Dante's Allegory of Love in the Divine Comedy

The Meaning of Love through the works of

Dante Alighieri

Tevon Strand-Brown

“O all ye whose intellects are sound,
Look now and see the meaning that is hidden
Beneath the veil that covers my strange verses:”
(Inferno 9:61)

Dante Alighieri is indisputably the most famous Italian poet in history. His seminal

work, The Divine Comedy still inspires 700 years after its writing, and has not yet yielded all of its secrets, though it is one of the most widely studied works ever to be written. The name “Dante” and that of The Divine Comedy are known the world over, but what of the man Dante? What of the allegory beneath his verses? The history of the Divine Poet, his life, his love and the mysteries of his great achievements are known to relatively few, compared to the number of people who have read the Comedy. My purpose here to open those doors to you, to give a taste of the lessons and mysteries of Dante’s work, to give a glimpse of a man, famous in his time and forevermore, and to recount the greatest tale of Love ever told. His definition of love may be the most potent and intricate definition ever described, told through four separate levels of allegory, culminating in the rise of the universal goal of
Love itself.

The Man
“In that book which is my memory,
On the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you,
Appear the words, ‘Here begins a new life’.” (Vita)

Dante was born in 1265, though the month is not known. His given name was Du-

rante Delgi Alighieri, Dante being a shortened version which he himself, and subsequent
—2—

writers and translators would adopt. His family name Alighieri comes form the Latin word
‘aliger’, which can be translated to “winged.” Though it came from his father, it was originally passed from a mother, Alighiera Aldighieri — wife of Cacciaguida Elisei, founder of Florence — to her son. Thus Dante can trace his lineage directly back to the founders of his beloved Florence. The root meaning of Durante (and Dante) is more obvious, enduring, as names were of the upmost importance in those days. Dante would be happy to know that he has far surpassed the destiny of an enduring name.

His father was a man of finance, buying and selling property as well as lending

money, something Dante later disapproved of and which found its way into his Inferno.
His mother was also from a well respected Florentine family, the Abati. Her father Durante (whom Dante was named after) was a judge at the time. Much of the Poet’s history we can find in the Comedy because although it is the story of his enlightenment, it also tells the tale of his past. We see this with his mother, whom we find in the circle of violence in
Inferno, for she committed suicide while Dante was still very young, somewhere between
1270 and 1275. After his mother’s death, his father soon remarried and had two more children. It seems Dante had a good relationship with these siblings as he refers affectionately to a sister who visits him while he is sick in “La Vita Nuova.”

These references require that I move ahead, to describe the works of Dante for it is

especially through them that we learn so much of the man. I shall discuss The Divine Comedy at greater length in a future section. But as an overview it is the tale of Dante’s journey through Inferno, rising up through Purgatory, then finally moving through Paradise, guided
—3—

by his beloved Beatrice, with his pilgrimage ending with the vision of God. The other work that I shall mention often is “la Vita Nuova”, The New Life, which is a compilation of poems, sonnets and stories from throughout his life. It particularly focuses on his love for
Beatrice which pervaded his life from the age of nine until he died at fifty-six.

At this time Florence was a burgeoning hub of trade and culture, becoming one

of the richest and most powerful cities in Italy, and even in Eastern Europe. However the city was divided along many lines; there was a split between the populace and the gentry, yet also among the gentry. The largest of these rifts was that between the Guelph, whom
Dante supported, and the Ghibellines. Once the Ghibellines were expelled from Florence another divide occurred; Between the Black Guelphs, those who supported the Papacy, and the white Guelphs, who wished for more autonomy from Rome. With the support of
Pope Boniface the Black Guelphs took control of Florence, destroying many White Guelph homes and exiling Dante. If he were ever to return to his beloved Florence to “worship at his baptismal fount” he would suffer death by burning.

Following his exile, Dante wandered from city to city. Reigniting his intellectual

spirit in Bologna and moving as far afield as Paris. Finally he settled in Ravenna, a small city not far from Florence. It is during this time that it is believed that be began his masterpiece, The Divine Comedy. It was completed just prior to his death, sometime between
1318 and 1321. The final Canto of Paradise was said to be lost for months following Dante’s death, until in a dream, one of Dante’s sons saw his father who showed his where the final pages were hidden. His son, Pietro, searched for the pages and found them just where
—4—

his father had indicated, and so, just as a dream had begun the Comedy, a dream completed it. The Divine Comedy tells the tale of the Poet, Dante, and his journey down into

Inferno, up mount Purgatory and into Paradise where “the Love that moved the sun and the other stars” is finally revealed to him. It is divided into three canticles, Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. Each canticle is then further divided into 33 cantos, similar to chapters, except for Inferno which has a single introductory canto bringing the total to 100. Each canto is further split into three line sections, each line with a precise 11 syllables. This story fictively occurs in the year 1300 and Dante is faithful to this date, only including people who had died before 1300 in any level of the Comedy , though often referencing those who are still living.

Inferno, the first volume, is by far the most famous and widely read of the three.

It begins: “Midway upon the journey of our life.” Simply this first line gives premise to the Comedy being both a literal journey through the levels of the earth but also a figurative voyage through the life of a person, in this case Dante, though it can be expanded to include a more universal version of life. Through inferno Dante is guided by another great poet, Virgil, who, because he is a virtuous infidel has been confined to neutrality, the first level of hell. But who has been tasked by Beatrice to guide Dante down through Hell and up Mount Purgatory. Their journey through Hell takes them down through all nine levels, on each level pausing to watch the punishment of the shades and sometimes speak to them, talking of their crimes or of the goings on of the living world. Finally in the lowest
—5—

level —Judeca, reserved for the traitors— gravity reverses and they climb back out of the pit of inferno to once more observe the stars.

At the base of Mount Purgatory seven P’s are inscribed on Dante’s forehead. Each

standing for Pecatum or sin in Latin. As they pass through each of the seven levels of purgatory, each P is purged from his forehead. For Purgatory is not a place of perpetuity as many believe; it is a place of purging sins as its name suggests. Virgil continues as his guide and offers advice and answers to his questions along the way. However on questions of faith he defers to Beatrice, asking Dante to await her for his answer. At the peak of
Purgatory is the Garden of Eden, earthly paradise. Here in paradise Dante is in awe of the heavens above him, while Virgil is reserved and distant. Dante turns away from his guide to gaze at four bright stars above him and when he looks back Virgil is gone. In his place stands Beatrice.

From the Gardens of Eden Beatrice leads Dante into Paradise, the nine circles of

heaven. In each of these circles Dante speaks with different figures, Roman Emperors,
Saints and Apostles prominent among them. And just as Virgil taught Dante of life and the plight of souls in Inferno and Purgatory, so Beatrice teaches him of divinity, virtue and all the levels of beatitude. One of the people he meets is his great great grand-father Cacciaguida, who tasks him to compose a poem which “puts aside all falsehood.” He agrees, and is also tested by the apostles Peter, James and John before his can enter the Empyrean, the highest level of Heaven. It is here in the amphitheater of the Empyrean that Dante’s journey reaches is culmination with his rapturous vision of God.
—6—

“But my own wings were not enough for this,
Had it not been that then my mind there smote
A flash of lightning, wherein came its wish.” (Paradise 33:139)

Dante and Love
“But now was turning my desire and will,
Even as a wheel that equally moved,
The Love that moves the sun and the other stars.” (Paradise 33:142)

Perhaps it is a sad testament to the human race, that the greatest love stories are

those of unrequited love. Mark Antony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet, Dante and his Beatrice. Dante first glimpsed Beatrice at the age of nine. Of that sight he says, “At that moment, I say most truly that the spirit of life, hath its dwelling in the secretest chamber of the heart” (Nuova). He goes on, describing her as a deity, as something other than a worldly woman. From that moment onward his life was drastically changed. “I say that, from that time forward, Love quite governed my soul” (Nuova). His love was torrential, yet when he saw her he kept it in check. For nine years after that first sight they never spoke. He would watch her in her family’s small church of Santa Margherita, sitting some ten feet behind her, imagining her as an image of perfection, but never speaking. It is difficult to imagine such love with so little contact. He was enamored with her but also with his imagination of her. It was not until nine years later to the day,that a word was exchanged between

them. While passing in the street, Beatrice “by her unspeakable courtesy” greeted him. He
—7—

remembers she was dressed all in white, unlike the red he first saw her in, white being the color of virginity and divinity. In each of his earthly visions of her, she is described using images and words normally reserved for Christ or God himself. Dante was taken by the sound of her voice: “For she doth make my veins and pulses tremble.” He went directly home and fell asleep and dreamed that Love came to him. Throughout the Vita Nuova,
Love comes to Dante, taking a different human form each time, and speaks to him, offering advice and admonitions. Love appears to him multiple times and each time represents a shift in Dante’s interactions with Beatrice.

Dante makes the mistakes of many lovers as he is so overcome by Beatrice. In an

attempt to hide the true object of his love, he begins to use what he calls a “screen-lady,” a woman toward whom he outwardly directs his attentions so as to divert attention from
Beatrice. This obviously backfires and Beatrice, as they pass again in the street, withholds her greeting. Dante is grief-stricken and, following another vision of love decides to write directly to her. These poems and sonnets received praise in Florence, and were read around the city in small poetry readings, increasing Dante’s stature as a great writer even in his time. However life for Dante soon takes another enormous turn, with the death of Be-

atrice. She is said to have died in June, 1290, a date with “the perfect number nine” having been completed “nine times” according to the Syrian Calendar. (Lewis). Dante is so overcome that he cannot put words to the event. After compiling the Vita Nuova he resolves not to write of Beatrice again, until he can “say of her what was never said of any other
—8—

woman.” It is from this wish that springs the greatest tribute to human love ever created,
La Commedia.

In Dante’s journey Beatrice is his primary guide. Though Virgil guides him through

two levels of the afterlife, it is Beatrice who sent Virgil to assist Dante and Beatrice whom he follows through paradise and Beatrice who teaches him the most of love. She acts as a personal representation of Christ. We can see this in many aspects of Dante’s description of her — her appearance, the events around her and her relation to the number nine. The number nine can be seen as a reference to the divinity of the holy trinity, and it is used in reference to Beatrice to reinforce her power as Dante’s connection to the divine. In the ninth canto of both Inferno and Purgatory Dante enters the city of Dis and then the Gates of Purgatory — the two most significant entrances in their respective canticles. Yet in
Paradise, in the ninth canto, Dante passes from the circles of Venus unto the level of the sun. This may seem insignificant yet it signifies the passage from earth to heaven. It is not until the level of the sun that all earthly woes and pains are stripped away. This ninth canto is significant as it also demonstrates the divinity of the number, yet interestingly it also illustrates the divinity of love as it is in this canto that Dante meets three great lovers; a mistress, a bishop and a harlot. Not exactly the lovers you would expect, but these references, as well as their relations to nine and their positions in paradise, serve to highlight the significance of human love in order to ascend further into heaven. This is Beatrice’s role, as she serves both as the object of human love and the transcendent divine guide.

Other parallels between Beatrice and Christ can also be drawn— one being her
—9—

appearance in heaven, she is proceeded by Giovanna Primavera, as Christ was similarly proceeded by John the Baptist. Here we can see Dante’s literary playfulness with “Giovanna” as a feminine version of John and Primavera as an anagram meaning “Prima Verra” which literally translates to “will come first.” Beatrice also descends to Inferno to summon
Virgil as Christ did to bring salvation to humanity, Virgil will be Dante’s personal salvation. Dante even recognizes this in Paradise 30:80 saying “Who deigned for my salvation to leave your footprints in Hell.” Lansing also points out a parallel between the names of
Christ and Beatrice:
“The reference to her nickname, “Bice,” in Paradiso is a way which must evoke the abbreviations of Christ in manuscripts: “Be” (beato, “blessed”) and “ice”
(IC=Iesu Cristo=Jesus Christ.)”
Despite her obvious divinity, Beatrice is also a physical woman, as we see in the Vita Nuova, who inspires love and desire in Dante. Thus she fills both roles, as the method of divine salvation and also as the guide to human love. Both of which together create natural love, something I will go into greater detail about at a later point.

Dante strives, however, to remove any sexual attraction to Beatrice both for the

reader and for himself. And for the most part he is successful. By removing her erotic nature in his writing, he reclaims some power from her. As we see in the Vita Nouva, she holds great power over him; she has the power to send him into fits of worry or anguish, simply with a laugh or refused look. In de-eroticizing her, we see Dante’s attempt to retain his own power over human love, while relinquishing his power over natural love, allow— 10 —

ing her to guide and teach him of its natural flow. As both the Comedy and the Nuova are little more than an homage to Beatrice, it is interesting to see that Dante withholds this one form of power from her, that of sexual power. It could very well be that he is attempting to protect either himself or Beatrice from the sin of lust, yet we also find a seductress and a harlot in heaven, who further inform Dante on love. It may also be the case that Dante is protecting himself from the worldly effects of Beatrice. The vast majority of his writings about her are of his perception, his fantasy of her. Their physical contact was negligible and by removing the sexual discourse between them, the Beatrice of Dante’s pages is fully from inside the Poet. The Beatrice we know is Dante’s fantasy, a character within his own character. It is her spirit, not her body, that guides Dante. Dante may also shrug off this worldly influence because he has a further lord, one to whom he answers whole-heartedly, and for whom Beatrice is the perfect guide. That lord speaks to him in the third chapter of the Vita Nuova saying “I am your lord.” That lord is Love.

Allegory

The term allegory literally means the “hidden meaning”, it derives from greek “al-

los” (other) and “agoria” (speaking), “other speaking.” The Divine Comedy is rife with it.
Each canto is filled with political moral and divine statements. Allegory takes four forms in
The Divine Comedy modeled after biblical exegesis (interpretation of biblical style); Literal
(historical), Allegorical (Typographical) , Moral and Anagogical. These four forms follow the interpretation of scripture in the Middle Ages. In scripture, the historical meaning is
— 11 —

what is described as fact. It encompasses the people, places and events represented and shows them historically as things that have occurred. The second meaning (the Allegorical/
Typographical) is that of personification and representation, a person may represent a sin or a virtue. The moral meaning in the scripture is literally represented by Christ. “So far as the things done in Christ, or so far as the things which signify Christ, are types of what we ought to do, there is the moral sense.” (Aquinas). The final meaning, the anagogical is the hardest to pin down. This is because it is the broadest of the terms; it is the meaning which expands outwards and offers what the writer or reader considers an “eternal” meaning. The anagogical represents the realm of the Gods, thus making it eternal, “But so far as they signify what relates to eternal glory, there is the anagogical sense.” (Aquinas)

Neither the bible nor The Divine Comedy possess all four of these elements at

all times however. Writing is often adorned with “historical buttresses and adornments”, events that hold no further meaning than the literal. Different verses and cantos hold some of these meanings, some are personified in particular figures, others can only be found by evaluating the entire trajectory of the Comedy. These four meanings overlap, come and go, are sometimes clearly visible and some are lost forever in the annals of time. Other than the historical, the allegorical (typological) is the most prevalent form of meaning throughout the Comedy. Because all allegory is dependent on interpretation, the meanings put forth here are those that I deem to be correct, although there are likely other interpretations or even contrary views. As Dante followed many of the teachings of Thomas Aquinas, the following is the most prevalent definition for the typographical (allegorical) meaning in
— 12 —

the Comedy: “Whereas in every other science things are signified by words, this science has the property that the things signified by the words have themselves also signification”
(Aquinas). This is the definition Dante would have followed in constructing his own allegory.

Dante borrows heavily from Thomas Aquinas and Aquinas’ Theologica for his mor-

al theory and view of God, theology and use of allegory. As far as the view of God, Thomas Aquinas believed that there are two apects of any object or subject (their existence and their essence), except for God. Aquinas preaches God as simplicity. God is simply essence, for his/her/its existence is its essence. This essence to Dante is Love; all other objects are not independent of love and thus God, who is the representation of pure love, is the only individual being in existence. “God is identical with just one in- divisible thing, but that one thing has different effects and appearances” (Stump).

Dante also enumerates the importance of each level of meaning, saying in his work

Convivio, “I shall always first discourse upon the literal meaning of each canzone, and after that I shall discourse upon its allegory, that is, the hidden truth; and I shall sometimes incidentally touch upon the other senses (anagogical), as the place and the time make appropriate.” This leads us to believe that the historical (literal) meaning is the most important, followed by the allegorical. The anagogical seems to be a natural uprising of this discourse of both the literal and the allegorical. The moral finds its way into the literal meanings as well, since Christ is synonymous with morality, and the bible and Beatrice are taken as fact. Throughout the Comedy, Beatrice and her compatriots teach Dante many
— 13 —

things, most of these may be interpreted as the moral allegory. What must also be understood is that the literal meaning will always be present, and for the most part the allegorical will be also. But that Allegory will take one or more of its three forms, typographical/allegorical, moral or anagogical. He gives an example of this four-fold allegory in a letter sent to Cangrande of Verona. The Allegory of Love
“Love, which pardons no beloved from loving, took me so strongly with delight in him
That, as you see, it still abandons me not...” (Nuova)
As we begin to look at the many meanings of love in The Divine Comedy, the three literal forms we shall examine are 1) love as an emotion, 2) love as Beatrice, and 3) Love as a figure and as God. First let us examine Dante’s belief of love. For Dante, love was the driving force of the universe. It causes souls to rise to heaven or fall into hell. It literally set the stars in motion. All sinners and all saints had their actions based in love, for better or for worse. Love causes all movement in the universe, whether for the sinners to ascend because of love for God or for the blessed to descend in order to save a soul. Just as Beatrice descends to bring Dante to the Empyrean, it also causes the angels to move in their circles around God, thus creating the movement of the heavens.

However, love also has a darker side. According to Dante, love is also the root of

sin. He takes this view from William Peraldus’ analysis of the Augustinian Sins; Pride,
Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony and Lust. These sins can be divided into three cat-

— 14 —

egories according to love; insufficient, disordered and excessive. Insufficient love takes the form of sloth, disordered love manifests in pride, envy and wrath (as these three are misguidedly directed at an external object), and love in excess creates avarice, gluttony and lust. These are all forms of what Virgil distinguishes for Dante as rational love, separate from natural love which I shall discuss at greater length later.

Rational love takes many forms, both positive and negative. If unbalanced or per-

verted, it is the basis of all sin, but it is also that which leads Dante towards natural love.
Dante’s earthly love for Beatrice could be described as courtly love, a popular subject of the times. “Courtly love can be defined as desire and longing for someone, and personal suffering by loving this person” (Du France). This definition as we can see applies perfectly to Dante’s relations to Beatrice. It is this earthly relationship that begins Dante on his path to salvation and enlightenment, thus it is this form of rational love that sets Dante on his path. At the beginning of The Divine Comedy, the Pilgrim believes this love for
Beatrice is pure and correct. Yet through his discussions with Francesca de Rimini, and then Virgil’s discourse on love in purgatory, Dante begins to doubt his assertion. Finally upon his meeting with Beatrice in Paradise he repents for the earthly love he paid her and accepts the purity of natural love, the love that will guide him through paradise unto the
Empyrean.

Natural love was considered by Dante to be the love of and for God. It is the pure

force which motivates the universe and binds it together. It is the purest form of this love that Dante is striving for throughout the Comedy. Through hell and purgatory, he is strip— 15 —

ping away the sins and tarnishing of sin, and in paradise he is being prepared, level by level, by Beatrice, for the experience of Pure Love. Virgil, who has not entered heaven and has thus not experienced natural love, can only describe to Dante human love and the perverted shapes it takes in sin. The constant motion of natural love is moving toward a goal; that goal is the attainment of the realization of place and of perfection for every object and creature in the world. “As the specific capacity of anything is actualized by being exercised, the nature of that thing is progressively completed or perfected, according to Aquinas” (Stump). It is by loving and being love that this process is perpetuated and thus moves closer and closer to a perfect equilibrium. This ultimate beatitude is inconceivable to the human mind, however, and thus we give it a humanly understandable form, that of God.
Yet Dante is very careful not to name God as the center of the Empyrean; the highest level of heaven is occupied by Love.

Virgil describes how love takes three stages to develop. The process begins with

awareness of another object or person. This perception is offered to the soul to judge whether this object is beautiful and shall bring happiness. If it is deemed good, then love develops and takes the form of an inclination or attraction toward that object. Until love develops, the force driving this process is human will and it is thus that love can be misguided, as the will can make mistakes and lead an individual toward sin. If we take love as the attractive force that moves the universe, then the ultimate goal of life is also love, but love in equilibrium. This is why perverted, insufficient and excessive love are sins, for it is balanced love, natural love that we are striving toward.
— 16 —

We cannot, however, achieve union with natural love simply by following others’

instructions and acting correctly. According to Dante in Canto XXVI of Paradise, we must look inside for our knowledge of love. In Canto XXVI, the Poet is met by St. John just outside of the Primum Mobile, the antechamber to the Empyrean. Upon gazing on St. John,
Dante is dazzled and loses his sight. As the light of God shines through St. John, Dante is blinded. As he tries to turn and look around, he realizes that he can no longer see Beatrice beside him or hear the heavenly music that has accompanied him. St. John reassures him, however, and they hold talk about the nature of love. John is testing Dante on his knowledge of love before allowing him to enter. Dante professes his love and it is only after this that his sight is restored, this time by the gaze of Beatrice. Interestingly, to pass into the
Primum Mobile, Dante must profess his love for God without Beatrice or any outer guide to assist him. Sound, light, everything around him is obscured, the only place he has to turn is inward. He must externally express his internal love in order to be united with the
Ultimate Love.

Saint Augustine said, “gravity is to the body as love is to the soul.” Using this anal-

ogy of gravity we can see that love is an attractive force. But what are objects or people attracted to? They are attracted to pure natural love, which in manifested to different degrees in all things. Many call this love “God,” and they believe, as does Dante, that we love different objects or people because God is represented in them in differing degrees. The
Comedy follows this pattern of attraction to ultimate love, first guided by reason, as love is a rational process, and later by faith, as belief in love is also necessary for it to manifest
— 17 —

itself. Just as Dante’s journey is not smooth or simple, neither is the story of the world, constantly rearranging because of the complex multiplicity of this attractive force. It is a chaotic process. It does not by necessity have to reach its goal of equilibrium, in fact that equalizing goal is exactly what causes much of the chaos, just as Dante’s drive to climb further toward heaven often earns him reprimands from Virgil or Beatrice.

Theologians and Poets
“Reader, if thou to credit what is here
Art slow, ‘tis no surprise, since I can scarce
Believe, who saw it all as clear as clear.” (Inferno 25:46)

I must also address one of the primary conflicts between scholars in regard to

Dante’s allegory, as it heavily influences Dante’s meaning of love. There were two distinct types of allegory Dante may have used, or he may have used both: theological allegory or the allegory of the Poet. Many believe that the Comedy is simply a personal reinterpretation of the bible, with Beatrice as Dante’s personal Christ and that all allegory stems from biblical exegesis. Yet there is abundant proof that Dante meant his seminal work to hold a meaning that even transcends religion, to transcend the bounds of human understanding.
Religion and God are understandable concepts, yet Dante works very hard to point out that what he attains is beyond description, outside of the explanations that religion offers. We see this in many places.

Firstly, Dante’s use of the vernacular seems to suggest an aversion to classical orga-

nized Christianity, as Latin is the official language of the church and God. Dante writes in
— 18 —

Italian, the language of the people. We know already that he very much disliked the Papacy, the epitome of organized religion, as Pope Boniface VIII finds his way into Inferno. His use of the common vernacular highlights the humanness of Dante’s journey, something that is inherently universal rather than exclusive to those of ecclesiastical rank who may read
Latin.

Inherent in love is power. And inherent to power (especially in the 13th century) is

punishment. Rather than from the perversion of love —which is a personal degradation— this came from a societal corruption of the power love provides. As a society generalizes and organizes in the understanding of love it becomes faith or religion, yet the power given to religion by love is too often corrupted when it takes this societal form. Thus punishment manifests itself in many forms of religion, through confession, hail-Marys or, taken to the extreme, the flagellum of Opus Dei. Much of Christian faith is based on punishment —
Christ was crucified for your sins; he was punished on your account. This perhaps is what spawned Dante’s hatred of the Papacy, who used the power created by the love of God to influence the affairs of men and politics. Dante firmly believed that the role of the pontiff was to aid society in reaching heaven, to use religion as a basis for understanding love, not corrupting it. He would have seen the pope attempting to take political power as treachery against God, betraying him by using His essence as a tool for personal or institutional gain.
The infinite goal of love is to reach equilibrium, thus it should be spread throughout society, to people in all walks of life. By corrupting the essence of love, the Church was throwing the wheel (which Dante references in his final stanza) out of balance, and hindering the
— 19 —

continued progression toward perfection.

There is no doubt that Dante used, to some extent, the fourfold allegory taken from

biblical exegesis. But this does not mean that those allegorical meanings must mirror scripture. In Dante’s letter to Cangrande however in the eighth paragraph Dante enumerates his subject in a twofold meaning (similar to poetic allegory). His subject as he explains it is historically “The soul after death” and allegorically “Man, in the exercise of his free will.”
He gives no direct reference to God or to the bible for that matter. He simply uses scriptural formatting and characters in illustrate his journey, highlighting the fact that religion is simply an explanation for those things that we cannot understand, such as love.

Thus we see it is difficult to distinguish a specific mode of allegory for Dante’s

Comedy. His method is fourfold theological allegory, yet his subject is in the form of the twofold allegory of poets. That is the beauty of Dante, the blending of theology and poetry, religion and spirituality, philosophy and doctrine. He uses the solid foundation of mythology and scripture to build his descriptions of the afterlife, morality and Love. Dante uses
Greek mythology directly alongside Christian faith, developing the perspective that this is a story, the truth of his tale lies in the allegory, in the descriptions of love and morality.

In conclusion, Love is an essence that has no specific definition. It is the root of

power and the universal motivator, both the corruptor and the liberator. It is the ultimate goal of La Commedia and of the world as a whole. Through the Comedy and its many hidden meanings, Dante gives us a taste of the scope and influence of love — as it is also the seed of morality and through his study of love he teaches us many lessons. The one per— 20 —

haps most relevant to this conclusion is thus: “The Deepest levels of Hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis” (Alighieri). It does not matter for which side one fights; it is through inaction that one hinders the progression of love.
Love is pulling the world in many different directions, yet always closer to that final equilibrium. Neutrality is detrimental to this world of constant motion. Many of Dante’s meanings will never be recovered, yet those that strike most deeply will always be apparent. Be passionate, let reason and beauty guide you, do not restrain your love, nor let it overpower you, and have faith, in the power of the “Love that moves the sun, and the other stars.”

Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars. (Inferno 34:143)

— 21 —

Works Cited
Alighieri, Dante, and Gustavo Vinay. Monarchia. Firenze: Sansoni, 1950. Print.
Alighieri, Dante, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The Divine Comedy of Dante
Alighieri. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1895. Print.
Alighieri, Dante, and Mark Musa. Vita Nuova. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1973. Print.
Alighieri, Dante. The Convivio. London: Dent, 1940. Print.
Aquinas, Thomas, and Daniel J. Sullivan. The Summa Theologica. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1955. Print.
Boccaccio, Giovanni, Philip H. Wicksteed, and William Chamberlain. Life of Dante. Richmond, Surrey: Oneworld Classics, 2009. Print.
Borges, Jorge Luis. “BEATRICE’S LAST SMILE.” Dispositio 18.45, THE PRODUCTION OF PSYCHOANALYSIS IN BUENOS AIRES (1993): 23-25. JSTOR. Web. 25
May 2014.
Du France, Marie, Robert W. Hanning, and Joan M. Ferrante. The Lais of Marie De
France. New York: Dutton, 1978. Print.
Gaffney, James. “Dante’s Blindness in Paradiso XXV-XXVI: An Allegorical Interpretation.” Dante Studies With the Annual Report of the Dante Society.91 (1973): 101-12.
JSTOR. Web. 25 May 2014.
Hollander, Robert. Allegory in Dante’s Commedia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1969.
Print.
Hollander, Robert. Dante’s Epistle to Cangrande. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan, 1993. Print.
Kenney, Theresa. “From Francesca to Francesco: Transcribing the Tale of Passion from the “Inferno” to the “Paradiso”, or Thomas Aquinas as Romancier.” Religion & Literature
31.1, Visions of the Other World in Medieval Literature (1999): 61-73. JSTOR. Web. 25
May 2014.
Klemp, P. J. “The Women in the Middle: Layers of Love in Dante’s Vita Nuova.” Italica
61.3 (1984): 185-94. JSTOR. Web. 25 May 2014. >.
Lansing, Richard H., and Teodolinda Barolini. The Dante Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Pub., 2000. Print.
Lewis, R. W. B. “Dante’s Beatrice and the New Life of Poetry.” New England Review
(1990-) 22.2 (2001): 69-80. JSTOR. Web. 25 May 2014.
Mazzeo, Joseph Anthony. “PLATO’S EROS AND DANTE’S AMORE.” Traditio 12
(1956): 315-37. JSTOR. Web. 25 May 2014.
Reynolds, Barbara. Dante: The Poet, the Political Thinker, the Man. Emeryville, CA: Shoemaker & Hoard, an Imprint of Avalon Pub. Group, 2006. Print.
Simonelli, Maria Picchio. “Vernacular Poetic Sources for Dante’s Use of Allegory.” Dante
Studies With the Annual Report of the Dante Society.93 (1975): 131-42. JSTOR. Web. 25
May 2014.
Thompson, David. “Figure and Allegory in the “Commedia”” Dante Studies With the Annual Report of the Dante Society.90 (1972): 1-11. JSTOR. Web. 25 May 2014.
Howe, Kaye. “Dante’s Beatrice: The Nine and the Ten.” Italica 52.3 (1975): 364-71.
JSTOR. Web. 27 May 2014.
Stump, Eleonore. “Dante’s Hell Aquinas’s Moral Theory, and the Love of God.” Canadian
Journal of Philosophy 16.2 (1986): 181-98. JSTOR. Web. 30 May 2014.
— 22 —

Cited: Alighieri, Dante, and Gustavo Vinay. Monarchia. Firenze: Sansoni, 1950. Print. Alighieri, Dante, and Mark Musa. Vita Nuova. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1973. Print. Alighieri, Dante. The Convivio. London: Dent, 1940. Print. Aquinas, Thomas, and Daniel J. Sullivan. The Summa Theologica. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1955. Print. Boccaccio, Giovanni, Philip H. Wicksteed, and William Chamberlain. Life of Dante. Richmond, Surrey: Oneworld Classics, 2009. Print. Borges, Jorge Luis. “BEATRICE’S LAST SMILE.” Dispositio 18.45, THE PRODUCTION OF PSYCHOANALYSIS IN BUENOS AIRES (1993): 23-25. JSTOR. Web. 25 May 2014. Gaffney, James. “Dante’s Blindness in Paradiso XXV-XXVI: An Allegorical Interpretation.” Dante Studies With the Annual Report of the Dante Society.91 (1973): 101-12. Hollander, Robert. Allegory in Dante’s Commedia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1969. Hollander, Robert. Dante’s Epistle to Cangrande. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan, 1993. Print. 31.1, Visions of the Other World in Medieval Literature (1999): 61-73. JSTOR. Web. 25 May 2014. Klemp, P. J. “The Women in the Middle: Layers of Love in Dante’s Vita Nuova.” Italica 61.3 (1984): 185-94 Lansing, Richard H., and Teodolinda Barolini. The Dante Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Pub., 2000. Print. Lewis, R. W. B. “Dante’s Beatrice and the New Life of Poetry.” New England Review (1990-) 22.2 (2001): 69-80 Mazzeo, Joseph Anthony. “PLATO’S EROS AND DANTE’S AMORE.” Traditio 12 (1956): 315-37 Reynolds, Barbara. Dante: The Poet, the Political Thinker, the Man. Emeryville, CA: Shoemaker & Hoard, an Imprint of Avalon Pub. Group, 2006. Print. Simonelli, Maria Picchio. “Vernacular Poetic Sources for Dante’s Use of Allegory.” Dante Studies With the Annual Report of the Dante Society.93 (1975): 131-42 Thompson, David. “Figure and Allegory in the “Commedia”” Dante Studies With the Annual Report of the Dante Society.90 (1972): 1-11. JSTOR. Web. 25 May 2014. Howe, Kaye. “Dante’s Beatrice: The Nine and the Ten.” Italica 52.3 (1975): 364-71. Stump, Eleonore. “Dante’s Hell Aquinas’s Moral Theory, and the Love of God.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 16.2 (1986): 181-98