Dante Online

I've written before about Paul Claudel's thoughts about Dante but haven't actually given any information about Dante's work directly. Thanks to a recommendation from Stratford Caldecott's 'Beauty in Education' blog, I can now put that right.

He recommends this wonderful site about the world of Dante, which contains the complete text of The Divine Comedy in both Italian and English. Where to fit it into the curriculum is tricky, of course, but it could come in handy if you're teaching or studying T.S. Eliot or John Milton (and there are still a few people who do).

Dante and Catholic Literature

What constitutes Catholic Literature is a question I have steered clear of on this blog, partly because of its complexity but partly because it seems to me that it's not a live issue for most Catholic English teachers. The reality, in the UK at least, is that we spend the overwhelming majority of our time teaching books that have little or no connection with Catholicism, even if we teach in Catholic schools. What I have tried to do on this blog, therefore, is suggest just a few Catholic authors whose books we might drop into our teaching.

Nevertheless, the question cannot be wholly ignored, which is why Paul Claudel's essay about Dante is so interesting.

According to Claudel, "Dante is one of five poets who, I believe, deserves the adjective sovereign or catholic". (He doesn't say who the other four are.) Dante's work has three key traits: inspiration, intelligence, and catholicity. And what Claudel means by catholicity "is that these outstanding poets have received from God such vast things to express that only the entire universe will suffice for their work."

Such a vision does not force authors away from the real. On the contrary, "a true poet hasn't the least need for grander stars or more beautiful roses. What exists already is enough, and the poet understands that his own life is too short for the lesson it gives and the respect it deserves."

It is this catholicity, this breadth of vision, which makes Dante's work truly great. It is also this breadth of vision which makes his work truly Catholic.

The natural corollary of Claudel's argument, however, is that because they are limited to the merely human most novels (and a great many poems) do not deserve the same adjective. Now this is controversial and so I want to examine the idea in greater depth in a later post.

The crisis of the 19th Century, for Claudel, was not an intellectual crisis of faith but "the drama of a starved imagination." Part of Dante's genius was to create an image of Paradise that we could imagine, for, in the words of an English author quoted by Claudel, "if we are unable to form for ourselves a real conception of the thing desired, we are inclined to let our spirit stray and place it outside the field of actual interest." If we can't imagine it we can't believe in it.

Claudel's essay ends with some wonderful comments about Beatrice, Paradise and love but I wonder if this idea of "the starved imagination" isn't the idea which might be of more practical interest to Catholic English teachers. Maybe, just maybe, it's a problem we can do something about.

Paul Claudel

I briefly mentioned Paul Claudel the other day but could have said more. (To see a lot more download an interesting Communio article here.)

Claudel has not always been well served by translators but it is just about possible to track down some of his poems in English translation. They sound better in French of course. Here is a reading of the lovely 'La Vierge à Midi'. And here's another with the words.

Fortunately one or two of his prose writings are still available, including this wonderful essay which I shall write about separately another time.

And if you're looking for a slightly longer school play than usual - as analysed here by Hans Urs von Balthasar - The Satin Slipper comes in at just under eleven hours :)

Literature and Prayer

Pope Benedict recently returned to a topic which appears to be close to his heart: the role of artists in the Church.

In his weekly audience he spoke of the ways in which art "resembles a door open on to the infinite, on to a beauty and a truth that go beyond the daily routine" and specifically mentioned Paul Claudel, the great Catholic poet and dramatist.

What I really like about the pope's comments was the way in which he started his talk: "In this period I have recalled several times the need for every Christian, in the midst of the many occupations that fill our days, to find time for God and for prayer." Easier said than done? Well, it depends, at least in part, on our conception of prayer.

According to the Pope, "The Lord himself gives us many opportunities to remember him. Today I would like to reflect briefly on one of these channels that can lead to God and can also be of help in the encounter with him. It is the way of artistic expression, part of that “via pulchritudinis” — the “way of beauty”, of which I have spoken several times and whose deepest meaning must be recovered by men and women today."

Pope Benedict has spoken of the Way of Beauty before but this is, I think, the first time he has explicitly linked Art and prayer: "some artistic expressions are real highways to God, the supreme Beauty; indeed, they help us to grow in our relationship with him, in prayer. These are works that were born from faith and express faith. We can see an example of this when we visit a Gothic cathedral: we are enraptured by the vertical lines that soar skywards and uplift our gaze and our spirit, while at the same time we feel small yet long for fullness...."

"Dear friends, I ask you to rediscover the importance of this path also for prayer, for our living relationship with God. Towns and villages throughout the world contain treasures of art that express faith and beckon to us to return to our relationship with God. May the visits to places filled with art, then, not only be opportunities for cultural enrichment — that too — but may they become above all moments of grace, incentives to strengthen our bond and our dialogue with the Lord so that — in switching from simple external reality to the more profound reality it expresses — we may pause to contemplate the ray of beauty that strikes us to the quick, that almost “wounds” us, and that invites us to rise toward God."

It puts a different gloss on what we're doing as English teachers.