Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/81

 III. DANTE

ANTE ALIGHIERI (1265–1321) is rightly called the supreme exponent of the Middle Ages. In no other writer, ancient or modern, do we find the spirit of a great period so completely reflected as the mediæval soul is mirrored in him. It was the epoch of mighty builders and mighty theologians, of religious exaltation, of sturdy, militant faith—the age that produced the grand cathedrals and the "Summa Theologiæ," the age of the Crusades, of St. Bernard and St. Dominic, the age of St. Francis. So essentially is Dante a poet of God that the epithet "Divine" has by universal consent been attached to the work which he called a "Comedy"; and so manifest is his architectural genius that his poem inevitably suggests comparison with a huge Gothic church. The troops of figures that live eternally in his pages, representing all types of contemporary man from burgher to Pope, diversify without obscuring the symmetrical outlines of his plan—a plan sufficiently vast to embrace nearly all that was of much importance in profane and sacred science.

THE PLAN OF THE "DIVINE COMEDY"

The "Commedia," with its three books and its hundred cantos, relates the whole progress of a soul from sin, through remorse, meditation, and discipline, to the state of purity that enables it to see God. Lost in wickedness, the poet suddenly comes to his senses and tries to escape from it, but in vain. Reason, moved by grace, thereupon leads him step by step to a full understanding of evil, in all its ugliness and folly; and he at last turns his back upon it. His next duty is to cleanse his soul by penance, until its innocence is gradually restored. Then Revelation descends to meet him, and 71