Land of Dan, Israel

                  Dante’s view of nature? Relationship between Paradise and the world? The world and all life in it are linked, all created in the image of God.  Beatrice explained in Par 1:103-5:

Then she began: "All beings great and small

Are linked in order; and this orderliness

Is form, which stamps God's likeness on the All.

 

              This is an environmental position of the highest order, but short of worshipping rocks and rats.   Dante's views were very much influenced by Francis of Assisi, who sang about "Brother Sun and Sister Moon" -- a union of the natural world and humanity.

            Francis' views come together with Dante's in the image of the wolf.   In a class from Hell, we saw the wolf represent desire, greed, undisciplined acquisition of stuff. Dante backed away from the wolf and what it symbolized:

And next, a Wolf, gaunt with the famished craving...

The ancient cause of many men's enslaving (Hell 1:49 & 51)

This is the Judas-position for Dante and Francis, the betrayal of the natural world for a few pieces of silver -- only to be enslaved by it all.  To exploit the natural world beyond necessity is simply wrong for Dante and Francis. Even necessity must sometimes give way, which is the morale of the famous Wolf of Gubbio story.

In Purgatorio 28:7-17, Dante tied it all up with everything but Homer's "rosy fingered dawn" -- an Eden that lies only half-forgotten in humanity, never far away and sometimes within reach:

A delicate air, that no inconstancies

Knows in its motion, on my forehead played

With force no greater than a gentle breeze

And quivering at its touch the branches swayed,

All toward that quarter where the holy hill

With the first daylight stretches out its shade

Yet ne'er swayed from the upright so, but still

The little birds the topmost twigs among

Spared not to practise all their tiny skill;

Rather they welcomed with rejoicing song

The dawn-wind to the leaves...

        As the Paradiso opens:

The glory of Him who moves all things soe'er

Impenetrates the universe, and bright

The splendour burns, more here and lesser there.

For Dante, Paradise is not earthly, but when humans exploit nature for self-serving ends imbued with greed and over-abundance, then we rip open the earth, consume, destroy because of "some fair false lust." [Par 1:135].  We foul our own nest, and have nothing else but to live in it, eat it, breathe it, die from it. And then depart for the lower, sulpherous regions of the Inferno which mirror our own 'Coketown' and so begin real 'Hard Times.'   The "splendour" becomes "lesser."  But in other places -- the garden that we glimpse -- the splendour appears clearer. There is "more here."

        Dante, Francis and the environmentalists -- an interesting alliance! What do you think? Does this border on pantheism? Is the above an exaggeration or a stretch never meant by Dante? What are the relationships -- ideal and otherwise -- in Dante among humans, between humans and nature? How does the divine relate to one or the other? What is the message of Dante concerning the environment? Can we learn from it?

         By all means, forge your own interpretation. The above exists to jump start some ideas that might not jump out immediately. Environmentalism? Hmmm... Have some fun. Dig in. Just provide some evidence for your ideas. Go forward with an open mind, thinking, reading slowly, re-thinking, re-flecting. As Sayers herself said:

"A great poetical vision is much more
than the sum of its interpretations."
               --   D. Sayers, Intro to Hell, 19

 

 

 

 

    visits since created April 7, 2006; last updated on April 20, 2006