On this date, over seven
centuries ago, the most famous literary muse of all time—namely Dante Alighieri’s
beloved Beatrice—ascended to her eternal glory. Dante followed his muse into
the bourn of the undiscovered country three decades later, but not before composing
a host of works which testify to the full extent of the Beatrician influence on
the Dantean imagination.
Thanks to the exiled poet’s
powerful consciousness of this Florentine belle’s loveliness, charm, and
luminous holiness, the course of Western literature, history, and faith have
all been unimaginably altered. It was through obedience to Beatrice’s guiding
spirit that Dante composed not only The Divine Comedy, his world-famous and multitudinously influential epic of the
afterlife, but also the oddly affecting early composition La Vita Nuova (or The New
Life), a work which chronicles
the youthful infatuation and worship with which he attended his dream girl, up
to the time of her abrupt death at the age of 24 on June 8, 1290.
The Vita follows a narrative of sorts, starting with Dante’s first
sighting of Beatrice when he is ten and she nine. Immediately the young Alighieri lad is smitten, yet he keeps his feelings hidden from the world; afterwards, he feigns
an attachment to a different woman, and then to yet another, to the point where
his romantic intentions become so misconstrued that he is widely regarded as a sleazy cad by Florentine society. One day on the street, disapproving of what she takes
to be his womanizing ways, Beatrice spurns his greeting. Dante is heartbroken,
and weeps for hours afterwards. Later, after he manages to reconstruct his reputation, Dante finds himself haunted by a terrible dream in which Beatrice perishes and
loathsome, hellish hags taunt him for his loss. The dream proves to be
prophetic, and Beatrice’s sudden death in June—whose cause is never explained—leaves Dante bereaved yet more convinced than ever of his muse’s glorious
sanctity. Indeed, it may well be said that Beatrice becomes more alive than
ever for Dante following her soul’s departure from her earthly body. It is she,
after all, who later escorts him through Paradiso.
La Vita Nuova is striking for many
reasons, but the most fascinating exercise for the reader may be attempting to
scrutinize the true complexion of Dante’s passion for Beatrice. Though he finds
her radiantly beautiful, he never entertains thoughts of possessing her
physically. The notion of attempting to woo or seduce her doesn’t occur to him,
nor does he even appear interested in approaching her for conversation,
preferring to admire her from afar while zealously guarding the secret of his love.
It’s possible, of course, that this desire is mere sublimated carnality, but it seems more
likely that Dante the poet has seen fit to transmute his earthly appetites into
a more exalted form of ecstasy, related to the thrilling reality of God’s love
for man. Dante partakes of Beatrice as a kind of sacrament—she is an earthly reminder of heavenly grace.
Indeed, very concept of the muse—initially of pagan
origin—is thoroughly Christianized in Dante’s rendering. Beatrice is no less
than a vision of womanly perfection; it wouldn’t be a sacrilege to say that in
a way she represents a reiteration of the blessed Virgin herself, in that she
is what Eastern rite practitioners call a Theotokos,
or “God-bearer,” for Dante—through her, the divine glory is revealed to the
world.
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Brilliant though he was, Dante could not have felt moved to
reach the heights of aesthetic sublimity without the continual nurturance of
his muse, Beatrice. Whether alive or dead, she remained a constant source of
inspiration, a pipeline of spiritual sustenance on which his poet’s soul
feasted for the remainder of his days. Every artist needs aesthetic incentive
to create, though muses aren’t always benevolent and holy. What inspires one
poet to take to the magnificent “viewless wings of poesy” can also, in a
different mode, tempt another “to the dreadful summit of the cliff/ And there
assume some other horrible form/ Which might deprive your sovereignty of
reason/ And draw you into madness.” The latter manifested itself to the
protagonist Aschenbach of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice in the person of Tadzio, a beautiful muse who proved to be a
siren, luring the hapless hero to his destruction. Many a careless would-be
creator has made a similar, Icarus-like blunder, and has been undone by his ambition.
Once we seek to possess the Muse for ourselves, we invite our doom. The trick
is not to possess, but to allow ourselves to be possessed, for in truth, we don’t have our muse—rather, our muse (and by extension, God) has us.
An artist’s muse is a consuming fire, which destroys even as
it forges, transforms, purifies, and renews. One must not draw too close to
the flame, but one must get close enough to discern its features properly, if
one intends to be an active witness to what is true, good, and beautiful. On this
day—which also happens providentially to fall this year on the feast of
Pentecost, when “tongues of fire” sent from the Holy Spirit settled upon the
heads of the apostles, leading them to preach in new languages and begin
building the Church—let us take a moment to remember Beatrice, a lady whose
short life and early death led to one man’s salvation and a civilization’s renewal.
Viva Vita! Viva Beatrice!
Happy Muse Memorial Day!
Andy Nowicki, co-editor of Alternative Right, is the author of
seven books, including Under the Nihil, The
Doctor and the Heretic, Considering Suicide, and
his latest, Beauty
and the Least. He occasionally updates his blog when
the spirit moves him to do so.
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