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it has been remarked by others, he says that his Divine Comedy is inspired by a "modus tractandis" which is "poeticus, fictivus, descriptivus, digressivus, transumptivus" (all traditional features of the poetic discourse), but then he adds, "cum hoc diffinitivus, divisivus, probativus, improbativus, et exemplorum positivus," and these are features of the theological and philosophical discourse. Furthermore, we know that he had always read the facts told by mythology and classical poetry as if they were allegoriae in factis. |
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In such terms Dante speaks of the poets in De vulgari eloquentia, and in the Comedy Statius says of Virgil that he was to him "as the one who proceeds in the night and bears a light, not for himself but for those who follow him" (Purgatory XXII.6769). This means thataccording to DanteVirgil was a seer: his poetry, and pagan poetry in general, conveyed spiritual senses of which the authors were not aware. Thus for Dante poets are continuing the work of the Holy Scriptures, and his poem is a new instance of prophetic writing. His poem is endowed with spiritual senses in the same way as the Scriptures were, and the poet is divinely inspired. If the poet is the one that writes what love inspires in him, his text can be submitted to the same allegorical reading as the Holy Scriptures, and the poet is right in inviting his reader to guess what is hidden "sotto il velame delli versi strani" (under the veil of the strange verses). |
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Thus, just at the moment in which Aquinas devaluates the poetic mode, poets, escaping from his intellectual influence, start a new mystical approach to the poetic text, opening a new way of reading that, through various avatars, will survive until our times. |
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What makes Dante still medieval is the fact that he believes that a poem has neither infinite nor indefinite meanings. Dante seems to maintain that the spiritual meanings are four and that they can be encoded and decoded according to encyclopedic conventions. Which means that not even Dante draws a precise line between symbol and allegory. |
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But if the scriptural interpreters were warranted about their "right" reading of the Scriptures because of a long tradition which provided the criteria for a correct interpretation, what will happen now that the profane world has been devoid of any mystic sense and it is uncertain under the inspiration of whom (God, Love, or other) the poet unconsciously speaks? In a way, the theological secularization of the natural world implemented by Aquinas has set free the mystical drives of the poetic activity. |
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