Page:A History of Italian Literature - Garnett (1898).djvu/67

Rh that the fallen spirits reasoned "of fate, freewill, foreknowledge absolute," but judiciously avoids reporting their observations.

Dante's place in comparison with the other chief poets of the world is difficult to determine, for none but he has written an apocalypse. He is emphatically the Seer among them, the "Soothsayer" in the original sense of the term, the most independent of poetical fiction and convention. He is also by far the most individual and autobiographic, and the only one who is the hero of his own poem. Milton, who is most naturally paralleled with him, does not deliver a revelation, but records a history. This at once places Dante in a higher category than Milton as an elementary force, and when we consider the circumstances of their respective ages it seems impossible to deny that Dante was by far the more wonderful man. This does not necessarily establish the superiority of the Divina Commedia to Paradise Lost. Isaiah presents himself in a more august and venerable character than Homer, but his prophecy is not as majestic as the Iliad. It is also difficult, when assigning the relative ranks of poets, to discriminate strictly between the claims that arise from mere poetical endowment and the significance of their position in history. One may stand upon the higher pedestal, and the other may have the sweeter voice.

In one point of view, Dante's figure is the most imposing of any poet's; for, intensely local as he is, he yet interprets all mediæval Europe. When, however, he is compared with his closest analogue, Milton, simply as a poet, it is not so clear that the comparison is to his advantage. The great characteristics which chiefly discriminate him from all other poets are an