes us, at least at first.

00:14:46.940 In the fallen world, there is a distance between sign and signify,

00:14:51.500 between symbol and symbolized.

00:14:53.500 It is a distance present in language itself.

00:14:56.960 Angels do not need language.

00:14:59.000 Angels' knowledge is directly infused.

00:15:02.040 Humans need language because we're incarnate.

00:15:04.160 So we communicate in perceptible sounds and scribbles.

00:15:08.420 But there's a problem with our language.

00:15:11.380 As a consequence of the fall,

00:15:12.980 a chasm has opened between what we say and what we mean.

00:15:16.880 This distance, this desert we might say,

00:15:19.540 constitutes another kind of exile

00:15:21.440 between word and meaning.

00:15:23.280 We don't quite say what we want to say

00:15:26.500 and we don't immediately grasp the meaning of symbols.

00:15:30.920 So politics is the particular things that happen,

00:15:34.440 the full meaning of which we cannot know as they occur.

00:15:37.720 And history is the record of politics,

00:15:40.220 the significance of which we later interpret.

00:15:43.280 But if we can interpret history,

00:15:45.320 that means history is not merely literal.

00:15:48.240 Every particular thing evinces some universal truth.

00:15:51.720 And the universal is made manifest to us

00:15:54.420 only through the particular.

00:15:57.320 So what does the she-wolf mean?

00:15:59.720 It seems to me the clearest connotation is political.

00:16:03.140 The she-wolf nurses Romulus and Remus,

00:16:05.340 the founders of Rome.

00:16:07.080 What strikes the most fear into Dante's heart,

00:16:09.920 what most obstructs his path,

00:16:12.100 is a political beast.

00:16:14.000 A beast, we will read about 40 lines later,

00:16:17.040 which lets no one pass her by,

00:16:19.060 but so much impedes him that she kills him.

00:16:21.720 We learn this from the first character

00:16:24.120 that Dante encounters,

00:16:25.740 Virgil, the poet of empire and history,

00:16:29.140 whose Aeneid tells the story of the founding of Rome,

00:16:31.740 the universal empire transferred west from Troy

00:16:34.460 to Italy through Aeneas,

00:16:37.640 who happens to be the ancestor to Romulus and Remus.

00:16:40.920 Notice here,

00:16:42.480 Dante's journey is not a straight shot to God.

00:16:45.520 It is a journey incited by a particular individual,

00:16:50.860 Virgil,

00:16:51.500 whom we later learn was sent by another individual,

00:16:54.740 Dante's beloved Beatrice,

00:16:55.980 who's not even a public figure,

00:16:57.640 who will then introduce Dante to another individual,

00:17:00.200 St. Bernard of Clairvaux,

00:17:01.920 who will serve as the final guide on the pilgrim's journey,

00:17:04.820 which is mediated at all times by real and specific people.

00:17:08.380 When Dante sees Virgil in the great desert,

00:17:12.040 he cries,

00:17:12.720 Miserere di man,

00:17:14.340 whatever you may be,

00:17:15.780 whether shade or true man.

00:17:18.820 Dante does not quite meet Virgil.

00:17:21.860 He meets the shade of Virgil.

00:17:24.040 Not a man.

00:17:26.000 I once was a man,

00:17:28.040 Virgil explains.

00:17:29.540 My parents were Lombards,

00:17:31.040 both Mantuins by birth.

00:17:32.840 I was born under Julius,

00:17:34.820 though it was late,

00:17:36.000 and I lived in Rome under the good Augustus

00:17:38.220 in the time of the false and lying gods.

00:17:42.740 Virgil is not a man

00:17:44.200 because men are irreducibly historic beings.

00:17:48.480 We are not souls flitting through eternity.

00:17:51.040 We are incarnate creatures,

00:17:52.400 composites of body and soul,

00:17:53.600 and we can only ever be men

00:17:55.900 by virtue of our place in history.

00:17:59.380 Therefore,

00:18:00.720 Virgil identifies himself

00:18:02.140 by his political circumstances.

00:18:04.320 Geographic, he's a Mantuan,

00:18:06.020 and temporal,

00:18:07.160 born under Julius,

00:18:08.480 which is not even true, by the way,

00:18:10.360 because Virgil was born in 70 BC.

00:18:13.920 Virgil was 21 years old

00:18:15.120 when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon.

00:18:17.640 But Dante is connecting Virgil with the empire,

00:18:20.080 with the perfection of the political order.

00:18:21.760 Virgil speaks of the journey

00:18:24.300 they're about to undertake,

00:18:25.680 even of God himself,

00:18:26.820 in imperial terms.

00:18:28.760 He refers to that emperor

00:18:30.380 who reigns on high,

00:18:32.120 and he informs Dante

00:18:33.300 that they will not exit the wood by going up.

00:18:37.060 Dante will not retrieve the straight path

00:18:39.320 by virtue of his own intellect and will.

00:18:41.360 To go up,

00:18:42.920 he must go down.

00:18:44.680 Dante is skeptical.

00:18:45.700 He says,

00:18:46.780 I am not Aeneas.

00:18:48.140 I am not Paul.

00:18:50.280 Why invoke Aeneas and Paul?

00:18:52.040 What do those guys have in common?

00:18:53.580 Two things.

00:18:54.520 They both go to the immortal realm.

00:18:56.700 Aeneas goes to the land of the dead

00:18:58.660 to see his father.

00:18:59.700 St. Paul goes to the third heaven.

00:19:01.800 And they both go to Rome.

00:19:05.140 Dante writes of Aeneas,

00:19:06.320 He in the Empyrean heaven

00:19:08.680 had been chosen to be father

00:19:10.340 of Mother Rome and her empire.

00:19:12.400 And Rome and her empire,

00:19:13.680 to tell the truth,

00:19:14.840 were established to be the holy place

00:19:16.800 where the successor

00:19:17.620 of great Peter is enthroned.

00:19:19.780 Through this journey

00:19:20.560 that you claim for him,

00:19:22.280 he understood things

00:19:23.240 that were the cause of his victory

00:19:24.540 and of the papal mantle.

00:19:26.260 Later, the chosen vessel,

00:19:28.240 St. Paul,

00:19:29.500 went there

00:19:30.140 to bring back strengthening

00:19:31.780 for that faith,

00:19:32.640 which is the beginning

00:19:33.360 of the way to salvation.

00:19:34.620 Virgil tells Dante

00:19:37.120 that he must venture

00:19:38.600 into the pit of hell

00:19:39.820 and the first thing

00:19:41.300 Dante thinks of

00:19:42.140 is politics.

00:19:44.220 And this is not,

00:19:45.700 it's amazing,

00:19:47.640 but it's not a frivolous obsession.

00:19:51.360 For Dante,

00:19:52.460 Rome is divinely imbued

00:19:54.120 with authority.

00:19:55.700 God the Father

00:19:56.380 sent his only begotten son

00:19:57.780 to be incarnate

00:19:58.540 in the fullness of time

00:19:59.580 into the Roman Empire.

00:20:01.800 For Dante,

00:20:02.600 Rome has a divine mandate

00:20:03.960 to govern the whole world

00:20:05.440 attested to

00:20:06.520 in the Gospel of St. Luke.

00:20:08.620 Gospel of Luke says,

00:20:09.740 there went out a decree

00:20:10.760 from Caesar Augustus

00:20:12.260 that all the world

00:20:13.280 should be taxed,

00:20:14.760 which for Dante signifies,

00:20:16.300 as he writes

00:20:16.820 in his political tract,

00:20:17.900 Monarchia,

00:20:19.060 that at that time

00:20:20.020 the Romans exercised

00:20:21.160 jurisdiction

00:20:21.880 over the whole world.

00:20:24.740 For Dante,

00:20:25.600 it's appropriate

00:20:26.080 that the Romans

00:20:26.780 govern the world

00:20:27.680 because not only

00:20:29.300 were they the noblest people,

00:20:30.460 though he says they were,

00:20:31.900 but also they're

00:20:32.880 providentially formed,

00:20:34.760 as we see in the marriages

00:20:35.840 of Aeneas,

00:20:36.840 who had three wives.

00:20:37.880 He had Creuza in Troy,

00:20:40.300 Dido in Carthage,

00:20:41.420 and then Lavinia in Italy.

00:20:43.300 So he brings together

00:20:44.160 all three continents,

00:20:45.460 Asia, Africa,

00:20:46.300 and Europe,

00:20:48.280 in one man,

00:20:49.260 under the headship

00:20:50.080 of one individual.

00:20:51.460 Who will fail,

00:20:52.740 Dante asks,

00:20:53.520 to recognize

00:20:54.720 divine predestination

00:20:56.200 in that double confluence

00:20:57.660 of blood

00:20:58.140 from every part

00:20:59.900 of the world

00:21:00.340 into a single man.

00:21:02.380 The Roman Empire's

00:21:03.360 divine mandate

00:21:03.980 to govern

00:21:04.460 is not only apparent

00:21:06.520 but necessary,

00:21:07.760 according to Dante,

00:21:09.120 if Christ's sacrifice

00:21:10.400 on the cross

00:21:11.100 is to redeem

00:21:12.040 all of mankind.

00:21:13.940 As Dante explains

00:21:14.900 in Monarchia,

00:21:16.320 if the Roman Empire

00:21:17.360 was not based on right,

00:21:19.280 Adam's sin

00:21:19.960 was not punished

00:21:20.940 in Christ.

00:21:22.240 That is,

00:21:22.740 this is still Dante,

00:21:25.160 if Christ had not suffered

00:21:26.920 under an authorized judge,

00:21:28.640 that penalty

00:21:29.460 would not have been

00:21:30.320 a punishment.

00:21:31.360 And no judge

00:21:32.140 could be authorized

00:21:32.940 unless he had jurisdiction

00:21:34.560 over the whole of mankind

00:21:35.980 since the whole of mankind

00:21:37.620 was punished

00:21:38.520 in that flesh of Christ.

00:21:40.760 So Rome had the special right

00:21:42.840 to govern the world.

00:21:44.900 And this is good,

00:21:46.000 Dante believes,

00:21:47.380 because mankind

00:21:48.920 most closely resembles God

00:21:50.660 when it is most a unity.

00:21:53.560 Today,

00:21:54.240 we worship diversity

00:21:55.600 for diversity's sake.

00:21:57.780 Dante,

00:21:58.160 not so much.

00:22:00.000 Mankind,

00:22:00.680 he writes,

00:22:01.380 is in its ideal state

00:22:02.460 when it follows

00:22:03.980 the footsteps of heaven

00:22:05.000 insofar as its nature allows.

00:22:07.820 And since the whole sphere

00:22:08.700 of heaven

00:22:09.020 is guided by a single movement

00:22:10.480 and by a single source of motion

00:22:12.320 who is God,

00:22:13.840 mankind

00:22:14.140 is in its ideal state

00:22:15.640 when it is guided

00:22:16.400 by a single ruler.

00:22:17.940 In other words,

00:22:19.580 we ought to imitate the heavens

00:22:20.720 and the kingdom of heaven

00:22:22.480 is not a democracy

00:22:23.540 or an oligarchy

00:22:25.420 or a tyranny

00:22:26.240 or any form of government

00:22:27.560 other than universal monarchy,

00:22:29.960 which Dante concludes

00:22:31.100 is necessary to the world.

00:22:33.060 So does this mean

00:22:35.360 Dante hates freedom?

00:22:37.560 Nothing could be further

00:22:38.560 from the truth.

00:22:40.320 We hear in Paradiso 5

00:22:41.700 that the greatest gift

00:22:43.840 that ever in his bountfulness

00:22:45.500 God gave in creating

00:22:46.600 and the most conformed

00:22:48.340 to his goodness,

00:22:49.100 the one that is most prized,

00:22:50.680 was the freedom of the will

00:22:51.760 with which the creatures

00:22:53.500 with intelligence,

00:22:54.500 all of them and only they,

00:22:55.660 were and are endowed.

00:22:58.240 Dante tells us in Monarchia

00:22:59.660 that the human race

00:23:00.800 is in its ideal state

00:23:01.780 when it is completely free

00:23:03.180 and that the first principle

00:23:04.840 of our freedom is free will,

00:23:06.660 which many people talk about

00:23:07.980 but few understand.

00:23:09.460 This is one of those moments

00:23:10.620 where Dante is speaking

00:23:11.600 directly into our own time

00:23:13.400 when so many people

00:23:15.520 are so confused

00:23:16.200 about what freedom really means.

00:23:18.980 Dante distinguishes

00:23:19.900 between true and false freedom.

00:23:23.200 If judgment controls desire completely

00:23:25.580 and is in no way preempted by it,

00:23:27.580 it is free.

00:23:28.220 But if judgment is in any way

00:23:30.880 at all preempted

00:23:31.860 and thus controlled by desire,

00:23:33.880 it cannot be free

00:23:34.840 because it does not act

00:23:36.460 under its own power

00:23:37.280 but is dragged along

00:23:38.840 in the power of something else.

00:23:41.400 Lord Acton summarizes this view

00:23:43.200 pithily some centuries later

00:23:44.600 when he says freedom

00:23:45.620 is not the ability

00:23:47.220 to do what we wish

00:23:48.120 but the right to do what we ought.

00:23:51.560 Dante loves freedom

00:23:52.740 and it is because he loves freedom

00:23:55.060 that he demands universal monarchy.

00:23:57.320 Because, as he tells us in Monarchia,

00:24:00.320 the activity proper to mankind

00:24:01.680 considered as a whole

00:24:02.820 is constantly to actualize

00:24:05.000 the full intellectual potential

00:24:07.180 of humanity

00:24:08.320 primarily through thought

00:24:10.060 and secondarily through action

00:24:12.220 as a function and extension of thought.

00:24:15.520 And mankind most readily

00:24:17.960 attends to this activity

00:24:19.000 in the calm or tranquility of peace.

00:24:21.180 Therefore, universal peace

00:24:23.640 is the best of those things

00:24:24.860 which were ordained

00:24:25.600 for our human happiness.

00:24:27.740 And the only way to get universal peace

00:24:29.640 is through a universal ruler.

00:24:32.840 But then,

00:24:34.320 doesn't this imply

00:24:35.480 the merger of church and state?

00:24:38.400 Church, you got one leader.

00:24:39.920 State, you got another leader.

00:24:41.000 Don't you have to put them

00:24:41.820 under one guy?

00:24:43.080 Not for Dante.

00:24:45.680 Dante's enemy, Pope Boniface VIII,

00:24:47.720 certainly thought that's what it meant.

00:24:48.920 And he argued that in 1302

00:24:51.600 in his papal bull, Unam Sanctum.

00:24:54.720 Boniface argued that all power on earth

00:24:56.440 lies ultimately with the Pope.

00:24:58.260 That even the emperor

00:24:59.300 is subordinate to the Pope.

00:25:01.540 To defend this claim,

00:25:02.980 Boniface made a couple of

00:25:04.260 perhaps dubious scriptural arguments

00:25:06.660 that we don't have time to delve into.

00:25:09.000 And maybe we can get to it in the Q&A.

00:25:10.800 Boniface also relied on

00:25:12.360 the donation of Constantine,

00:25:14.120 which is a document

00:25:14.920 later proved to be a forgery

00:25:16.240 in which the emperor

00:25:17.540 purportedly transferred authority

00:25:19.160 for the Western Roman Empire

00:25:20.300 to the Pope.

00:25:23.040 Dante says no.

00:25:25.040 Even if Boniface's

00:25:26.340 questionable readings of scripture

00:25:27.880 were accurate,

00:25:29.020 even if Constantine

00:25:30.220 had really attempted

00:25:31.440 to transfer political authority

00:25:33.120 to the Pope,

00:25:33.880 nevertheless,

00:25:35.100 it would not be possible.

00:25:37.020 Because on earth,

00:25:38.020 everything has limits.

00:25:39.420 Even the keys to the kingdom of heaven,

00:25:41.320 Dante argues,

00:25:42.320 which our Lord gives to St. Peter,

00:25:43.960 the power to loosen, to bind,

00:25:45.300 even that cannot be absolute

00:25:47.100 because Peter cannot do anything

00:25:48.940 that God himself cannot do.

00:25:51.000 Peter could not, for instance,

00:25:52.940 absolve an unrepentant sinner.

00:25:55.880 Peter could not loose

00:25:57.420 a wife from her husband

00:25:59.000 and dissolve the matrimonial bond.

00:26:02.200 There are limits,

00:26:03.740 not only to the power of the emperor,

00:26:04.920 but to the power of the Pope.

00:26:06.560 Those limits derive from the nature

00:26:08.120 of their respective offices,

00:26:09.620 and the distinction between the offices

00:26:11.340 derives from the fact

00:26:12.420 that man himself has two natures,

00:26:14.920 a corruptible bodily nature

00:26:16.460 and an incorruptible mind.

00:26:20.640 Mankind, therefore,

00:26:21.560 having two natures,

00:26:22.380 necessarily has two ends,

00:26:24.300 happiness in this life

00:26:25.460 and happiness in eternity.

00:26:27.160 The political order,

00:26:28.880 the empire,

00:26:29.840 is meant to serve man's temporal happiness,

00:26:32.340 the spiritual order,

00:26:34.000 his eternal happiness.

00:26:36.740 And yet,

00:26:38.240 Dante does not call,

00:26:40.320 as later political thinkers will,

00:26:42.260 for a firm separation

00:26:43.760 between church and state.

00:26:45.640 On the contrary,

00:26:47.080 he concludes by warning

00:26:48.260 that his argument

00:26:49.520 should not be taken so literally

00:26:51.480 as to mean that the Roman prince

00:26:53.680 is not in some sense

00:26:55.040 subject to the Roman pontiff,

00:26:57.380 since this earthly happiness

00:26:58.760 is in some sense

00:27:00.020 ordered toward immortal happiness.

00:27:02.720 Let Caesar, therefore,

00:27:03.840 show that reverence towards Peter,

00:27:05.720 which a firstborn son

00:27:06.820 should show his father,

00:27:08.220 so that illumined

00:27:09.140 by the light of paternal grace,

00:27:11.060 he may the more effectively

00:27:12.340 light up the world

00:27:13.260 over which he has been placed

00:27:15.080 by him alone

00:27:15.720 who is ruler over all things,

00:27:18.040 spiritual and temporal.

00:27:19.200 The Pope and the Emperor

00:27:21.840 have distinct realms of action,

00:27:24.780 but we cannot totally separate

00:27:26.620 the temporal and the spiritual

00:27:27.720 just as we cannot separate

00:27:29.380 the literal from the allegorical

00:27:31.020 or the particular from the universal.

00:27:33.160 Now, having digressed

00:27:35.380 for all of that context,

00:27:37.560 let us move on in the comedy

00:27:39.960 to the pre-political canto,

00:27:41.580 Canto V of Inferno.

00:27:43.340 Dante here encounters

00:27:44.540 Francesca da Rimini,

00:27:46.060 who had an affair

00:27:47.000 with her brother-in-law,

00:27:47.920 Paolo, both of whom

00:27:49.120 are killed by her jilted husband

00:27:51.300 when he discovers them.

00:27:53.420 Paolo and Francesca fall in love,

00:27:55.260 she tells us, while reading.

00:27:57.560 They read the story

00:27:58.360 of Lancelot and Guinevere.

00:28:00.460 And here Dante makes

00:28:01.380 an important point about language.

00:28:02.980 I'm going to read this

00:28:03.580 in the Italian.

00:28:04.460 Don't worry if you don't

00:28:05.220 have the Italian.

00:28:06.120 Just listen to the language.

00:28:08.460 Amor, this is Francesca speaking,

00:28:10.040 I won't translate the whole thing.

00:28:33.000 She says, love which is quickly

00:28:34.520 enkindled in the gentle heart,

00:28:36.460 love which does not pardon

00:28:37.780 any beloved from loving,

00:28:39.680 love led us to one death.

00:28:42.380 That last phrase,

00:28:43.980 amor conduce noi ad una morte.

00:28:45.500 Amor means love,

00:28:48.300 una morte, death.

00:28:50.260 Love is right in the middle,

00:28:52.000 precisely in the middle

00:28:52.860 of their one death.

00:28:55.260 This line is untranslatable.

00:28:57.460 You can get the gist of it

00:28:58.300 in Italian,

00:28:59.500 or you can get the gist of it

00:29:01.140 in translation in English

00:29:02.420 or any other language,

00:29:03.240 but it really only works

00:29:04.600 in the Italian.

00:29:06.480 Dante is showing us something here.

00:29:07.960 He's not just showing off

00:29:08.780 his poetical skill,

00:29:09.680 it's amazing,

00:29:10.300 but he's showing us

00:29:11.120 something about language.

00:29:11.920 And he tells us this explicitly

00:29:13.940 in his essay on language,

00:29:15.580 De Vulgari Eloquentia,

00:29:17.420 that particular languages

00:29:18.640 are appropriate

00:29:19.760 for particular works

00:29:21.180 and particular writers.

00:29:23.340 Not only do different circumstances

00:29:25.960 call for different forms

00:29:27.060 of language,

00:29:28.200 the high grammatica of Latin

00:29:29.740 versus the vulgar vernacular,

00:29:32.620 but writers have a special obligation

00:29:34.540 to use their own native tongue,

00:29:37.680 their own native vernacular,

00:29:39.360 simply by virtue of that vernacular

00:29:41.680 being their own.

00:29:43.820 Dante writes in The Banquet,

00:29:45.300 which is his philosophical tract,

00:29:47.200 of the perpetual shame

00:29:48.700 and mortification

00:29:49.500 of the wicked men of Italy

00:29:50.800 who praise the vernacular

00:29:52.440 of others

00:29:53.020 and disparage their own.

00:29:55.440 Dante condemns his own teacher,

00:29:57.080 Brunetto Latini,

00:29:57.920 for this very crime,

00:29:59.260 for betraying the vernacular.

00:30:00.920 He also puts him in hell

00:30:02.000 for another reason,

00:30:02.860 which we can get to

00:30:03.500 maybe in the Q&A.

00:30:04.540 It's a little bit

00:30:04.960 of a saucier reason,

00:30:06.200 but he's there.

00:30:09.080 He is there,

00:30:09.960 and the point

00:30:11.080 that Dante is making,

00:30:13.020 because language is particular.

00:30:16.040 There's an old expression,

00:30:17.380 traduttore, traditore.

00:30:19.260 The translator is a traitor.

00:30:21.680 Individual experiences

00:30:23.000 are not interchangeable.

00:30:25.720 We see this more fully

00:30:27.180 in Canto 31 of Inferno

00:30:28.800 when Dante meets Nimrod,

00:30:30.200 who builds the Tower of Babel.

00:30:32.480 And when Dante meets him,

00:30:33.560 Nimrod says,

00:30:35.140 and this will be

00:30:35.740 in your translations too,

00:30:36.880 and not just the original.

00:30:37.900 Nimrod says,

00:30:39.420 which is untranslatable,

00:30:43.600 not because of some pun

00:30:44.680 in Italian,

00:30:45.500 but because no one

00:30:46.180 has any idea

00:30:46.760 what language that is.

00:30:50.000 It would appear,

00:30:51.060 there are theories about it,

00:30:52.100 many of which

00:30:52.500 are not persuasive.

00:30:53.660 It seems to me

00:30:54.580 the phrase is nonsense,

00:30:56.440 which in itself

00:30:57.200 is meaningful.

00:30:59.500 Observing the Babel

00:31:00.580 Tower builders,

00:31:02.360 the Lord says,

00:31:03.340 behold,

00:31:03.700 they are one people

00:31:05.240 and they have

00:31:06.240 all one language

00:31:07.060 and this is only

00:31:08.100 the beginning

00:31:08.520 of what they will do

00:31:09.320 and nothing

00:31:10.400 that they propose to do

00:31:11.780 will now be impossible

00:31:13.020 for them.

00:31:14.260 So he confused

00:31:14.980 their language

00:31:15.500 and scattered them

00:31:16.340 over the face

00:31:16.820 of the earth.

00:31:18.280 The combination

00:31:18.900 of political

00:31:19.980 and linguistic unity

00:31:21.520 would have unleashed

00:31:22.720 invincible evil

00:31:23.960 upon the world.

00:31:25.460 So God disrupted

00:31:26.620 temporarily

00:31:27.280 their political unity

00:31:28.540 and he permanently

00:31:30.060 severed

00:31:30.640 their linguistic unity.

00:31:31.880 Now we see

00:31:33.540 a chasm

00:31:34.460 between what is said

00:31:35.420 and what is understood.

00:31:37.140 A chasm

00:31:37.680 which is itself

00:31:38.500 merely an exaggeration

00:31:39.820 of the gap

00:31:40.700 that appeared

00:31:41.100 between word

00:31:41.720 and meaning

00:31:42.240 at the time of the fall.

00:31:44.360 Nimrod attempted

00:31:45.280 to short circuit

00:31:46.240 the particularity

00:31:47.560 of politics

00:31:48.060 and history.

00:31:49.340 He transgressed

00:31:50.280 the limits

00:31:50.800 placed on man

00:31:51.640 at the fall.

00:31:52.940 We learn more

00:31:53.560 about this fact

00:31:54.160 in Paradiso 26

00:31:55.080 when Dante meets Adam

00:31:56.420 who explains

00:31:57.540 that the tasting

00:31:58.760 of the tree

00:31:59.420 in itself

00:32:00.220 did not cause

00:32:01.380 so long an exile

00:32:02.280 but only going

00:32:03.780 beyond the sign.

00:32:06.040 Very important phrase

00:32:07.400 which is sometimes

00:32:08.120 mistranslated

00:32:08.840 but he says

00:32:09.140 going beyond the sign.

00:32:11.740 Adam in disobedience

00:32:12.920 figuratively

00:32:13.600 goes beyond the sign

00:32:15.140 and as a result

00:32:16.640 there emerges

00:32:17.260 a distance

00:32:17.900 between literal signs

00:32:19.440 that is words

00:32:20.880 and the meanings

00:32:21.940 that they signify.

00:32:23.580 In Paradiso 26

00:32:24.720 Adam corrects

00:32:26.580 Dante's earlier belief

00:32:28.200 articulated in

00:32:29.160 De vulgaria eloquentia

00:32:30.120 that Hebrew alone

00:32:31.800 survived the confusion

00:32:33.160 of languages

00:32:33.700 at Babel.

00:32:35.480 That Hebrew

00:32:36.080 as Dante believed

00:32:37.000 when he wrote

00:32:37.740 De vulgaria eloquentia

00:32:38.660 that Hebrew

00:32:39.440 is in fact

00:32:40.260 the original language

00:32:41.560 created by God

00:32:42.680 undisturbed

00:32:43.780 by time.

00:32:46.320 Dante believed this

00:32:47.580 that this had

00:32:48.300 to be the case

00:32:48.980 so that our Redeemer

00:32:50.400 who was to descend

00:32:51.540 from them

00:32:52.560 in so far

00:32:53.480 as he was human

00:32:54.320 should not speak

00:32:55.460 the language

00:32:56.100 of confusion

00:32:56.820 but that of grace.

00:32:58.960 Adam says no.

00:33:00.540 The language

00:33:01.060 that I spoke

00:33:01.800 was all extinct

00:33:02.640 before Nimrod's people

00:33:03.740 became intent

00:33:04.560 on the unfinishable work.

00:33:07.020 This is because

00:33:07.920 he says

00:33:08.580 no rational effect

00:33:10.680 because of human preference

00:33:12.000 which changes

00:33:12.620 following the heavens

00:33:13.380 has ever been enduring.

00:33:15.480 Nothing

00:33:15.980 nothing

00:33:17.020 is immune

00:33:17.620 from history.

00:33:18.860 God himself

00:33:19.480 enters into history

00:33:20.540 and the word

00:33:21.740 himself

00:33:22.320 speaks a language

00:33:23.620 that is contingent

00:33:24.780 particular

00:33:25.580 and constantly changing.

00:33:29.000 Even the names

00:33:29.940 we call God

00:33:31.120 we hear

00:33:31.820 change.

00:33:33.400 First Adam tells us

00:33:34.460 we called him E

00:33:35.180 then we called him L

00:33:36.760 now we call him

00:33:37.880 something else.

00:33:39.920 Adam says

00:33:40.320 this is necessary

00:33:41.260 for the usage

00:33:42.720 of mortals

00:33:43.220 is like a leaf

00:33:43.840 on the branch

00:33:44.440 which departs

00:33:45.600 and another comes.

00:33:47.640 The usage

00:33:48.140 of mortals

00:33:48.660 changes

00:33:49.100 because

00:33:49.640 as Dante says

00:33:50.480 in De vulgaria eloquentia

00:33:51.460 nothing can be conveyed

00:33:53.760 from one reasoning mind

00:33:55.040 to another

00:33:55.620 except by means

00:33:57.360 perceptible to the sense

00:33:58.700 and percepts

00:34:00.500 are always changing.

00:34:02.700 God

00:34:03.000 does not change

00:34:03.820 but everything else

00:34:04.900 does

00:34:05.240 including the names

00:34:06.400 we call God.

00:34:08.280 This is one reason

00:34:09.220 Dante chose

00:34:09.860 to write the comedy

00:34:10.600 in the vernacular.

00:34:12.200 For some of his

00:34:12.860 minor works

00:34:13.560 he chose

00:34:14.480 the high language

00:34:15.340 of Latin.

00:34:16.600 For his magnum opus

00:34:17.820 he chooses

00:34:18.720 the low vernacular.

00:34:19.760 To go up

00:34:21.320 we must go down.

00:34:23.220 So let's go back

00:34:23.940 down to Francesca

00:34:24.700 for just a moment.

00:34:25.440 Final point on language.

00:34:27.260 Francesca

00:34:27.700 attempts to translate

00:34:28.960 the story

00:34:29.740 of Lancelot

00:34:30.660 and Guinevere

00:34:31.140 and she makes

00:34:32.320 an interpretive error.

00:34:33.740 She confuses

00:34:34.420 the life of the characters

00:34:35.580 for her own life.

00:34:38.120 And this leads

00:34:38.620 to her death

00:34:39.180 and to her damnation

00:34:40.160 and this terrifies Dante.

00:34:41.960 The canto ends

00:34:42.900 with one of the more

00:34:44.060 famous lines of the poem.

00:34:45.840 Dante falling

00:34:46.600 like a dead body falls.

00:34:48.120 Why does he do that?

00:34:50.280 Because Francesca

00:34:51.500 quotes Dante's

00:34:52.360 own style of poetry

00:34:53.420 back to him.

00:34:56.320 Francesca alludes

00:34:57.180 to a poem

00:34:57.680 by Guido Guinezelli

00:34:58.740 who's the founder

00:34:59.320 of the Sweet New Style

00:35:00.560 which is Dante's

00:35:01.280 school of poetry.

00:35:02.680 And Dante fears

00:35:03.640 that he might have

00:35:05.700 played some role

00:35:06.560 in her damnation.

00:35:08.820 Which is why

00:35:09.640 the canto is

00:35:10.400 if not political

00:35:11.560 at least politics adjacent.

00:35:14.460 Because it reminds us

00:35:15.780 that there is no such thing

00:35:17.120 as purely personal sin.

00:35:19.560 Man is the political animal.

00:35:22.320 What we do

00:35:23.320 affects other people.

00:35:25.320 Dante is telling us

00:35:26.340 what the feminists

00:35:27.280 will tell us

00:35:27.940 seven centuries later.

00:35:29.580 The personal

00:35:30.340 is political.

00:35:32.940 Now we come

00:35:33.900 to the first political

00:35:34.660 canto Inferno VI

00:35:35.600 which concerns Florence.

00:35:37.960 This is the circle

00:35:38.820 of the gluttons

00:35:39.460 and Dante meets

00:35:40.420 a Florentine

00:35:40.920 he doesn't recognize.

00:35:42.360 Chaco.

00:35:42.700 When Dante asks

00:35:44.740 Chaco to identify himself

00:35:46.160 Chaco says

00:35:47.040 your city

00:35:48.060 which is so full of envy

00:35:49.760 that the sack

00:35:50.520 already overflows

00:35:51.660 kept me with her

00:35:53.020 during my sunny life.

00:35:54.440 Your citizens

00:35:54.900 called me Chaco.

00:35:56.700 Lots there.

00:35:57.640 Chaco is like Florence.

00:35:59.580 The city is like a body.

00:36:01.160 It's the body politic.

00:36:02.720 And political ills

00:36:03.560 are like bodily ills.

00:36:05.480 The glutton

00:36:06.140 is filled to overflowing

00:36:07.580 just as Florence

00:36:08.460 is filled to overflowing.

00:36:10.500 The allegorical meaning

00:36:11.660 Chaco tells us

00:36:12.640 is that Florence

00:36:13.500 is overfull

00:36:14.680 with envy.

00:36:16.660 But there is

00:36:17.320 a literal meaning too.

00:36:19.400 There are too many

00:36:20.080 people in the city.

00:36:21.400 Florence had grown

00:36:22.100 by leaps and bounds

00:36:22.900 during Dante's lifetime

00:36:23.960 and just before.

00:36:25.120 Dante's ancestor

00:36:26.000 Caccia Guida

00:36:26.640 recalls this fact

00:36:27.640 and this analogy

00:36:28.500 in Paradiso 16

00:36:30.080 when he warns

00:36:31.360 the mixing together

00:36:33.000 of persons

00:36:33.660 has ever been

00:36:34.860 the beginning of harm

00:36:35.880 to the city

00:36:36.440 as excessive food

00:36:38.200 is cause of your diseases.

00:36:40.160 This argument

00:36:40.820 follows Aristotle

00:36:41.840 who warns

00:36:42.940 in the politics

00:36:43.520 against the reception

00:36:44.580 of foreigners

00:36:45.200 in polities

00:36:45.940 as their presence

00:36:47.180 has generally

00:36:47.760 produced revolution.

00:36:49.820 The practical politicians

00:36:51.100 in this room

00:36:51.800 will here find

00:36:53.000 philosophical,

00:36:54.660 poetical,

00:36:55.240 and heavenly sanction

00:36:56.140 to wear the MAGA hat

00:36:57.740 and to build the wall.

00:36:59.020 It's...

00:36:59.620 Caccia Guida's in heaven.

00:37:00.860 You know,

00:37:01.060 he's giving good advice.

00:37:03.100 But foreigners

00:37:03.660 are not bad in themselves.

00:37:04.760 They just don't fit.

00:37:08.100 They're just not appropriate.

00:37:10.120 Polities and people

00:37:11.340 are not interchangeable.

00:37:13.440 Florence,

00:37:14.060 like all polities,

00:37:15.480 is not just an idea.

00:37:17.940 Ciacco traces

00:37:18.660 the history of Florence

00:37:19.820 through individuals

00:37:21.060 and families.

00:37:22.920 He recounts 86 years

00:37:24.520 of Florentine history

00:37:25.720 by recalling what happened

00:37:27.320 after one Florentine nobleman

00:37:29.160 plotted the murder

00:37:30.200 of another Florentine nobleman

00:37:31.860 because that nobleman

00:37:33.860 jilted a Ghibelline girl

00:37:36.520 for a Guelph.

00:37:38.260 That is the story of Florence.

00:37:41.080 In our ideological age,

00:37:43.220 it is difficult to imagine

00:37:44.560 that a romantic slight

00:37:46.280 could be the immediate cause

00:37:47.460 of a nearly two-century

00:37:48.520 civil war.

00:37:49.820 But sometimes,

00:37:50.940 it really do be like that.

00:37:55.960 Dante actually traces

00:37:57.560 the Guelph-Ghibelline conflict

00:37:59.100 back to a single utterance

00:38:00.940 by Mosca,

00:38:02.340 the man who plots

00:38:02.900 the murder,

00:38:03.860 which is recalled

00:38:04.580 in Inferno 28.

00:38:07.600 A thing done

00:38:08.560 comes to a head.

00:38:11.160 For Dante,

00:38:11.960 history is civil war.

00:38:14.140 A thing done

00:38:14.820 invites revenge

00:38:16.220 and then more revenge

00:38:17.080 and then more revenge.

00:38:18.580 And Mosca's utterance,

00:38:19.960 which denies man's agency

00:38:21.700 in the unfolding of history,

00:38:23.520 constitutes the seed of evil

00:38:25.120 for the Tuscans,

00:38:26.520 according to Dante.

00:38:27.480 This is the demise

00:38:28.520 of the city.

00:38:29.020 But cities die.

00:38:32.180 As Caccia Guida tells us,

00:38:34.240 cities have their end.

00:38:35.840 The things of your world

00:38:36.900 all have their deaths,

00:38:38.420 just as you do.

00:38:39.900 But in some it is hidden,

00:38:41.060 for they last a long time

00:38:42.300 and lives are short.

00:38:45.080 Politics is the indispensable medium

00:38:47.180 in which our salvation occurs.

00:38:48.880 But politics,

00:38:49.840 understood as an end in itself,

00:38:51.700 leads to death.

00:38:53.160 So how do we attain

00:38:54.340 the freedom

00:38:55.220 to avoid this death?

00:38:57.880 We find the answer

00:38:58.880 in Purgatory,

00:38:59.820 which opens with Cato,

00:39:01.260 the great exemplar

00:39:02.220 of Roman liberty.

00:39:04.100 We meet in Purgatory 2

00:39:05.800 a friend of Dante,

00:39:07.480 the singer Cazella,

00:39:08.800 who recites one of Dante's

00:39:10.360 own poems back to him.

00:39:12.020 Amor che nella mente mi ragionam,

00:39:13.820 love which reasons with me

00:39:15.520 in my mind.

00:39:17.440 This older poem of Dante's

00:39:19.060 is important

00:39:19.540 because it declares Dante's belief

00:39:21.440 that love is a rational thing.

00:39:23.920 He does this also

00:39:24.760 in another famous poem,

00:39:26.740 Donne che vete intelletto d'amore,

00:39:28.160 ladies who have intelligence of love.

00:39:30.020 He's connecting love

00:39:30.700 with intelligence,

00:39:31.740 love with reason.

00:39:33.380 Other people disagreed.

00:39:34.880 Dante's poet friend,

00:39:35.960 Guido Cavalcanti,

00:39:37.240 for instance,

00:39:37.980 thought that love

00:39:38.560 was irrational.

00:39:39.820 The courtly love tradition

00:39:40.820 treats love

00:39:41.480 as a kind of madness

00:39:42.460 that overtakes you.

00:39:44.100 Dante says,

00:39:44.660 no,

00:39:45.260 love properly understood

00:39:46.500 is rational,

00:39:48.140 which will help us

00:39:49.180 to understand

00:39:49.640 the famous final line

00:39:50.840 of the comedy.

00:39:52.660 Dante,

00:39:53.140 I'm skipping ahead,

00:39:53.900 obviously,

00:39:54.800 having glimpsed

00:39:55.460 the beatific vision,

00:39:56.700 Dante concludes,

00:39:58.300 here my high imagining

00:39:59.620 failed of power,

00:40:00.980 but already my desire

00:40:02.440 and will returned,

00:40:03.980 like a wheel

00:40:04.720 being moved evenly

00:40:05.980 by the love

00:40:07.020 that moves the sun

00:40:07.900 and the other stars.

00:40:09.460 That love is not only rational,

00:40:11.480 it is the logic

00:40:12.760 of the universe

00:40:13.460 and the concord

00:40:15.020 between that rational love

00:40:16.360 and the individual will

00:40:17.560 is for Dante

00:40:18.400 the substance of freedom.

00:40:20.740 So the line that

00:40:21.480 Cazella sings to Dante

00:40:22.580 is good

00:40:23.120 and it's true

00:40:24.040 and it's wonderful

00:40:24.640 and still,

00:40:26.360 Cato yells at everybody

00:40:27.560 for sitting around

00:40:28.220 listening to it.

00:40:29.360 What negligence,

00:40:30.460 what standing still

00:40:31.440 is this?

00:40:32.720 Cato yells.

00:40:34.220 Run to the mountain

00:40:35.180 to shed the slough

00:40:36.880 that keeps God

00:40:37.680 from being manifest to you.

00:40:39.960 The souls have fallen prey

00:40:41.820 to nostalgia.

00:40:44.180 Conservatives, sometimes,

00:40:45.400 we fall prey

00:40:46.100 to nostalgia a little bit

00:40:47.060 and nostalgia is a danger

00:40:48.640 not because the past is bad

00:40:51.340 but rather because it's past

00:40:53.520 and we're on a journey

00:40:54.960 and we need to keep

00:40:55.700 our eyes on the prize.

00:40:57.740 History and the political order

00:40:59.100 serve an important purpose

00:41:00.940 but the purpose is to point us

00:41:03.000 beyond history and politics.

00:41:05.700 Dante and Cazella

00:41:06.640 are delighting

00:41:07.600 in the sweetness

00:41:08.180 of a poetical

00:41:09.020 and philosophical intuition

00:41:10.420 but in so doing

00:41:11.640 they are forestalling

00:41:12.760 the reality

00:41:13.360 of that which they intuit

00:41:14.620 and seek.

00:41:16.160 The past is good

00:41:17.280 because it's for the future.

00:41:18.940 The polity is good

00:41:19.720 because it's for a community

00:41:21.200 beyond the polity.

00:41:23.280 The particular is good

00:41:24.320 because it's for the universal.

00:41:26.380 History is good

00:41:27.260 but only in light

00:41:28.600 of its end

00:41:29.340 which is the eschaton

00:41:30.560 and the life of the world to come.

00:41:32.360 It's all about hope

00:41:33.720 which is the theological virtue

00:41:35.940 oriented toward the future.

00:41:37.800 In Purgatory 6

00:41:38.660 Dante asks Virgil

00:41:40.040 whether prayer works.

00:41:42.440 Virgil in the 6th book

00:41:44.300 of the Aeneid

00:41:44.940 denies that prayer

00:41:46.300 has any efficacy

00:41:47.700 but the souls in Purgatory

00:41:49.680 are all praying

00:41:50.580 that God hasten their journey.

00:41:52.300 So which is it?

00:41:53.140 Has Virgil going to talk

00:41:54.140 his way out of this one?

00:41:55.680 Their hope is not deceived

00:41:57.540 says Virgil.

00:41:59.160 Where I fixed this point

00:42:00.460 defect was not amended

00:42:01.980 by praying

00:42:02.540 because prayer

00:42:03.860 was disjoined from God.

00:42:06.360 But with the incarnation

00:42:07.260 God has entered

00:42:08.220 into history

00:42:08.960 and reunited man

00:42:10.380 with himself.

00:42:11.760 The pagans

00:42:12.460 had no such communion

00:42:13.820 with God.

00:42:14.760 Crucially

00:42:15.100 they didn't even have hope

00:42:16.840 for such a communion.

00:42:19.380 So the pagans

00:42:20.480 have hopeless eternity.

00:42:22.220 Christians have hopeful history.

00:42:24.440 We get what we desire

00:42:25.800 and our desires

00:42:27.340 are mediated

00:42:28.180 and shaped

00:42:28.760 by the people

00:42:29.620 we encounter

00:42:30.300 most perfectly

00:42:31.500 by the God

00:42:32.520 who becomes a man.

00:42:34.620 In the world of politics

00:42:36.040 things do not always

00:42:37.840 appear hopeful.

00:42:39.580 Hence Dante's invective

00:42:40.720 in Purgatory 6

00:42:41.640 against Italy.

00:42:42.940 Ah slavish Italy

00:42:44.180 he cries

00:42:44.900 dwelling of grief

00:42:46.340 ship without a pilot

00:42:47.760 in a great storm

00:42:48.660 not a queen of provinces

00:42:50.160 but a whore.

00:42:51.640 What does it profit

00:42:52.480 that Justinian

00:42:53.220 fitted you with the bridle

00:42:54.440 if the saddle is empty?

00:42:56.180 Without the bridle

00:42:57.040 the shame would be less.

00:42:59.580 Emperor Justinian

00:43:00.500 whom we'll meet

00:43:01.060 in Paradise 6

00:43:02.200 codified Roman law

00:43:03.840 the bridle

00:43:04.380 on human action.

00:43:06.280 No offense

00:43:07.060 to our libertarian friends

00:43:08.320 sometimes they say

00:43:09.700 politics is downstream

00:43:10.720 of culture

00:43:11.300 Dante sees the law

00:43:12.680 as a tutor

00:43:13.300 as the bridle

00:43:14.740 that reigns in

00:43:15.560 our lower

00:43:16.080 and destructive desires

00:43:17.340 and thereby

00:43:18.300 establishes the conditions

00:43:19.720 for true freedom.

00:43:21.640 But the bridle

00:43:22.760 is useless

00:43:23.540 if the saddle

00:43:24.540 is empty.

00:43:25.180 Law does nothing

00:43:27.260 without a ruler

00:43:28.640 to enforce it.

00:43:30.280 So Italy

00:43:30.640 has become a slave

00:43:31.540 having traded

00:43:32.680 the liberty of the queen

00:43:33.700 for the licentiousness

00:43:34.740 of the whore.

00:43:36.100 Rome weeps

00:43:36.920 Dante says

00:43:37.640 widowed and alone

00:43:39.020 and day and night

00:43:39.660 crawls out

00:43:40.180 my Caesar

00:43:41.020 why do you not

00:43:41.720 accompany me?

00:43:43.500 Italy is a bride

00:43:44.340 in need of a bridegroom

00:43:45.340 as the church

00:43:45.880 is the bride of Christ.

00:43:47.320 Dante cries out

00:43:47.980 oh highest Jove

00:43:48.800 who were crucified

00:43:50.260 on earth for us

00:43:51.140 are your just eyes

00:43:52.340 turned elsewhere?

00:43:52.980 the polity

00:43:54.980 is the bride

00:43:55.740 of the emperor

00:43:56.320 and this natural union

00:43:58.540 is a figure

00:43:59.260 of that supernatural union

00:44:00.780 the natural union

00:44:02.360 the nature rather

00:44:03.860 and the supernatural order

00:44:05.100 are supposed

00:44:05.940 to work together

00:44:06.760 but they don't.

00:44:09.440 The emperors

00:44:10.120 Albert and Rudolf Habsburg

00:44:12.060 specifically

00:44:12.600 in Dante's view

00:44:13.280 have abandoned

00:44:14.520 their bride

00:44:15.280 because of their covetousness.

00:44:17.580 They preferred

00:44:18.140 private interest

00:44:18.960 to the common good.

00:44:20.860 Albert and Rudolf

00:44:21.880 show us that

00:44:23.020 noble lineage

00:44:23.960 does not necessarily

00:44:25.420 confer true nobility.

00:44:28.320 Dante says

00:44:29.040 this is actually

00:44:29.640 how God arranged it.

00:44:31.160 Seldom does human probity

00:44:32.440 rise up

00:44:33.140 through the branches

00:44:33.960 and this is willed

00:44:35.440 by him who gives it

00:44:36.460 that it may be

00:44:37.400 attributed to him.

00:44:39.480 All nobility

00:44:40.260 is owed to God

00:44:41.200 it's not because

00:44:41.920 you're from the

00:44:42.840 Filiuzarelli line

00:44:43.760 or something.

00:44:45.060 Dante spells out

00:44:45.920 this lesson

00:44:46.420 more fully in the banquet.

00:44:47.940 The divine seed

00:44:48.820 he writes

00:44:49.300 does not fall

00:44:50.400 on a lineage

00:44:51.060 that is

00:44:51.840 on a family stock

00:44:52.700 it falls

00:44:53.840 on individual persons.

00:44:55.300 The stock

00:44:55.780 does not make

00:44:56.500 individuals noble.

00:44:58.260 Individuals make

00:44:59.000 the stock noble.

00:45:00.640 Why?

00:45:01.560 Because God alone

00:45:02.720 bestows it on the soul

00:45:03.720 for every good endowment

00:45:05.060 and every perfect gift

00:45:06.100 is from above.

00:45:07.640 Here again

00:45:08.340 there's a tension.

00:45:09.980 On the one hand

00:45:10.560 Dante says

00:45:11.160 we are essentially

00:45:12.300 creatures

00:45:12.940 of social context

00:45:14.220 formed by historical

00:45:15.960 political

00:45:16.460 and legal circumstances

00:45:17.680 out of our control.

00:45:18.480 On the other hand

00:45:20.140 he says

00:45:20.640 we are essentially

00:45:21.560 individuals

00:45:22.320 whose stock

00:45:23.720 will be ennobled

00:45:24.700 or degraded

00:45:25.540 according to the

00:45:26.400 graces bestowed

00:45:27.180 by God on us

00:45:27.960 individually.

00:45:29.640 So which is it?

00:45:31.360 We find out

00:45:32.400 in Purgatory 16

00:45:33.280 where Marco

00:45:34.100 of Lombardy

00:45:34.920 restates the problem.

00:45:36.960 You who are alive

00:45:37.960 still refer every cause

00:45:39.320 up to the heavens

00:45:40.040 just as if they moved

00:45:41.680 everything with them

00:45:42.600 by necessity.

00:45:43.480 If that were so

00:45:44.580 free choice

00:45:45.460 would be destroyed

00:45:46.100 in you

00:45:46.480 and it would not

00:45:47.540 be justice

00:45:48.060 to have joy

00:45:48.700 for good

00:45:49.120 and mourning

00:45:49.800 for evil.

00:45:51.020 In reality

00:45:51.980 Marco explains

00:45:53.260 the heavens

00:45:54.560 begin your notions

00:45:55.740 your emotions

00:45:56.520 rather

00:45:56.840 and your notions

00:45:57.660 I suppose.

00:45:59.080 A light

00:45:59.440 is given you

00:46:00.100 to know good

00:46:00.740 and evil

00:46:01.080 and free will

00:46:02.200 which if it

00:46:02.820 lasts out the labor

00:46:03.880 of its first battles

00:46:04.740 with the heavens

00:46:05.280 afterwards

00:46:06.360 overcomes

00:46:07.180 all things

00:46:08.080 if nourished well.

00:46:10.300 To a greater power

00:46:11.500 and a better nature

00:46:12.120 you lie subject

00:46:12.820 and therefore free

00:46:13.540 and that creates

00:46:14.080 the mind in you

00:46:14.640 which the heavens

00:46:15.140 do not govern.

00:46:16.480 We are born

00:46:17.160 in our circumstances

00:46:18.220 made by a happy maker

00:46:20.720 but then we taste

00:46:22.340 the flavor

00:46:22.740 of lesser goods

00:46:23.580 which we then pursue

00:46:24.920 to our detriment

00:46:25.800 here's Dante

00:46:27.540 if a guide

00:46:28.600 or reign

00:46:29.200 does not turn away

00:46:30.660 our love for them.

00:46:33.320 We need just rulers

00:46:34.740 to direct our desires

00:46:36.460 back toward reason.

00:46:38.320 Therefore

00:46:38.660 Marco explains

00:46:39.600 you can clearly see

00:46:41.380 that bad government

00:46:42.580 is the cause

00:46:43.580 that has made

00:46:44.220 the world wicked

00:46:45.240 and not nature

00:46:47.320 corrupt in you.

00:46:49.320 And the chief cause

00:46:50.240 of this bad government

00:46:51.200 for Dante

00:46:52.000 is that the church

00:46:53.400 has usurped

00:46:53.920 the power of the empire

00:46:54.760 which brings out

00:46:56.520 a beautiful paradox

00:46:57.720 that becomes apparent

00:46:58.960 in Purgatory 27

00:47:00.520 when Virgil bids

00:47:02.040 farewell to Dante

00:47:02.960 by saying

00:47:03.680 no longer wait

00:47:05.260 any word

00:47:05.900 or sign from me

00:47:06.840 free

00:47:07.840 upright

00:47:08.540 and whole

00:47:09.340 is your will

00:47:10.040 and it would be a fault

00:47:11.680 not to act

00:47:12.400 according to its intent

00:47:13.420 therefore

00:47:14.440 you over yourself

00:47:16.440 I crown

00:47:17.540 and miter

00:47:18.380 crown and miter

00:47:20.020 state and church

00:47:20.820 the purpose

00:47:22.900 of the separation

00:47:23.880 of church and state

00:47:24.600 on earth

00:47:24.900 in other words

00:47:25.380 is that they be united

00:47:27.000 in heaven

00:47:27.380 the purpose

00:47:28.480 of our subjection

00:47:29.340 to rulers

00:47:29.840 is that we become

00:47:31.660 free and whole

00:47:32.520 as individuals

00:47:33.200 the purpose

00:47:34.320 of our particular

00:47:35.020 experience in time

00:47:36.300 is universal

00:47:37.540 blessedness

00:47:38.160 in eternity

00:47:38.780 these apparent opposites

00:47:40.540 are not really opposed

00:47:41.700 one is just the way

00:47:43.620 to the other

00:47:44.200 thus Justinian

00:47:46.900 tells Dante

00:47:47.520 in the final canto

00:47:48.340 of the political triptych

00:47:49.220 different voices

00:47:50.900 make sweet notes

00:47:52.020 thus different thrones

00:47:53.860 in this our life

00:47:54.760 produces sweet harmony

00:47:55.820 among these wheels

00:47:57.140 Dante's voice

00:47:59.280 will be formed

00:47:59.980 by the particular trials

00:48:01.520 of his particular exile

00:48:03.180 as Caccia Guida

00:48:04.400 foresees in Paradiso 17

00:48:05.940 you will experience

00:48:07.840 how salty

00:48:08.860 tastes the bread

00:48:09.860 of another

00:48:10.280 this is an inside joke

00:48:12.460 actually

00:48:12.940 because it refers

00:48:13.960 to the saltiness

00:48:15.840 of the tears

00:48:16.780 coming down

00:48:17.340 onto the bread

00:48:17.860 but it's also a joke

00:48:19.080 about Florence

00:48:19.640 because Florentine bread

00:48:21.060 is famously made

00:48:22.220 without salt

00:48:22.780 so Dante leaves Florence

00:48:24.200 the bread's going to

00:48:24.800 taste very salty

00:48:25.440 it's a universal saltiness

00:48:27.020 understood

00:48:28.140 through a particular saltiness

00:48:29.900 you will experience

00:48:32.180 Caccia Guida warns

00:48:33.720 what a hard path it is

00:48:35.180 to descend and mount

00:48:36.280 by another's stairs

00:48:37.680 the universal indignity

00:48:39.820 of exile

00:48:40.420 but particular to Dante's

00:48:42.260 here is another little

00:48:43.240 play on words

00:48:43.780 I think

00:48:44.120 I haven't seen it elsewhere

00:48:44.840 but I think it's a little joke

00:48:46.160 because Dante's patron

00:48:47.740 is Cangrande de la Scala

00:48:49.180 Scala means stairs

00:48:50.120 he actually dedicates

00:48:52.080 this canticle

00:48:52.700 to Cangrande

00:48:53.440 and sends it to him

00:48:54.140 notice the order

00:48:55.460 though here

00:48:55.840 we expect an exile

00:48:58.220 begging patronage

00:48:59.320 to ascend

00:49:00.320 the stairs

00:49:01.280 of the patron's court

00:49:02.200 the patron doesn't

00:49:03.420 live underground

00:49:03.940 you expect him to go up

00:49:04.920 and then down

00:49:05.600 but Dante says

00:49:06.560 to go down

00:49:07.300 and then up

00:49:08.000 which is the form

00:49:09.460 of the poem

00:49:10.600 and the form of salvation

00:49:11.960 as for Dante's

00:49:14.560 fellow partisans

00:49:15.560 Caccia Guida warns

00:49:16.900 of their stupidity

00:49:18.300 the outcome

00:49:18.920 will provide the proof

00:49:20.200 so that for you

00:49:22.240 it will be well

00:49:23.000 to have become

00:49:23.760 a party

00:49:24.360 unto yourself

00:49:25.460 so does this mean

00:49:28.660 we should ignore politics

00:49:29.700 no

00:49:30.660 Dante has just insisted

00:49:32.840 in excruciating detail

00:49:34.740 upon the importance

00:49:36.000 of politics

00:49:37.060 even to salvation

00:49:37.940 Dante himself

00:49:39.760 remained active

00:49:40.480 in politics

00:49:41.020 as a pamphleteer

00:49:41.920 until the death

00:49:42.800 of Henry VII

00:49:43.480 in 1313

00:49:44.340 but Dante is reminding us

00:49:46.960 that exile

00:49:47.760 and salvation

00:49:48.500 ultimately pertain

00:49:50.100 to the individual

00:49:50.820 we are judged

00:49:52.460 alone

00:49:53.280 if I am a timid friend

00:49:56.380 to the truth

00:49:57.120 Dante concludes

00:49:58.380 I fear I will lose life

00:50:00.960 among those

00:50:01.780 who will call this time

00:50:02.980 ancient

00:50:03.400 if Dante prefers

00:50:05.340 political expediency

00:50:06.640 to the truth

00:50:07.480 not only will he forfeit

00:50:09.440 his salvation

00:50:10.060 he will lose

00:50:11.680 even his significance

00:50:12.780 in history

00:50:13.520 so having seen

00:50:15.580 the face of God

00:50:16.440 with memory failing

00:50:18.480 and left only

00:50:19.840 with sweetness

00:50:20.560 in his heart

00:50:21.340 remaining

00:50:21.800 Dante returns

00:50:23.680 to earth

00:50:24.200 to meet us

00:50:24.980 who are where

00:50:26.760 he was

00:50:27.500 in the beginning

00:50:28.720 to guide us

00:50:30.580 on our own

00:50:31.700 particular pilgrimages

00:50:32.900 and thank God

00:50:34.100 for that

00:50:34.480 thank you very much

00:50:35.600 thank you sir

00:50:47.840 I'm sitting here

00:50:48.640 huh

00:50:48.880 thank you very much

00:50:55.080 so much Michael

00:51:08.520 that was excellent

00:51:09.280 and we'll

00:51:11.900 we're going to be doing

00:51:12.820 a Q&A

00:51:13.880 and then we'll

00:51:14.440 switch to audience Q&A

00:51:16.080 and for new guests

00:51:18.020 can you guys hear me

00:51:20.640 now

00:51:21.340 okay

00:51:21.640 for new guests

00:51:22.620 my name is Marlys Layback

00:51:23.660 and I'm the director of programs

00:51:24.880 so thank you again Michael

00:51:27.120 so I framed some of my questions

00:51:30.380 I'd like to do some

00:51:31.020 application based questions

00:51:32.440 on Dante

00:51:33.900 especially after

00:51:34.880 observing your conversations

00:51:36.820 this week

00:51:37.440 and sitting in on your groups

00:51:38.740 and talking candidly with you

00:51:40.680 so one of the things

00:51:41.880 I'd love to hear your thoughts on

00:51:43.840 is even your interest

00:51:45.500 in social commentary

00:51:46.440 is how Dante's journey

00:51:48.100 in the Commedia

00:51:48.700 can help shape

00:51:49.940 how we think about

00:51:50.460 the relationship

00:51:50.940 between men and women today

00:51:52.060 so I know this is something

00:51:52.940 on everyone's minds

00:51:54.360 especially as young

00:51:55.740 as students

00:51:56.560 and there's a very evident wedge

00:51:59.580 between men and women

00:52:00.920 that's I think

00:52:01.880 inarguably

00:52:03.520 has led to

00:52:05.440 a lot of despair

00:52:06.440 and confusion

00:52:07.080 so

00:52:08.040 and what's so interesting

00:52:09.040 about Dante

00:52:09.560 is you know

00:52:10.080 he's writing in

00:52:10.680 the late medieval

00:52:11.620 early renaissance period

00:52:12.680 and the role of women

00:52:13.880 is really central

00:52:14.480 to his work

00:52:14.960 so

00:52:15.280 Beatrice

00:52:16.920 is his love

00:52:17.760 and he's

00:52:18.440 she's his spiritual guide

00:52:19.860 then you have

00:52:20.800 Mary, Lucia

00:52:21.560 and Beatrice

00:52:22.120 who make Dante's pilgrimage

00:52:23.380 through the afterlife possible

00:52:25.240 and Dante even writes

00:52:26.560 the Commedia

00:52:27.000 and like you mentioned

00:52:27.960 the vernacular Italian

00:52:29.020 instead of Latin

00:52:30.060 which was readable

00:52:31.620 so women could read

00:52:33.120 the vernacular Italian

00:52:34.480 so he wanted to be

00:52:35.680 this work that's accessible

00:52:37.120 and you even see

00:52:38.820 in Pogatario

00:52:39.460 several male souls

00:52:40.360 actually emphasize

00:52:41.020 that there's

00:52:42.240 a special powerfulness

00:52:43.540 to the prayers of women

00:52:44.840 that could

00:52:46.020 shorten their time

00:52:47.440 in Purgatory

00:52:47.940 so to Dante

00:52:49.140 you know

00:52:49.640 men and women

00:52:50.100 had these unique virtues

00:52:51.720 and

00:52:52.800 in the afterlife

00:52:54.860 they're made equal

00:52:55.760 how do you think Dante

00:52:57.000 can help us frame

00:52:57.860 the issues we encounter today

00:52:59.100 around the relationship

00:53:00.020 between men and women

00:53:00.840 whether it's in

00:53:01.880 our own personal lives

00:53:03.340 or at the

00:53:04.000 societal basis

00:53:05.240 well

00:53:05.980 yeah

00:53:06.420 Beatrice saves him

00:53:08.120 you know

00:53:08.500 sends Virgil down

00:53:09.640 to take him out

00:53:10.460 of the dark wood

00:53:11.140 and

00:53:12.540 it's probably worth

00:53:14.520 establishing

00:53:15.120 Dante really doesn't

00:53:16.860 know this woman

00:53:17.480 very well

00:53:18.160 he sees her twice

00:53:19.620 he sees her for the first

00:53:20.860 time when they're nine

00:53:21.480 years old

00:53:21.960 and she dies quite young

00:53:23.700 and

00:53:24.900 but she's his muse

00:53:27.320 and he writes

00:53:28.360 the Vita Nuova

00:53:29.260 for her

00:53:31.460 and he says

00:53:32.380 but I'm going to write

00:53:33.000 a poem

00:53:33.440 that you know

00:53:34.200 I'm going to write

00:53:34.600 about you

00:53:34.980 like no one's ever

00:53:35.800 written about a woman

00:53:36.400 before you know

00:53:37.040 and it's kind of

00:53:37.600 the prelude

00:53:38.020 to the Divine Comedy

00:53:38.860 and

00:53:39.820 so

00:53:41.380 she is

00:53:42.420 you know

00:53:42.800 she's a Christ figure

00:53:44.320 she's

00:53:45.000 lady philosophy

00:53:46.240 she's

00:53:46.880 you know

00:53:47.200 she's all of these

00:53:47.880 things

00:53:48.260 and

00:53:49.120 she's a little harsh

00:53:50.200 too

00:53:50.560 so

00:53:51.160 one part

00:53:51.640 we didn't get to

00:53:52.320 we just

00:53:52.780 obviously

00:53:53.380 you know

00:53:53.920 we'd be here

00:53:54.400 for the next

00:53:55.040 six months

00:53:55.720 if we were to

00:53:56.120 read the whole poem

00:53:56.680 but

00:53:56.880 when Virgil

00:53:58.780 says goodbye

00:53:59.520 in purgatory

00:54:00.180 he hands

00:54:00.980 Dante off

00:54:01.920 to Beatrice

00:54:02.580 and

00:54:03.620 Dante turns around

00:54:05.840 and he's gone

00:54:06.680 and he starts crying

00:54:07.380 and Beatrice says

00:54:09.160 non piangere ancora

00:54:10.580 non piangere ancora

00:54:12.540 stop crying

00:54:14.360 you know

00:54:15.100 it's her first line

00:54:16.520 you're waiting

00:54:16.900 your love

00:54:17.380 you've gone through

00:54:17.920 hell

00:54:18.200 and now

00:54:18.640 you're her first line

00:54:19.420 and stop crying

00:54:19.980 you know

00:54:20.240 cut it out

00:54:20.580 act like a man

00:54:21.220 Don Corleone

00:54:22.120 to Michael Fontaine

00:54:22.880 Johnny Fontaine

00:54:23.920 and you all watched

00:54:25.660 that movie actually

00:54:26.540 this week

00:54:26.940 didn't you

00:54:27.320 yeah

00:54:27.480 it's great

00:54:27.800 so

00:54:29.620 all that to say

00:54:32.780 Dante

00:54:33.660 yes

00:54:34.220 he's writing

00:54:34.720 for women

00:54:35.420 he recognizes

00:54:36.120 that women

00:54:36.600 have intelligence

00:54:37.940 famous lines

00:54:39.380 I mentioned briefly

00:54:40.160 as an aside

00:54:40.760 here

00:54:40.980 he writes this line

00:54:42.000 don't make a bet

00:54:43.220 the intellect

00:54:43.660 of love

00:54:44.060 ladies who have

00:54:45.600 intelligence

00:54:46.140 of love

00:54:46.780 so he's saying

00:54:47.580 first of all

00:54:48.000 women are intelligent

00:54:48.760 and two

00:54:50.400 love is intelligible

00:54:52.220 you know

00:54:52.620 love is a rational

00:54:53.520 thing

00:54:53.940 and so

00:54:55.220 he's also telling us

00:54:56.440 that our love

00:54:57.020 is rather powerful

00:54:58.000 and driving us

00:54:58.780 and so

00:54:59.760 that final scene

00:55:01.060 is Dante

00:55:02.300 having his will

00:55:04.140 and his desire

00:55:05.240 and what's the distinction

00:55:06.600 between the two

00:55:07.120 maybe the higher will

00:55:07.760 and the lower will

00:55:08.280 being turned

00:55:09.440 like a wheel evenly

00:55:10.960 by the love

00:55:11.700 that moves the sun

00:55:12.760 and the other stars

00:55:13.520 each of the canticles

00:55:14.640 ends with the stars

00:55:15.540 that's important too

00:55:16.320 because

00:55:16.500 star derives from

00:55:19.160 it's got an

00:55:20.120 etymological root

00:55:22.160 in

00:55:22.500 for desire

00:55:25.240 so

00:55:25.640 desiderare

00:55:26.380 it comes from

00:55:27.080 the stars

00:55:28.100 like you're awaiting

00:55:29.260 what's going to come

00:55:30.080 from the stars

00:55:30.660 for you

00:55:31.040 so

00:55:31.260 ending each canticle

00:55:32.820 on stelle

00:55:33.460 is

00:55:34.200 to invoke

00:55:35.360 also this notion

00:55:36.220 of desire

00:55:36.820 and so

00:55:37.200 you know

00:55:39.340 I'm egged on

00:55:41.780 in my daily pursuits

00:55:43.340 by sweet little

00:55:44.560 Elisa

00:55:44.960 my Beatrice

00:55:45.680 and my Gemma Donati

00:55:47.060 all wrapped up

00:55:47.760 into one

00:55:48.180 you know

00:55:50.540 Paradiso

00:55:51.680 is really about education

00:55:52.820 so each of the planets

00:55:55.600 is about

00:55:56.140 one of the liberal arts

00:55:57.260 and your education

00:55:59.180 also should be about luck

00:56:00.240 I mean you're all here

00:56:00.960 because you

00:56:01.680 are very much attracted

00:56:03.800 to something

00:56:04.340 that you're learning

00:56:04.920 for its own sake

00:56:06.040 or to have practicality

00:56:08.060 in your life

00:56:08.560 to draw you toward

00:56:10.200 the good

00:56:10.560 for its own sake

00:56:11.400 you know

00:56:11.620 you're not here

00:56:12.240 to get an internship

00:56:13.400 on Capitol Hill

00:56:14.120 you could have done that

00:56:14.860 but instead you went

00:56:15.420 to Delaware

00:56:15.800 why

00:56:16.840 because you're

00:56:17.700 you're drawn

00:56:19.000 by your love

00:56:19.880 to something

00:56:20.520 which is good

00:56:21.080 and which is going

00:56:21.640 to guide you

00:56:22.480 to the highest good

00:56:24.360 that's what I think

00:56:25.780 we should do

00:56:26.300 to bring up Chesterton

00:56:27.860 who's always good

00:56:29.400 for a quote

00:56:29.960 you know

00:56:30.600 he observes

00:56:31.440 that he knew

00:56:32.400 that the church

00:56:33.780 was some great

00:56:35.080 or awful thing

00:56:36.080 when he realized

00:56:37.120 it was attacked

00:56:37.920 for opposite reasons

00:56:39.220 for being too luxurious

00:56:40.920 and for being too ascetic

00:56:42.100 for being too misogynistic

00:56:44.660 and also too womanish

00:56:46.840 you know

00:56:47.180 too full of women

00:56:48.780 basically

00:56:49.220 in all the masses

00:56:49.880 and I think we see this

00:56:52.720 this with Dante

00:56:54.360 you know

00:56:54.760 he's a man

00:56:55.780 I mean talk

00:56:56.300 he's about as virile

00:56:57.160 as they get

00:56:57.800 and he recognizes

00:57:00.040 the place of women

00:57:01.020 and the complementarity

00:57:02.440 of creation

00:57:03.060 and how they can

00:57:03.760 not only help him out

00:57:05.260 in the way Eve helps Adam

00:57:06.440 in the garden

00:57:06.880 but they can help him

00:57:07.560 all the way up to heaven

00:57:08.360 that's great

00:57:09.740 and so I also want to talk

00:57:11.500 about political factionalism

00:57:13.560 and Dante placed heretics

00:57:16.260 in the seventh circle of hell

00:57:17.720 but it was because

00:57:18.680 they fueled factionalism

00:57:19.780 and that divided

00:57:20.680 not just communities

00:57:21.520 but families

00:57:22.100 so something that comes to mind

00:57:23.600 that I'm sure you're familiar with

00:57:24.920 because I think Slate publishes

00:57:26.500 the same piece every year

00:57:27.580 about you know

00:57:28.700 your MAGA grandpa

00:57:29.620 or uncle

00:57:30.440 who at Thanksgiving

00:57:31.480 you know

00:57:32.200 he's insufferable

00:57:33.180 you have to put up with him

00:57:33.940 here's like a listicle

00:57:35.020 about how to put up

00:57:35.740 with that grandpa

00:57:36.360 and this isn't necessarily

00:57:38.760 a message of you know

00:57:40.440 becoming complacent

00:57:41.720 at least from Dante's perspective

00:57:43.120 in the face of evil

00:57:44.300 or corruption however

00:57:45.120 but what are your thoughts

00:57:46.820 on how to approach

00:57:47.460 things like political division

00:57:48.520 without straying too far

00:57:49.720 off the path of virtue

00:57:50.720 and into sin

00:57:51.340 based off of your reading

00:57:52.400 of the Commedia

00:57:53.300 sure well

00:57:53.940 you mentioned the heretics

00:57:55.320 but Dante kind of jumbles up

00:57:57.460 the heretics

00:57:57.940 and the schismatics

00:57:58.820 because schism is usually

00:58:01.440 grounded in some kind of heresy

00:58:03.040 and what is heresy

00:58:04.240 heresy comes from the word

00:58:05.280 for choosing

00:58:05.780 so you're just

00:58:06.640 you know often heretics

00:58:07.740 are not promoting vice necessarily

00:58:10.080 they're just choosing

00:58:10.840 one virtue

00:58:11.480 to the exclusion of others

00:58:12.560 or they're choosing

00:58:13.120 one aspect of Christian truth

00:58:14.800 to the exclusion

00:58:15.780 or reversal of others

00:58:17.140 so the problem there

00:58:19.260 is division

00:58:19.780 and we know

00:58:20.400 having gone through

00:58:21.220 some of Dante's

00:58:21.900 political tract

00:58:22.580 monarchia

00:58:23.360 that he places

00:58:24.800 a great deal of importance

00:58:25.880 on universality

00:58:28.180 and unity

00:58:29.540 and he's following

00:58:30.880 St. Thomas Aquinas

00:58:32.360 on this

00:58:32.700 and St. Thomas

00:58:33.440 is following St. Paul

00:58:34.260 and God

00:58:35.840 in this

00:58:36.380 and following the heavens

00:58:37.320 so

00:58:38.880 so you know

00:58:40.460 the unity

00:58:41.220 is extraordinarily important

00:58:43.180 and here I think

00:58:44.360 actually

00:58:44.820 that going

00:58:45.700 going back to

00:58:46.700 Caccia Guida's advice

00:58:47.680 it can be helpful

00:58:48.420 which is

00:58:48.820 he says

00:58:49.100 you know

00:58:49.760 it will be good

00:58:50.980 for you to have become

00:58:51.760 a party unto yourself

00:58:52.920 that's not like

00:58:54.560 you know

00:58:54.800 go vote for Evan McMullen

00:58:56.140 or something

00:58:56.640 I mean

00:58:56.940 heaven for Fend

00:58:57.980 but

00:58:58.660 he's saying

00:58:59.960 you know

00:59:00.160 you have an obligation

00:59:01.660 to the truth

00:59:03.200 you have

00:59:04.760 political duties

00:59:06.160 I mean

00:59:06.500 even as Dante

00:59:07.380 becomes a party

00:59:07.940 to himself

00:59:08.280 he's still engaging

00:59:09.140 in some political activity

00:59:10.380 but you have to recognize

00:59:12.680 what the thing is for

00:59:13.700 so in his defense

00:59:15.960 of monarchy

00:59:16.940 he says

00:59:17.380 look

00:59:17.880 politics

00:59:18.380 is for

00:59:19.360 peace

00:59:20.680 and he feels this

00:59:22.160 very

00:59:22.720 especially because

00:59:23.940 his whole experience

00:59:25.440 of politics

00:59:25.860 is civil war

00:59:26.540 and they take his property

00:59:28.020 and they threaten to kill him

00:59:28.860 and they kill his friends

00:59:29.580 and so

00:59:29.920 he just wants peace

00:59:31.820 and he recognizes

00:59:32.920 that

00:59:33.320 you know

00:59:34.240 it's hard to

00:59:35.960 have a career

00:59:36.680 if you're not peaceful

00:59:38.100 it's hard to pray

00:59:39.720 if there isn't peace

00:59:41.060 you know

00:59:41.420 the natural political order

00:59:44.020 is for

00:59:44.760 establishing the conditions

00:59:46.140 that are conducive

00:59:46.740 to natural human flourishing

00:59:47.940 and that is for

00:59:49.900 man's supernatural flourishing

00:59:51.380 which is happiness

00:59:51.980 and eternity

00:59:52.560 and so

00:59:53.680 if you

00:59:54.300 keep

00:59:55.280 an eye on the prize

00:59:56.840 I think that

00:59:58.120 rather tamps down

00:59:59.920 the factionalism

01:00:00.860 to use your example

01:00:02.660 if you keep your eye

01:00:03.980 on the good

01:00:04.560 of family

01:00:05.280 which is a good thing

01:00:06.680 actually

01:00:07.180 that'll probably

01:00:09.080 discourage you

01:00:10.180 from

01:00:10.520 even if you're

01:00:11.680 one of these

01:00:12.020 purple haired

01:00:12.680 half lesbian cousins

01:00:13.760 who shows up to Christmas

01:00:14.740 it'll at least

01:00:16.040 somewhat discourage you

01:00:17.260 from haranguing

01:00:18.280 your poor grandpa

01:00:19.040 who probably fought

01:00:19.640 in Korea or something

01:00:20.440 you know

01:00:20.700 and it'll

01:00:21.320 like

01:00:22.080 it might temper

01:00:23.160 some of those

01:00:23.700 irrational passions

01:00:24.540 because you're

01:00:25.240 keeping in mind

01:00:25.740 okay

01:00:25.920 the dinner

01:00:27.340 is not just

01:00:27.860 a dinner

01:00:28.180 you know

01:00:28.640 the election

01:00:29.440 is not just

01:00:29.940 an election

01:00:30.240 it's actually

01:00:30.920 for something

01:00:31.840 and the thing

01:00:32.620 that's for

01:00:33.060 is peace

01:00:34.140 and unity

01:00:35.340 and making money

01:00:37.060 having kids

01:00:37.920 you know

01:00:38.780 protecting our

01:00:40.580 borders

01:00:41.380 and our basic

01:00:42.060 security

01:00:42.540 and oh yeah

01:00:43.860 going to heaven

01:00:44.960 too

01:00:45.360 that's great

01:00:47.280 and

01:00:47.500 so

01:00:48.600 I asked about

01:00:50.060 the relationship

01:00:50.800 between Dante

01:00:51.680 and Beatrice

01:00:52.420 and I'm sorry

01:00:53.200 I keep pronouncing

01:00:54.040 that in Italian

01:00:54.840 because I never get to

01:00:55.520 it sounds much better

01:00:56.480 I don't get to

01:00:57.080 flex my Italian

01:00:57.920 so please bear with me

01:00:59.320 but what about Dante

01:01:01.100 and Virgil

01:01:01.540 who you also mentioned

01:01:02.960 who's you know

01:01:03.620 Virgil is a pagan

01:01:04.920 and but Dante

01:01:06.260 really admires

01:01:07.000 and respects him

01:01:07.820 and he leads him

01:01:08.340 through you know

01:01:09.000 Inferno

01:01:09.700 and Pergatario

01:01:10.380 what Dante shows us

01:01:12.180 with Virgil

01:01:12.660 though I think

01:01:13.220 is that you know

01:01:14.260 Virgil died

01:01:14.980 without knowing Christ

01:01:15.920 and there's something

01:01:17.260 to learn

01:01:17.760 from even pre-Christian

01:01:19.180 Rome

01:01:19.600 and its poets

01:01:20.940 and philosophers

01:01:21.560 but Dante

01:01:22.460 was also aware

01:01:23.440 of this

01:01:24.080 incompleteness

01:01:24.820 that civilization

01:01:25.820 had without Christianity

01:01:27.080 so what are your thoughts

01:01:28.520 on how we think

01:01:29.400 about that

01:01:30.180 in this particular moment

01:01:31.160 when we reflect

01:01:32.020 on American life

01:01:32.860 and so many elements

01:01:34.300 of it you know

01:01:34.780 we are in a post-Christian

01:01:36.000 society

01:01:36.560 and I think some

01:01:37.460 would even argue

01:01:38.080 we're re-paganizing

01:01:39.300 yeah

01:01:39.880 yeah it's a lot worse

01:01:40.940 to re-paganize

01:01:41.820 is the problem

01:01:42.400 there's a lot to recommend

01:01:43.860 the virtuous

01:01:44.520 ancient pagans

01:01:45.720 but history happens

01:01:47.840 you know

01:01:48.180 I mean I guess

01:01:48.640 this is the

01:01:49.100 broadly the subject

01:01:50.560 of my talk

01:01:51.320 history happens

01:01:52.640 and you don't just

01:01:53.700 live in eternity

01:01:54.340 right now

01:01:54.920 you live in time

01:01:56.000 and so

01:01:56.360 to you know

01:01:58.000 to not know Christ

01:01:59.060 in antiquity

01:02:01.720 pre-incarnation

01:02:03.420 is one thing

01:02:04.380 to not

01:02:06.200 to not know Christ

01:02:07.060 you can't not know Christ

01:02:08.160 now actually

01:02:08.780 everyone knows

01:02:09.720 you know

01:02:10.420 it's made it

01:02:11.420 you know

01:02:11.620 all the apostles

01:02:12.140 went off

01:02:12.600 most of them

01:02:13.020 to their deaths

01:02:13.580 and Rome

01:02:14.380 conquered the world

01:02:15.480 and you know

01:02:16.700 they know

01:02:17.160 so you can't

01:02:18.300 just not know Christ

01:02:19.020 you can't have

01:02:19.520 you can't have an

01:02:19.640 innocent kind of

01:02:20.520 philosophical paganism

01:02:21.680 like Aristotle

01:02:22.360 or Plato had

01:02:23.120 you have to

01:02:25.480 reject Christ

01:02:26.440 and you don't

01:02:27.680 even have the option

01:02:28.920 to not know Christ

01:02:29.900 you know

01:02:30.180 it's sort of there

01:02:31.000 we just live

01:02:32.100 in a different context

01:02:33.180 different choices

01:02:34.500 are available to us

01:02:35.700 than were to our

01:02:36.500 forebears

01:02:36.880 there's this really

01:02:37.600 sad moment

01:02:38.220 in purgatory

01:02:38.760 when Virgil

01:02:40.560 is talking to

01:02:41.240 Statius

01:02:41.560 another Latin poet

01:02:42.600 and Statius

01:02:43.980 says to him

01:02:44.460 Statius makes it

01:02:45.320 to purgatory

01:02:45.780 Virgil's stuck in hell

01:02:47.060 albeit the kind of

01:02:47.780 nice part of hell

01:02:48.460 it's just

01:02:48.860 perfectly pleasant

01:02:50.020 but totally hopeless

01:02:50.960 you know

01:02:51.720 it's like

01:02:52.160 LA or something

01:02:53.740 you know

01:02:54.040 certainly no hope

01:02:55.960 but it's kind of

01:02:56.480 nice weather

01:02:56.920 and so

01:02:58.640 so he's talking

01:02:59.660 and Statius

01:03:00.140 makes it to purgatory

01:03:01.280 and

01:03:02.060 and Statius says

01:03:04.000 through you

01:03:05.260 I became Christian

01:03:06.640 but he didn't make it

01:03:09.620 you know

01:03:10.340 the guy who was

01:03:11.100 the cause of his

01:03:11.900 Christianity

01:03:12.300 is in hell

01:03:13.620 and that happens

01:03:14.840 and then there are

01:03:15.520 these really

01:03:15.940 again

01:03:16.680 we just

01:03:17.040 limited on time

01:03:18.020 but we

01:03:18.940 Dante

01:03:20.460 the eagle

01:03:21.480 is an important symbol

01:03:22.740 in purgatory

01:03:23.440 and in paradise

01:03:24.160 the eagle's

01:03:25.000 the emblem of Rome

01:03:25.900 and it's the symbol

01:03:26.580 of empire

01:03:27.080 the eagle of justice

01:03:28.040 and Dante has to go

01:03:29.760 to sleep in purgatory

01:03:30.640 because now we're

01:03:31.740 in time again

01:03:32.360 you know

01:03:32.640 hell's eternal

01:03:33.200 but we're in time again

01:03:34.720 so he goes to sleep

01:03:35.560 he has this dream

01:03:36.360 and you know

01:03:38.280 there's an eagle

01:03:39.340 and then anyway

01:03:39.860 he encounters the eagle

01:03:40.620 in paradise

01:03:41.060 and he asks the eagle

01:03:42.480 he says

01:03:42.980 hey man

01:03:43.680 hey Mr. Eagle

01:03:44.600 why is it

01:03:46.420 that I've been given

01:03:48.680 all these graces

01:03:49.360 and all these other people

01:03:51.140 have been given

01:03:51.440 these graces

01:03:51.960 and well to your point

01:03:54.380 some people didn't know Christ

01:03:55.920 even today

01:03:57.200 what about the man

01:03:59.040 standing on the Indus River

01:04:00.300 who has never heard

01:04:01.140 the name Christ

01:04:01.880 Dante asks the eagle

01:04:03.440 and the eagle's answer is

01:04:05.720 who are you

01:04:07.440 who are you

01:04:08.940 to ask me that

01:04:09.800 you know the eagle's answer

01:04:11.140 is

01:04:11.620 God's answer to Job

01:04:14.300 where were you

01:04:15.540 when I made the heavens

01:04:16.340 and the earth

01:04:16.860 you know

01:04:17.760 ours is not to know

01:04:19.100 that in God's providence

01:04:22.600 which is so tightly knit

01:04:23.760 that you know

01:04:25.300 not a sparrow falls

01:04:26.640 without your father knowing it

01:04:28.000 we ought to just have some joy

01:04:32.320 for the graces

01:04:32.940 that we've been given

01:04:33.840 and you know

01:04:34.740 take up the great commission

01:04:35.660 and spread the gospel

01:04:36.720 and encourage stable political order

01:04:40.040 in which religion can flourish

01:04:41.500 and souls can be saved

01:04:42.540 but it's a pity for those guys

01:04:45.780 at least the thing we can say

01:04:47.620 about the virtuous pagans

01:04:49.040 is they did get what they want

01:04:50.600 you know

01:04:51.520 and that is a really simplistic

01:04:53.380 takeaway from the comedy

01:04:54.520 is people get what they want

01:04:56.260 you really do get what you desire

01:04:57.840 and so if you want to

01:05:01.080 you know if you want to do

01:05:03.120 the Hunter Biden

01:05:03.740 and you want to go

01:05:04.400 like smoke crack

01:05:05.360 and do doodles

01:05:06.040 and sell it to Ukrainian oligarchs

01:05:07.820 you can do it

01:05:08.780 you know you can get

01:05:09.380 and it won't

01:05:09.840 there's no way of doing that

01:05:11.780 and having a good life

01:05:12.860 but you can't

01:05:13.980 you really can do it

01:05:14.920 and you'll get

01:05:15.600 basically exactly

01:05:16.520 what you deserve

01:05:17.240 and for the virtuous pagans

01:05:19.140 I guess what you deserve

01:05:21.160 is half a million dollars

01:05:21.920 or something

01:05:23.200 but I don't know

01:05:23.940 we'll see how it turns out

01:05:24.680 for the virtuous pagans though

01:05:26.780 they don't have hope

01:05:28.340 you know

01:05:28.960 the patriarchs

01:05:31.140 from the Old Testament

01:05:32.340 they're not in hell

01:05:33.120 they had hope

01:05:34.440 you know they're

01:05:35.120 they Christ comes down

01:05:36.400 they don't have hope

01:05:38.000 and so the best they can think of

01:05:39.480 the best they can dream of

01:05:40.340 is the Elysian Fields

01:05:41.740 where you're just all

01:05:42.440 hanging around

01:05:43.000 you know bragging about

01:05:43.780 your poetry or whatever

01:05:44.660 bragging about your philosophy books

01:05:46.280 and that's what they'll get forever

01:05:48.320 so for my last question

01:05:50.300 before you go to audience Q&A

01:05:51.540 just to survey the room

01:05:52.580 who's read any part of the comedy

01:05:54.760 all right

01:05:56.560 these ISI kids man

01:05:58.140 this is good stuff

01:05:59.080 who has read everything

01:06:00.780 from the Inferno, Purgatario

01:06:04.080 and Paradiso

01:06:05.320 that's shocking

01:06:06.480 okay

01:06:06.840 so my last question

01:06:08.400 is something that

01:06:09.220 a lot of teachers of Dante

01:06:11.540 complain about

01:06:12.280 is whether it's through

01:06:13.960 private education

01:06:14.840 or public education

01:06:15.820 students tend to only read

01:06:17.760 the Inferno

01:06:18.380 they don't go to Purgatory

01:06:19.820 or Heaven

01:06:20.460 and what's your

01:06:23.500 how do you start

01:06:24.440 you know

01:06:24.820 you're more or less

01:06:26.340 you know

01:06:26.640 you were very self-motivated

01:06:28.140 to learn the comedy

01:06:29.600 if you want to read the comedy

01:06:31.720 and maybe you've only read

01:06:33.280 you know

01:06:33.700 a part of it

01:06:35.240 what's your best advice

01:06:36.980 for tackling

01:06:37.660 all parts of it

01:06:39.860 and fullness

01:06:41.200 to make you feel better

01:06:43.260 about people not making it

01:06:44.480 to the end

01:06:44.920 a friend of mine

01:06:46.280 who's a real Dante scholar

01:06:47.440 not a cigar salesman

01:06:48.840 who likes the poem

01:06:49.500 but an actual Dante scholar

01:06:51.600 Catherine Illingworth

01:06:52.960 she said

01:06:53.780 you know

01:06:54.080 even if you look

01:06:54.700 at medieval manuscripts

01:06:56.700 there are all these

01:06:57.980 little notes

01:06:58.540 in the margins

01:06:59.200 of Inferno 1

01:07:01.160 through 5

01:07:02.000 through 10

01:07:02.460 and then Purgatory

01:07:04.880 there are fewer

01:07:05.480 and then

01:07:06.020 you know

01:07:06.620 it's a handful

01:07:07.380 in Paradise

01:07:07.940 so even the medieval monks

01:07:09.120 were kind of

01:07:09.780 losing steam

01:07:11.480 somewhere along the line

01:07:12.540 so if you want

01:07:14.900 to read it though

01:07:15.480 one of the clearest

01:07:16.520 takeaways

01:07:17.040 from the poem

01:07:19.080 is

01:07:19.440 you really

01:07:20.060 shouldn't go it alone

01:07:21.160 you really can't

01:07:22.580 do education alone

01:07:23.720 you have to

01:07:24.300 you need your Virgil

01:07:25.880 and then you need

01:07:26.800 your Beatrice

01:07:27.460 and then you need

01:07:28.600 your Bernard of Clairvaux

01:07:29.560 who's the guide

01:07:30.640 at the very end

01:07:31.300 who people always

01:07:31.780 kind of forget about

01:07:32.420 but you know

01:07:34.320 education is

01:07:36.180 mediated by real people

01:07:38.140 and really all of

01:07:40.120 the cosmos is

01:07:41.560 and your path

01:07:42.520 to salvation

01:07:42.940 will be too

01:07:43.620 mediated by

01:07:44.680 the God

01:07:46.360 who becomes man

01:07:47.160 and by the sacraments

01:07:48.440 of the institutes

01:07:49.080 and the priesthood

01:07:49.780 of the institutes

01:07:50.460 and you know

01:07:52.080 real life

01:07:53.180 so that's true

01:07:55.520 really of all education

01:07:56.480 I think

01:07:56.800 and there are wonderful

01:07:57.380 resources available

01:07:58.340 coincidentally

01:07:59.400 I only really took

01:08:00.660 one course on Dante

01:08:01.660 by one of the great scholars

01:08:03.880 Giuseppe Mazzotta

01:08:04.940 who I probably stole

01:08:06.360 half of his ideas

01:08:07.160 in this lecture

01:08:08.140 he has an excellent book

01:08:10.360 on it

01:08:10.740 Dante Poet of the Desert

01:08:12.540 History and Allegory

01:08:13.680 and the Divine Comedy

01:08:14.480 and when I

01:08:15.840 I studied with him

01:08:16.740 in Italy

01:08:17.100 and so we did the poem

01:08:18.080 in Italian

01:08:18.560 the subsequent semester

01:08:22.100 he taught it

01:08:23.220 in English

01:08:23.860 at Yale

01:08:24.720 and it was being filmed

01:08:26.480 for Yale Open Courses

01:08:27.640 and it's still on YouTube

01:08:29.880 actually

01:08:30.280 almost the exact time

01:08:31.900 I took the course

01:08:32.560 and it's really good

01:08:33.660 so you know

01:08:34.200 what I would recommend

01:08:34.760 is if you want to

01:08:35.380 dive into it

01:08:36.100 first get yourself

01:08:37.120 in addition with really

01:08:38.100 good notes

01:08:38.740 and a good translation

01:08:40.040 the Durling Martinez

01:08:41.360 I think is pretty good

01:08:42.360 for that

01:08:42.780 and the notes

01:08:43.460 are outstanding

01:08:44.300 I disagreed

01:08:46.780 and changed

01:08:47.220 some of their translation

01:08:48.140 in the talk

01:08:48.980 but the notes

01:08:50.760 are really good

01:08:51.300 then I would get

01:08:52.660 I would get

01:08:53.460 a little secondary scholarship

01:08:54.600 usually I say

01:08:56.040 go straight to the sources

01:08:56.820 don't get the secondary scholarship

01:08:57.940 with Dante

01:08:58.360 you need a little bit

01:08:58.980 of secondary scholarship

01:08:59.720 and I would

01:09:00.880 I would watch some lectures

01:09:02.380 I would follow a course

01:09:03.300 on it if you can

01:09:04.080 because

01:09:04.380 you ain't making it

01:09:06.140 to paradise

01:09:06.640 the real one

01:09:07.420 or the canticle

01:09:08.060 on your own

01:09:08.880 is my advice

01:09:09.800 well thank you so much

01:09:11.460 Michael

01:09:11.800 we are going to

01:09:13.380 you can clap

01:09:14.100 go ahead

01:09:14.380 applause

01:09:15.640 applause

01:09:16.640 applause

01:09:17.640 applause

01:09:18.640 applause

01:09:19.640 applause

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01:10:13.580 to

The Michael Knowles Show - October 05, 2024

Michael Knowles EXPLAINS Dante’s Divine Comedy

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