| Show fj n ifo i- i F Fl fo t 1 l I l I I f 1 TO DANTE DA Written at the Request of 01 the Florentines King KinE that ha has haa reigned six ix ix hundred years and grown rown In power and ever owed since sinco thine own Fair Florence honoring thy nativi nativity na tivi ty Thy Ihy Florence now the crown of Italy Italy- Hath sought ought the tribute of a verse verso from me I wearing but the garland of aday a ad aday d day y Cast Cut at thy feet one flower that fades fade away Tennyson J rr ra r rBy By JAMES J. J WALSH M M. D D D. Ph Ph D D. Litt D. D Some time In this month of or Mar May 1916 1915 occurs the anniversary of or the birthday birth birth- da day of the man whom horn a number of ot modem modern mod mod- ern em critics have ha agreed to call one of oC tho greatest If not tho very elj gre greatest test o of or poets The The exact date of ot tho birthday of or Dante Ilko liko that of oC his great reat contemporary Roger Bacon which Oxford celebrated I last t June b by the unveiling of ot a R statue Is not known n They Thoy did not keep birthdays in the olden time as aa thc they do now flow and even our grandfathers grand grand- fathers Cathers and grandmothers were not always absolutely sure suro about their birthdays birthday so that It Is IJ not surprising surprising- to find that that the lay Jay of ot the month on which either of oC these thesa area a men on was 88 born is not known Th The one e that ls is ot of r Is v that W and years ears re respectively P el y after their births tho the world Is 15 now the tho da day as well voll as it can Roger Hoger celebrating Bacons Bacon's was probably never celebrated before but when thero Is R a walt Raft of or 70 y years rs before belore a a. birthday is celebrated one can be bo reasonably reason reason- ably sure that tho man IDan In whose whoso honor It I Itt is made probably did something well worth while The Danto and Bacon anniversaries anni anni- aro arc striking Indices of or the tho renewed renewed re re- re interest In the Middle fl dle Ages Aes so characteristic char char- of ot recent historical research I l ILE Dante Is reco recognized 6 by the critics and literary literary authorities ands Il Ilone as asi s i one of tie the greatest of poets it is freely ely admitted admitted admitted ad ad- that he has butew but buti ew cw ew readers James Russell Lowell once suggested that Dante eminently fulfils uJ Us what what- has been called at lead the accidental definition of a classic that It is a 8 book T which ich every one praises praises- praises but no DO one reads Certainly Dante is ranch much more celebrated for the quality than the quantity of his rC readers ders The men who arc are on record however In the highest praise of Dante from and Boccaccio and Michelangelo Michel Michel- angelo In Italy down to the distinguished group of American literary men who formed the Dante Club of Cambridge Mass are among the men of whom the tho world literary and artistic thinks tho the most Besides these distinguished 1 admirers admirers ad ad- of Dante are unstinted In th their ir praise of him They They- cannot say enough They find it hard to secure words to express all the heights and depths of their admiration on While his readers and admirers have been comparatively fewin few in fn each genera generation on they have always been en the very tery elite of the time so 50 far as ns intellectuality goes gocs and Dante has been literally r lly more written about than any other man that lived Dante appreciation has JaB grown ever since inee Dantes Dante's death except for a short period In the eight eighteenth nth century T when he lie was through Voltaire's influence misunderstood i if not neglected One Oue sometimes has Jas the feeling that Voltaire's opinion still dominates a great deal of f the popular thinking with regard to Dante He said inid in his cynical witty catchy way way way- You wish to know kno Dante The Itala Italians Italians Ital Ital- ians fans call him divine but it is a a hidden divinity very few readers understand his oracles He has of commentators tors that Is perhaps another reason for fOI his not being understood His reputation tion will v Jl go Ol oc on increasing forever er very cry probably because no one reads rends him any more more There are ore a score of or his qualities which every one with any aDY pretence to o knowledge of literature knows by heart That suffices to spare us the trouble c of looking for tor any more This bis divine Dante was so 60 they tell tellus tellus us a man who had quite enough misery crowded cro into 1 Ids his s life Dont Don't believe for far 0 tL moment that lie he was d divine inc in his own time nor that he was a 0 prophet among h his hia own people He was vas an ex exile e hOTing having hOT has ing jug to wander in is mun many cities and places 3 and it was while thus wandering that he be composed his Comedy of or Hell Purgatory Purgatory Pur Pur- and Paradise Somehow people have come to regard this salmagundi as asa asa a beautiful epic poem m is b it any wonder onder that tho those e who found it difficult to understand Dante or refuse re re- fuse fuso to give the time to the study o othe of f t the l poet which would enable them t to 0 I appreciate Iris his sublime work have e been bee n i ready reads and willing to qUo quote e Voltaire anto m an rind d I to conclude that his cynicism justified 1 1 I their neglect VoIla Voltaire ire however while whit e t the literary and critical dictator of hi bis hi own time and und thoroughly capable o of or f estimating with absolute nicety the mer mer- t I A Ha of the tb small literary fry Cry around him I 6 1 Z V U f r lL r. r tt 1 i r i r i THE CLOISTERS OF OJ 51 T B WITHOUT THE WALLS BENEATH NEATH B WHICH DANTE Is famous for his incapacity properly to tt appreciate writers greater than himself It was he be after aCter all who thought that Homer T was only a n ballad singer siner like many of those who still begged their way ay around Paris and probably no greater than some of them It was Voltaire Voltaire Voltaire Vol Vol- taire who declared that Herodotus should not be called tho the father of history history history his his- tory but hut rather the father ther of lies Every excavation and other development development develop develop- ment meat of history In the modern time has confirmed Herodotus' Herodotus f tories stories In spite of Voltaire's cynical depreciation Voltaire called Shakespeare q a aa 11 barbarian for putting put put- ting flag scenes of or blood on the stage It lt is no wonder that he lle did not properly estimate estimate estimate es es- Dantes Dante's merits as ns a poet Voltaire's Voltaire's Voltaire's Vol Vol- taire's works show that there was still another Creator besides these geniuses s of humanity whom tine tIle French philosopher philosopher philosopher philos philos- opher failed faded to understand Probably the greatest surprise for those who think of Dante as distant in time and place and interest from us herein here herein in jn America is to find the amount of attention attention attention at at- he attracted from what is recognized recognized by nil all to have been our greatest group of literary men the tIle New England writers Titers of the Ue second half of the nineteenth nineteenth nineteenth nine nine- century Longfellow himself one of our greatest American poets whose writings have been Leen read widely where wherever cr the En English J sh language lang is S Spoken spoken and many of whose poems poem have been translated into inlo most of the European languages es set bim himself the time taking and laborious ta task k of translating translating trans trans- Jatin lating Dante A group of his literary friends and acquaintances formed themselves themselves them them- selves Beles into a club dub known as the Dante Club of Cambridge c. to assist him nim in this task James Russell Lowell and Charley Charles Eliot Norton Oliver er Wendell Holmes and many others of whom Americans have learned to think t highly gave gan of their time and intellectual attention for forthia this this thia purpose X No a wonder onder that t lows low's translation on has come to be acknowledged acknowledged ac ac- as a n ma magnificent contribution contribution contribution tion to the Dante literature of the world Longfellow's own on tribute to Dante 5 is contained in the three sonnets which he attached as 18 introductions to the three portions of the Divine ille Comedy the Inferno the Purgatorio and aud the Paradiso Para Para- Para Para-f i diso disc From them one learns how bow Dantes Dante's great poem came home hOUle to this American poet translator who COO GOO years after it its creation was willin willing to give glye hour after hour nearly every day for many years sears to the translation of it He lIe thought of the mediaeval 11 epic as a 3 very like one of those wondrous Gothic cathedrals roman so ro many man of which wore were in process of erection erection tion lion or at nt least of beautification about the time that D Dante completed his great eat poem The first one of these sonnets gives CI an nn excellent idea of Longfellow's admiration and reverence reference for Dante Oft OCt have hl I seen at some cathedral door A labor laborer r pausing in io the dust and heat Lay down dom his burden and with reverent reverent rever rever- ent feet Enter and cross himself and on the floor Kneel lined to repeat t his bis paternoster oer Far off the thc noises of the tho world retreat Rt The Ic loud vociferations of ot the street Become an roar So as s I enter cuter hers here Jere from irom day to day ay And leave my burden at this minster gate Kneeling In prayer and not ashamed to pray The tumult of the time disconsolate To inarticulate murmurs dies die awa away While Thile the eternal ages watch and wait y r re e 1 y I w- w 7 f s 1 A S SI r r J I z I. I I t AtS' AtS Al' Al 1 J r I fr frt V Y t i R ye a l t 1 r l' l s f tr r i ti a y yr d r r v i. i r 3 r r d r t f. f 4 w t i I- I IL t L r 4 l a t 1 r h I a t G. G I k rK tz I i h t t a 1 d r 1 r rJAMES U S. S O 4 07 j jO JAMES JAME 1 f M r ts s j r r 1 1 fl 1 D hANTE TES TE'S S tA t A spI k 1901 r r 1 Yi JaM rs BY GIOTTO E Probably the finest series of tributes ever paid to a n poet are those from James Russell Lowell to Dante in his Ilis famous essay on the tho Italian poet This e essay SI r on Dante in the first volume of Among My y Books nooks has been declared one of the most important contributions to literary criticism Lowell himself was a p poet t. t of no mean menn rank He was a literary man mm manof manof of fine tn and surpass surpassing talents in his hia own generation He had had a u very veryla la large experience of the world His years as fiS Minister to Spain had put him in touch with the southern or Latin peoples peoples peoples peo peo- ples of Europe as ns probably nothing else could have done His IUs preceding career as professor at Harvard nr had bad given him bim the best possible preliminary training to enable him to take the fullest st advantage of his llis diplomatic experience in Spain Then came come his years as Ambassador to England to lo round out his bis knowledge e of men and of the world to broaden his judgment d deepen epen his feeling for universal universal uni uni- versal humanity and sharpen his critical sense of appreciation for what appeals to man an and not to the few men of a n particular time or country Th The judgment ment of such a u man must be looked upon as being as near final in inthe inthe inthe the matter of literary values 5 as can possibly be Le secured It was Lowell I however in the latter half of the ninel nineteenth nine- nine i l century wit with II six sh full centuries separating him from his subject au and aud with English speaking traditions as fiS hi his biti teachers who yet et found it in his heart and mind to think of Dante ns as probably the greatest poet who had fiver ever l lived led ed lie He said of him himIn In In all literary literal history there is no such figure as that of Dante no such homogeneousness of life fife and work such lo loyalty to ideas such sublime sublime sub sub- lime of the unessential That is what impresses the acute mind of this practical American merican beloved belond of his liis countrymen yet poet and und literary literary liter liter- 11 ary man and leader in the thought tho of his time that Dante sees secs everything n in essence eliminates all that is merely a adventitious sees the meaning of human human human hu hu- man life and il its environment eu in ia realities and without any of the veils s that obscure or the superficial trimmings trim trIm- that o o often hide the essential qualities of life lre from the man of any special time tune In spite even of their difference in belief belief belief be be- lief Russell Lowell IA well has sonic of his fin fin- int in- in eat t tributes for Dantes Dante's faith Like rike the Hebrew prophets with whose hose writ writ- writings writings in ings I his whole soul is imbued it was back to the old oil worship and the God of the tho fathers that Dante called the people peo peo- people Cople Co- Co says baS Lowell in iii a n awell well known pas pas- sage Fervid as ns ha have hac c been the tributes of American poets literary men and critics critic to Dante though apparently our distance distance dis- dis tance in time an and space from him must surely have naVe seemed to make such perfect 5 sympathy impossible they have not been more enthusiastic than those which have been penned b by the tIlO colder Brit- Brit ens never ens-never never over oyer expressive c of admiration admiration admira admira- tion for an anything thi thing not En English lish Indeed it is not Dot only quite possible but even Hen euc easy to match American tributes tribute by those written by English authorities in poetry and literature at least feast as us distinguished as our own Fifty years ago ngo when hen Florence T was ns celebrating ting the GOOth nn anniversary ry of Dantes Dante's birth Tennyson was asked to contribute to the f festival ti al by a a. poem In that he placed himself nt at the feet of his great Italian predecessor and confessed confessed con con- fe ed how little he thought bt anything that he could write might possibly bring of glory to his lofty colleague of the later Inter Middle Ages This poem is re re- re- re produced produce on this page Tennyson was however hon only one among many ninny Englishmen who have han expressed expressed expressed ex ex- pressed their deep humility in the tho prese presence presence pres pres- ence once o of this great mediaeval genius Men len like Dean Denn Milman l Iman the author o of The rIle History of the Development Dc of Latin Christianity and himself a distinguished dis dis- poet nn and the well known translator of Aeschylus and Horace KO so that more than on any other man of hi his hiJ g generation perhaps he be hn had the necessary scholarly and poetic culture to enable him bim to appreciate the great reat Florentine Fl as os ass a a. poet hailed balled Dante as the creator of of Jt Italian Jian poetry and through Italian Christian Christian Christian Chris Chris- tian poetry compared him with Tacitus for penetrative truth of observation with the thc intuitive judgment of saying ju just t enough the rare niro talent of compressing compressing com com- pressing a mass o of profound thought into an au apothegm and painting with the feu fewest cst possible possible- words yet ct haung hat ha lug ing the picture pit pit- ure c live and speak Frederick penison Denison Maurice fa Gladstone Gladstone Gladstone Glad Glad- stone Samuel la Taj Taylor lor Coleridge e Matthew Matthew Mat Mat- atthe at- at thew the Arnold Arnul Keble KeLle Cardinal Manning Dean Church Chulch all have marvellous tributes to Dante Perhaps s the most interesting feature 0 of their tribute to the Italian poet i is that almost |
