Dante's Allegory

Charles S. Singleton

Speculum, Vol. 25, No. 1. (Jan., 1950), pp. 78-86.

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 DANTE'S ALLEGORY
BY CFL4RLES S. SINGLETON
IX his Convivio Dante recognizes two kinds of allegory: an 'allegory of poets'
and an 'allegory of theologians.' And in the interpretation of his own poems in
that work he declares that he intends to follow the allegory of poets, for the reason
that the poems were composed after that manner of allegory.
One must recall that there is an unfortunate lacuna in the text of the Convivio
a t just this most interesting point, with the result that those words which defined
the literal sense as distinguished from the allegorical are missing. But no one who
knows the general argument of the whole work will, I think, make serious objec-
tion to the way the editors of the accepted critical text have filled the lacuna.
The passage in question, then, patched by them, reads as follows:
Dico che, sl come nel primo capitol0 & narrato, questa sposizione conviene essere lit-
terale e allegorica. E a ci6 dare a intendere, si vuol sapere che le scritture si possono in-
tendere e deonsi esponere massimamente per quattro sensi. L'uno si chiama litterale [e
questo b quello che non si stende pih oltre la lettera de le parole fittizie, si come sono le
favole de li poeti. L'altro si chiama allegorico] e questo b quello che si nasconde sotto'l
manto di queste favole, ed b una veritade ascosa sotto bella menzogna: si come quando dice
Ovidio che Orfeo facea con la cetera mansuete le fiere, e li arbori e le pietre a s&muovere;
che vuol dire che lo savio uomo con lo strumento de la sua voce f a[r]ia mansuescere e umili-
are li crudeli cuori, e fa[r]ia muovere a la sua volontade coloro che non hanno vita di
scienza e d'arte: e coloro che non hanno vita ragionevole alcuna sono quasi come pietre.
E perch&questo nascondimento fosse trovato per li savi, nel penultimo trattato si moster-
rB. Veramente li teologi questo senso prendono altrimenti che li poeti; ma per6 che mia in-
tenzione b qui lo mod0 de li poeti seguitare, prendo lo senso allegorico second0 che per li
poeti b usato.'
Dante goes on here to distinguish the customary third and fourth senses, the
moral and the anagogical. However, in illustration of these no example from 'the
poets' is given. For both senses, the example in illustration is taken from Holy
Scripture. It is, however, evident from the closing words of the chapter that in the
exposition of the poems of the Convivio, the third and fourth senses will have
only an incidental interest and that the poet is to concern himself mainly with the
first two.2
It was no doubt inevitable that the conception of allegory which Dante here
calls the allegory of poets should come to be identified with the allegory of the
Divine Comedy. This, after all, is a formulation of the matter of allegory by Dante
himself. I t distinguishes an allegory of poets from an allegory of theologians. Now,
poets create and theologians only interpret. And, if we must choose between
Dante as theologian and Dante as poet, then, I suppose, we take the poet.3 For
the Divine Comedy, all are agreed, is the work of a poet, is a poem. Why, then,
a-ould its allegory not be allegory as the poets understood it - that is, as Dante,
in the Convivio, says the poets understood it? Surely the allegory of the Comedy
is the allegory of poets in which the first and literal sense is a fiction and the sec-
ond or allegorical sense is the true one.4
 Dante's Allegory
Indeed, with some Dante scholars, so strong has the persuasion been that such
a view of the allegory of the Divine Comedy is the correct one, that it has brought
them to question the authorship of the famous letter to Can Grande.6 This, in all
consistency, was bound to occur. For the Letter, in pointing out the allegory of
the Commedia, speaks in its turn of the usual four senses. But the example of
allegory which it gives is not taken from Ovid nor indeed from the work of any
poet. Let us consider this famous and familiar passage:
Ad evidentiam itaque dicendorum sciendum est quod istius operis non est simplex
sensus, ymo dici potest polisemos, hoc est plurium sensuum; nam primus sensus est qui
habetur per litteram, alius est qui habetur per significata per litteram. E t primus dicitur
litteralis, secundus vero allegoricus sive moralis sive anagogicus. Qui modus tractandi,
ut melius pateat, potest considerari in hiis versibus: 'In exitu Israel de Egipto, domus
Jacob de populo barbaro, facta est Iudea sanctificatio eius, Israel potestas eius.' Nam si
ad litteram solam inspiciamus, signscatur nobis exitus filiorum Israel de Egipto, tempore
Moysis; si ad allegoriam, nobis significatur nostra redemptio facta per Christum; si ad
moralem sensum significatur nobis conversio anime de luctu et miseria peccati ad statum
gratie: si ad anagogicum, significatur exitus anime sancte ab huius corruptionis servitute
ad eterne glorie libertatem. E t quanquam isti sensus mistici variis appellentur nominibus,
generaliter omnes dici possunt allegorici, cum sint a litterali sive historiali diversi. Nam
allegoria dicitur ab 'alleon' grece, quod in latinum dicitur 'alienum,' sive 'diversum.'6
and the Letter continues directly as follows:
Hiis visis, manifestum est quod duplex oportet esse subiectum, circa quod currant alterni
sensus. E t ideo videndum est de subiecto huius operis, prout ad Iitteram accipitur; deinde
de subiecto, prout allegorice sententiatur. Est ergo subiectum totius operis, litteraliter
tantum accepti, status animarum post mortem simpliciter sumptus; nam de illo et circa
illum totius operis versatur processus. Si vero accipiatur opus allegorice, subiectum est
homo prout merendo et demerendo per arbitrii libertatem iustitie premiandi et puniendi
obnoxius est.
Now this, to return to the distinction made in the Convivio, is, beyond the shadow
of a doubt, the 'allegory of theologians.' I t is their kind of allegory not only be-
cause Holy Scripture is cited to illustrate it, but because since Scripture is cited,
the first or literal sense cannot be fictive but must be true and, in this instance,
historical. The effects of Orpheus' music on beasts and stones may be a poet's
invention, setting forth under a veil of fiction some hidden truth, but the Exodus
is no poet's invention.
All mediaevalists are familiar with the classical statement of the 'allegory of
theologians' as given by St Thomas Aquinas toward the beginning of the Summa
Theologica :
Respondeo. Dicendum quod auctor Sacrae Scripturae est Deus, in cuius potestate est
ut non solum voces ad significandum accommodet, quod etiam homo facere potest, sed
etiam res ipsas. E t ideo cum in omnibus scientiis voces significent, hoc habet proprium ista
scientia, quod ipsae res significatae per voces, etiam significant aliquid. Illa ergo prima
significatio, qua voces significant res, pertinet ad primum sensum, qui est sensus historicus
vel litteralis. Illa vero significatio qua res significatae per voces, iterum res alias significant,
dicitur sensus spiritualis, qui super litteralem fundatur et eum supponit.'
St Thomas goes on to subdivide the second or spiritual sense into the usual three:
80 Dante's Allegory
the allegorical, the moral, and the anagogical. But in his first division into two he
has made the fundamental distinction, which St Augustine expressed in terms of
one meaning which is in verbw and another meaning which is in fact^.^ And, in
reading his words, we have surely recalled Dante's in the Letter to Can Grande:
'nam rim us sensus est qui habetur per litteram, alius est qui habetur per signifi-
cata per litteram.'
An allegory of poets and an allegory of theologians: the Letter to Can Grande
does not make the distinction. The Letter is speaking of the way in which a poem
is to be understood. And in choosing its example of allegory from Holy Scripture,
the Letter is clearly looking to the kind of allegory which is the allegory of
theologians; and is thus pointing to a poem in which the first and literal sense is
to be taken as the first and literal sense of Holy Scripture is taken, namely as an
historical sense.g The well-known jingle on the four senses began, one recalls,
'Littera gesta docet. . . .'
But, before going further, let us ask if this matter can have more than anti-
quarian interest. When we read the Divine Comedy today, does it matter, really,
whether we take its first meaning to be historical or fictive, since in either case we
must enter into that willing suspension of disbelief required in the reading of any
poem?
Indeed, it happens to matter very much, because with this poem it is not a
question of one meaning but of two meanings; and the nature of the first meaning
will necessarily determine the nature of the second - will say how we shall look
for the second. In the case of a fictive first meaning, as in the 'allegory of poets,'
interpretation will invariably speak in terms of an outer and an inner meaning, of
a second meaning which is conveyed but also, in some way, deliberately concealed
under the 'shell' or the 'bark' or the 'veil' of an outer fictive meaning. This
allegory of the poets, as Dante presents it in the Convivio, is essentially an allegory
of 'this for that,' of 'this figuration in order to give (and also to conceal) that
meaning.' Orpheus and the effects of his music yield the meaning that a wise man
can tame cruel hearts. Please note, incidentally, that here we are not speaking of
allegory as expressed in a personification, but of an allegory of action, of event.
But the kind of allegory to which the example from Scriptures given in the
Letter to Can Grande points is not an allegory of 'this for that,' but an allegory
of 'this and that,' of this sense plus that sense. The verse in Scripture which says
'When Israel went out of Egypt,' has its first meaning in denoting a real historical
event; and it has its second meaning because that historical event itself, having
the Author that it had, can signify yet another event: our Redemption t h r ~ u g h
Christ. Its first meaning is a meaning in verbis; its other meaning is a meaning
in facto, in the event itself. The words have a real meaning in pointing to a real
event; the event, in its turn, has meaning because events wrought by God are
themselves as words yielding a meaning, a higher and spiritual sense.
But there was a further point about this kind of allegory of Scriptures: it was
generally agreed that while the first literal meaning would always be there, in
verbw,1° the second or spiritual meaning was not always to be found in all the
things and events that the words pointed to. Some events yielded the second
 Dante's Allegory 81

meaning, some did not. And it is this fact which best shows that the literal his-
torical meaning of Scriptures was not necessarily a sense in the service of another
sense, not therefore a matter of 'this for that.' It is this that matters most in the
interpretation of the Divine Comedy.
The crux of the matter, then, is this: If we take the allegory of the Divine
Comedy to be the allegory of poets (as Dante understood that allegory in the
Convivio) then we shall be taking it as a construction in which the literal sense
ought always to be expected to yield another sense because the literal is only a
fiction devised to express a second meaning. In this view the first meaning, if it
does not give another, true meaning, has no excuse for being. Whereas, if we take
the allegory of the Divine Comedy to be the allegory of theologians, we shall ex-
pect to find in the poem a first literal meaning presented as a meaning which is
not fictive but true, because the words which give that meaning point to events
which are seen as historically true. And we shall see these events themselves re-
flecting a second meaning because their author, who is God, can use events as
men use words. But, we shall not demand a t every moment that the event signi-
fied by the words be in its turn as a word, because this is not the case in Holy
Scripture.
* * *
I, for one, have no difficulty in making the choice. The allegory of the Divine
Comedy is, for me, so clearly the 'allegory of theologians' (as the Letter to Can
Grande by its example says it is) that I can only continue to wonder a t the efforts
made to see it as the 'allegory of poets.' What indeed increases the wonder a t the
continued effort is that every attempt to treat the first meaning of the poem as a
fiction devised to convey a true but hidden meaning has been such a clear
demonstration of how a poem may be forced to meanings that it cannot possibly
bear as a poem."
It seems important to illustrate the matter briefly with a single and obvious
example. All readers of the Comedy, whatever their allegorical credo, must recog-
nize that Vergil, for instance, if he be taken statically, in isolation from the action
of the poem, had and has, as the poem would see him, a real historical existence.
He was a living man and he is now a soul dwelling in Limbus. Standing alone, he
would have no other, no second meaning, a t all. It is by having a role in the ac-
tion of the poem that Vergil takes on a second meaning. And it is a t this point
that the view one holds of the nature of the first meaning begins to matter. For
if this is the allegory of poets, then what Vergil does, like what Orpheus does, is a
fiction devised to convey a hidden meaning which it ought to convey all the
time, since only by conveying that other meaning is what he does justified a t all.
Instead, if this action is allegory as theologians take it, then this action must
always have a literal sense which is historical and no fiction; and thus Vergil's
deeds as part of the whole action may, in their turn, be as words signifying other
things; but they do not have to do this all the time, because, being historical,
those deeds exist simply in their own right.
But can we hesitate in such a choice? Is it not clear that Vergil can not and
does not always speak and act as Reason, with a capital initial, and that to try
82 Dante's Allegory
to make him do this is to try to rewrite the poem according to a conception of
allegory which the poem does not bear within itself?
If, then, the allegory of the Divine Comedy is the allegory of theologians, if it
is an allegory of 'this and that,' if its allegory may be seen in terms of a first
meaning which is in verbw and of another meaning which is in facto, what is the
main outline of its allegorical structure?
I n the simplest and briefest possible statement it is this: the journey to God of a
man through three realms of the world beyond this life is what is given by the
words of the poem. This meaning is in verbw and it is a literal and historical
meaning. I t points to the event. The event is that journey to God through the
world beyond. 'Littera gesta docet.' The words of the poem have their first mean-
ing in signifying that event, just as the verse of Psalms had its first meaning in
signifying the historical event of the Exodus.
And then, just as the event of the Exodus, being wrought by God, can give in
turn a meaning, namely, our Redemption through Christ; so, in the event of this
journey through the world beyond (an event which, as the poem sees it, is also
wrought by God) we see the reflection of other meanings. These, in the poem, are
the various reflections of man's journey to his proper end, not in the life after
death, but here in this life, as that journey was conceived possible in Dante's
day - and not only in Dante's day. The main allegory of the Divine Comedy is
thus an allegory of action, of event, an event given by words which in its turn
reflects (infacto) another event. Both are journeys to God.12

What, then, of the Convivio? Does not its 'allegory of poets' contradict this
'allegory of theologians' in the later work? It does, if a poet must always use one
kind of allegory and may not try one in one work and one in another. But shall we
not simply face this fact? And shall we not recognize that in this sense the Con-
vivio contradicts not only the Divine Comedy in its allegory, but also the V i t a
Nuova where there is no allegory?13The Convivio is Dante's attempt to use the
'allegory of poets.' And to have that kind of allegory and the kind of figure that
could have a role in it - to have a Lady Philosophy who was an allegory of poets
- he was obliged to rob the 'donna pietosa' of the V i t a Nuova of all real existence.
And in doing this he contradicted the V i t a Nuova.
The Convivio is a fragment. We do not know why Dante gave up the work be-
fore it was hardly under way. We do not know. We are, therefore, free to specu-
late. I venture to do so, and suggest that Dante abandoned the Convivio because
he came to see that in choosing to build this work according to the allegory of
poets, he had ventured down a false way; that he came to realize that a poet
could not be a poet of rectitude and work with an allegory whose first meaning
was a disembodied fiction.
S t Gregory, in the Proem to his Exposition of the Song of Songs, says: 'Al-
legoria enim animae longe a Deo positae quasi quamdam machinam facit u t per
illam levetur ad Deum'14 and the Letter to Can Grande declares that the end of
the whole Comedy is 'to remove those living in this life from the state of misery
 Dante's Allegory 83

and lead them to the state of felicity.' A poet of rectitude is one who is interested
in directing the will of men to God. But a disembodied Lady Philosophy is not a
machina which can bear the weight of lifting man to God because, in her, man
finds no part of his own weight. Lady Philosophy did not, does not, will not, exist
in the flesh. As she is constructed in the Convivio she comes to stand for Sapientia,
for created Sapientia standing in analogy to uncreated Sapientia Which is the
Word.l6Even so, she is word without flesh. And only the word made flesh can lift
man to God. If the allegory of a Christian poet of rectitude is to support any
weight, it will be grounded in the flesh, which means grounded in history - and
will lift up from there. In short, the trouble with Lady Philosophy was the
trouble which Augustine found with the Platonists : 'But that the Word was made
flesh and dwelt among us I did not read there.''6
Dante, then, abandons Lady Philosophy and returns to Beatrice. But now the
way to God must be made open to all men: he constructs an allegory, a machina,
that is, in which an historical Vergil, an historical Beatrice, and an historical
Bernard replace that lady in an action which is given, in its first sense, not as a
beautiful fiction but as a real, historical event, an event remembered by one who
was, as a verse of the poem says, the scribe of it." Historical and, by a Christian
standard, beautifulls as an allegory because bearing within it the reflection of the
true way to God in this life - a way given and supported by the Word made
flesh. With its first meaning as an historical meaning, the allegory of the Divine
Comedy is grounded in the mystery of the Incarnation.lg
I n his commentary on the poem written some half century after the poet's
death, Benvenuto da Imola would seem to understand the allegory of the
Divine Comedy to be the 'allegory of theologians.' To make clear to some doubting
reader the concept by which Beatrice has a second meaning, he points to Rachel
in Holy Scripture:
Nec videatur tibi indignum, lector, quod Beatrix mulier carnea accipiatur a Dante pro
sacra theologia. Nonne Rachel secundum historicam veritatem fuit pulcra uxor Jacob
summe amata ab eo, pro qua habenda custodivit oves per XI111 annos, et tamen anago-
gice figurat vitam contemplativam, quam Jacob mirabiliter amavit, sicut autor ipse scribit
Paradisi XXII capitulo, ubi describit contemplationem sub figura scalae. E t si dicis: non
credo quod Beatrix vel Rachel sumantur unquam spiritualiter, dicam quod contra negantes
principia non est amplius disputandam. Si enim vis intelligere opus istius autoris, oportet
concedere quod ipse loquatur catholice tamquam perfectus christianus, et qui semper et
ubique conatur ostendere se christian~m.~0
D r Edward Moore once pointed, in a footnote, to these remarks by the early
commentator and smiled a t them as words that throw 'a curious light on the
logical processes of Benvenuto's mind.'21But Benvenuto's words have, I think, a
way of smiling back. And to make their smile more apparent to a modern reader
I would transpose them so:
Let it not seem improper to you, reader, that this journey of a living man into the world
beyond is presented to you in its first sense as literally and historically true. And if you
say: 'I do not believe that Dante ever went to the other world,' then I say that with those
who deny what a poem asks be granted, there is no further disputing.
 Dante's Allegory
Conmvio, 11, i, 2-4, in the standard edition with commentary by G. Busnelli and G. Vandelli
(Florence, 1934). Concerning the lacuna and the reasons for filling it as this has been done (words in
brackets in the passage above) see their notes to the passage, Val. I, pp. 96-97 and 240-242. The
'penultimo trattato' where Dante promises to explain the reason for the 'allegory of poets' was, alas,
never written.
ConzIL'vio, 11, i, 15: '10 adunque, per queste ragioni, tuttavia sopra ciascuna canzone ragionerb
prima la litterale sentenza, e appresso di quella ragionerb la sua allegoria, ciok la nascosa veritade; e
talvolta de li altri sensi toccherb incidentemente, come a luogo e tempo si converrit.'
3 One recalls, of course, that Boccaccio and many others have preferred the theologian. On Dante
as theologian one may now see E. R. Curtius, Europaische Literatur und lateiniscl~e&fz'ttelalter (Bern,
Switzerland, 1948), pp. 219 ff. To see the poet as thedogian is to see him essentially as one who con-
structs a n 'allegory of poets,' hiding under a veil the truths of theology - a view which has a long
history in Dante interpretation.
By no means all commentators of the poem who discuss this matter have faced the necessity of
making a choice between the two kinds of allegory distinguished by Dante. More often than not,
even in a discussion of the two kinds, they have preferred to leave the matter vague as regards the
Divine Comedy. See, for example, C. H. Grandgent's remarks on Dante's allegory in his edition of the
poem (revised, 19331, pp. xxxii-xxxiii, where the choice is not made and where allegory and symbolism
are lumped together.
6 This, to be sure, is only one of the several arguments that have been adduced in contesting the
authenticity of the Letter; but whenever it has been used, i t has been taken to bear considerable
weight. The most violent attack on the authenticity of the Letter was made by D'Ovidio in an
essay entitled L'Epistola a Cangrande, first published in the Rivista d'Ztalia in 1899 and reprinted in
his S t u d i sulla Divina Commedia (1901), in which his remarks on the particular point in question
may be taken as typical (Studi, pp. 462-463): 'I1 vero guaio k che 1'Epistola soffoca la distinzione tra
il senso letterale meramente fittizio, poetic0 vela d'un concetto allegorico e il senso letterale vero in
sk, storico, da cui perb o scaturisce una moralitti o k raffigurato un fatto soprannaturale. Dei tre ef-
ficacissimiesempi danteschi ne dimentica due (Orfeo e i tre Apostoli), e s'attacca a1 solo terzo, stirac-
chiandolo per farlo servire anche a1 senso morale e all'allegorico; ni. riuscendo in effetto se non a modu-
lare in tre diverse gradazioni un unico senso niente altro che anagogico. Nan k nk palinodia nk plagio:
k una parodia. La quale deriva da cib che, oltre la precisa distinzione tomistica e dantesca del senso
allegorico dal morale e dall'anagogico, era in corso la dottrina agostiniana che riduceva tutto alla
sola allegoria. Dante ne fa cenno, dove, terminata la definizione del senso allegorico, prosegue: "Vera-
mente li teologi questo senso prendono altrimenti che li poeti; ma perocchi. mia intenzione k qui lo
modo delli poeti seguitare, prenderb il senso allegorico second0 che per li poeti 6 usato." Xi., si badi,
avrebbe avuto motivo di mutar intenzione, se si fosse posto a chiosar il Paradlso, che, se Dio vuole,
d poesia anch'esso.' (italics mine)
I t is worth noting in this respect that Dr Edward Moore, in an essay entitled 'The Genuineness of
the Dedicatory Epistle to Can Grande' (Studies i n Dante, Third Series, pp. 284-369) in which he un-
dertook a very careful refutation, point by point, of D'Ovidio's arguments, either did not attribute
any Importance to the particular objection quoted above or did not see how it was to be met. For a
review of the whole dispute, see G. Boffito, L'Epzstola d i Dante Alighieri a Cangrande della Scala in
Memorie della R . Acad. delle scienze d i Torino, Series 11, vol. 57, of the Classe d i scienze morali, etc.,
pp. 5-10.
Opere d i Dante (ed. Societh Dantestca Italiana, 1921), Epistola XIII, SO-%5,pp. 43S-439.
7 S u m m a Theologica, I, i, 10.
De Trinitate, xv, ix, 15 ( P L , XLIII, 1068): 'non in verbis sed in facto.' On the distinction of the
two kinds of allegory in Holy Scripture see Dictionnaire de thkologie catholique (Vacant, Mangenot,
Amann), t. I (1923), col. 833 ff. s. v. AUgories bibliques. On St Thomas' distinctions in particular, con-
sult R. P. P. Synave, L a Doctrine de s. Thomas d ' d q u i n sur 1~ sens littbral des Ecritures in Revue
Biblique, xxxv (19&6),40-65.
Literal and historical as synonymous terms for the first sense are bound to be puzzling to modern
minds. I n the discussion of allegory by St Thomas and others we meet it a t every turn. Perhaps no
passage can better help us focus our eyes on this concept as they understood it than one in Hugh of
 Dante's Allegory
St Victor (cited by Synave, op. cit., p. 49, from ch. S of Hugh's Ds soriptoris et scripturibus sawis):
'Historia dicitur a verbo graeco iuropew historeo, quod est video et narro; propterea quod apud veteres
nulli licebat scribere res gestas, nisi a se visas, ne falsitas admisceretur veritati peccato scriptoris,
plus aut minus, aut aliter dicentis. Secundum hoc proprie et districte dicitur historia; sed solet largius
accipi u t dicatur historia sensus qui primo loco ex significatione verborum habetur ad res.'
lo I t may be well to recall on this point that, in St Thomas'view and that of others, a parable told
by Christ has only one sense, namely that i n verlis. This is true of the Song of Songs, also, and of other
parts of Scripture. But in such passages there is no allegory, because there is no other meaning i n
fado, i.e., no historical facts are pointed to by the words.
" Michele Barbi sounded a warning on this matter some years ago, but in so doing appealed to a
. .
solution (the poem as vision, as apocalypse, which needs, I think, further clarification: ' . 10ho un
giorno, durante il positivismo che s'era insinuato nella critica dantesca, richiamato gli studiosi a non
trascurare una ricerca cosi importante come quella del simbolismo nella Divina Commedia: oggi
sento il dovere di correre alla difesa del senso letterale, svilito come azione fittizia, come bella menzo-
gna, quasi che nell'intendimento di Dante l'importanza del suo poema non consista gih in quello che
egli ha rappresentato nella lettera di esso, ma debba andarsi a cercare in concetti e intendimenti nas-
costisotto quella rappresentazione. Non snaturiamo per caritB l'opera di Dante: B unarivelazione, non
gil un'allegoria da capo a fondo. La lettera non 6 in funzione soltanto di riposti intendimenti, non B
bella menzogna: quel viaggio ch'essa descrive 13 un viaggio voluto da Dio perchi. Dante r~veliin salute
degli uomini quello che ode e vede nel fatale andare.' ( S t u d i danteschi, I, 18-13.) This is all very well
and very much to the point. But the problem which Barbi does not deal with here and which calls for
solution is how, on what conceptual basis, is an allegory given in a poem in which the first meaning is
not a 'bella menzogna' -the question, in short, which the present paper is trying to answer.
l2 I t is essential to remember that I am concerned throughout this paper with the main allegory
of the Dioine Comedy; otherwise this can appear a n oversimplification to any reader familiar with the
concrete detail of the poem, and certainly many questions concerning that detail willarise whichare
not dealt with here. How, for example, are we to explain those passages where the poet urges the
reader to look 'beneath the veil' for a hidden meaning (Inferno, IX, 62; Purgatorio, VIU, 19-21)? Do
these not point to a n 'allegory of poets'? I believe that the correct answer can be given in the negative.
But, however that may be, we do not meet the main allegory of the poem in such passages.
Likewise, finer distinctions in the allegory of the poem will recognize that the allegory of the
opening situation (Inferno, I, 11) must be distinguished from the main allegory of the poem, and of
necessity, since a t the beginning the protagonist is still in this life and has not yet begun to move
through the world beyond. For some considerations on this point see the author's article in RR,
xxxuc. (1948), 269-277: 'Sulla fiumana ove'l mar non ha vanto: Inferno 11, 108.'
l 3 For a discussion of the absence of allegory in the V i t a Nuova see the author's Essay o n the V i t a

Nuozla (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948), pp. 110 ff. and passim.
l4 P L , LXXIX, 473. I n interpreting the Song of Songs, St Gregory is not speaking of the kind of
allegory which has an histmica1 meaning as its first meaning (see n. 10 above) -which fact does not
make his view of the use of allegory any less interesting or suggestive with respect to Dante's use of it.
'j On created wisdom and the distinction here see Augustine, Confessions, XII, xv.

l6 Confessions, VII, 9.
l7 Paradise, x, &8-27:

Or ti riman, lettor, sovra'l tuo banm,

dietro penaando a cib che si preliba,
s'esser vuoi lieto assai prima che stanco.

Mesm t'ho innanzi: omai per te ti ciba;

ch8 a sB torce tutta la mia cura
quella matera ond'io son fatto scriba.

As every reader of the Commedia knows, a poet's voice speaks out frequently in the poem, and most
effectively, in various contexts. But these verses may remind us that when the poet does come into
the poem, he speaks as scribe, as one remembering and trying to give an adequate account of the
event which is now past.
86 Dante's Allegory
1s Cf. Menendez y Pelayo, Historia de las ideas esttticas en Espaila, ch. V, Introduction: 'No vino a
enseaar estbtica ni otra ciencia humana el Verbo Encarnado; pero present6 en su persona y en la
union de sus dos naturaleras el protbtipo m8s alto de la hermosura, y el objeto m8s adecuado del
amor. .. .'
19 Those who refuse to recognize this 'mystery' in the allegory of the Divine Comedy, who view it

instead as the usual 'allegory of poets' in which the first meaning is a fiction, are guilty of a reader's
error comparable in some way to the error of the hlanicheans concerning the Incarnation, as set forth
by St Thomas in the Summa contra Gentiles, IV, xxnr: 'They pretended that whatever He did as
man -for instance, that He was born, that He ate, drank, walked, suffered, and was buried - was
all unreal, though having some semblance of reality. Consequently they reduced the whole mystery
of the Incarnation to a work of fiction.'
20 Comentum (Florence, 1887), I , 89-90.

21 Studies i n Dante (Second Series, 1889), p. 86, n. 1.