For Dante, then, the poet continues Holy Scripture after his own fashion, just as in the past he had confirmed or even anticipated it. He believes in the reality of the myth he has produced as he tends to believe in the allegorical truth of the classical myths that he cites, along with historical personages assumed as figurae of the future, even mythological personages like Orpheus. And Cato of Utica himself will be judged worthy of signifying, along with Moses, Christ’s sacrifice (Purgatorio I, 70–75), even God himself (Convivio IV, 18, 15).
If this is the poet’s task, to figure by means of a poetic lie facts and events that function as signs, in imitation of the signs of the Bible, then we can understand why Dante would propound to Cangrande della Scala what has been defined by Curtius as his “self-exegesis” and by Pépin as his “self-allegoresis.” It is plausible that Dante thought of the secondary meaning of his poem as being close to the secondary meaning of the Bible, in the sense that at times the poet himself, when inspired, is not aware of all he is saying. For this reason he invokes divine inspiration (addressing Apollo) in the first canto of Paradiso. And if the poet is someone who “when Love inspires him notes, and in the same way as Love dictates within goes signifying” (Purgatorio XXII, 52–54), in order to interpret what he is not always aware that he has said, we may then use the same procedures reserved by Thomas for sacred history. If a poetic text were entirely literal-parabolic, it is not easy to see why the poet would clutter up various passages with enunciatory instances in which he invites the reader to decipher what is hidden “beneath the veil of the strange verses” (see, for example, Inferno IX, 61–63).
That said, we are bound to admit that, as far as his manner of interpreting metaphors goes, Dante does not break with the ideas of his time and in particular with those of Thomas. Let us take the Vita nuova, and confine ourselves to examining how Dante explains the sonnet “Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare.” The poem contains a number of metaphorical expressions, such as “benignamente d’umiltà vestuta,” “dolcezza al core,” not to mention the invitation, addressed to the soul, to sigh (sospirare). Well, Dante makes it immediately clear that “this sonnet is so easy to understand … that it has no need of any division.” And the same is true for the other compositions he comments on: he clarifies the general philosophical meaning, but it does not occur to him to explain the metaphors. If we turn to the Convivio, we find something very similar. Indeed, it is curious that, in explaining “Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona” (and I would argue that the verb “ragiona” [“reasons, speaks”] is already a first metaphorical expression, to say nothing of the fourth verse, in which the intellect “disvia” [“goes off track”]), not only does Dante fail to explain his metaphors, but, in order to explain the profound meaning of his poem, he employs liberal quantities of additional metaphors as if they were readily comprehensible: “Lo quale amore poi, trovando la mia disposta vita al suo ardore, a guisa di fuoco, di picciolo in grande fiamma s’accese; sì che non solamente vegghiando, ma dormendo, lume di costei nella mia testa era guidato” (“Finding my life disposed toward ardor, this love later blazed up like a fire, from a small to a great flame, so that not only while I was awake but also during my sleep the light of her penetrated my mind”), going on to speak of the “abitaculo del mio amore” (“the dwelling of my love”), its “multiplicato incendio” (“spreading fire”), and so on. Similarly, apropos of “Voi che ’ntendendo,” whereas the canzone itself, philosophical in its content, does not contain many metaphors, in his commentary the author piles on metaphors intended to explain the text but which he makes no effort to explain, such as “trapassamento,” “vedovata vita,” “disposarsi a quella immagine,” “molta battaglia intra lo pensiero,” “rocca della mia mente,” and so on. For Dante too, then, metaphors are completely part of the literal (intended) meaning and do not require any effort of interpretation.
We have only to observe what happens when in Epistola XIII to Cangrande della Scala he explains how the poet has attempted to render the ineffability of the divine vision. Dante obviously cites Pseudo-Dionysius, and, even if he had not done so, we would have known perfectly well where the theme of the unutterability of God came from. He further warns us that “multa namque per intellectum videmus quibus signa vocalia desunt: quod satis Plato insinuat in suis libris per assumptionem metaphorismorum” (“in fact with the aid of our intellect we see many things for which we lack verbal expressions: which is sufficiently demonstrated by Plato in his works when he makes use of metaphors”) (Epistola XIII, 29). And, even using a very conservative definition of whether an expression is used metaphorically, in Paradiso 33, 55–145, we can identify seventy-seven metaphors and similes—some of which are among the most striking in the poem. But throughout the Epistola, it does not even occur to Dante, who seems determined to explain everything, and brings in philosophy and theology to elucidate what it was he wanted to say, to comment upon these metaphors. When he cites the opening lines of the Paradiso, “The glory of him who moves all things / penetrates and shines throughout the universe,” he confines himself to saying that what he says is “bene dictum,” explaining that the glory of God “penetrat, quantum ad essentiam; resplendet, quantum ad esse” (“it penetrates as to its essence, it shines as to its being”) Epistola XIII, 23). He says, in other words, what philosophical purposes these two metaphors are used for, but he feels no need to say in what way glory (in any case already a metaphorical expression) can be said to penetrate and shine.
3.6. The Symbolic Theology of Pseudo-Dionysius
At this point it remains to be seen whether metaphor, having forfeited its cognitive function in poetry and in the text of Scripture, could still assume a revelatory function in a theory of divine names—where the challenge is to name someone whom no literal expression can give a proper account of.
In the wake of Neo-Platonism, in the sixth century the idea of the One as unfathomable and contradictory enters the Christian world, through the agency of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (hereinafter “Dionysius”). In his works the Divinity is named negatively as something that is
the Cause of all [and] is above all and is not inexistent, lifeless, speechless, mindless. It is not a material body, and hence has neither shape nor form, quality, quantity, or weight. It is not in any place and can neither be seen nor be touched. It is neither perceived nor is it perceptible. It suffers neither disorder nor disturbance and is overwhelmed by no earthly passion. It is not powerless and subject to the disturbances caused by sense perception. It passes through no change, decay, division, loss, no ebb and flow, nothing of which the senses may be aware. None of all this can be either identified with it nor attributed to it.…
… It is not soul, or mind, nor does it possess imagination, conviction, speech, or understanding. Nor is it speech per se, understanding per se. It cannot be spoken of and it cannot be grasped by understanding. It is not number or order, greatness or smallness, equality or inequality, similarity or dissimilarity. It is not immovable, moving or at rest. It has no power, it is not power, nor is it light. It does not live, nor is it life. It is not a substance, nor is it eternity or time. It cannot be grasped by the understanding since it is neither knowledge nor truth. It is not kingship. It is not wisdom. It is neither one nor oneness, divinity nor goodness. Nor is it a spirit, in the sense in which we understand that term. (The Mystical Theology, trans. Luibheid, pp. 140–141)30
And so on in this vein for page after page of dazzling mystical aphasia.
How then can we speak of divine names? How can we do this if the Transcendent surpasses all discourse and all knowledge, if it abides beyond the reach of mind and of being, if it encompasses and circumscribes, embraces and anticipates all things, while itself eluding their grasp and escaping from any perception, imagination, opinion, name, discourse, apprehension, or understanding? (The Divine Names, trans. Luibheid, p. 53).
Not knowing what else to name it, Dionysius calls the divinity “the brilliant darkness of a hidden silence” and “the ray of the divine shadow which is above everything that is” (p. 135). At first blush, these appear to be oxymorons, expressing a contradiction, and therefore the impossibility of an unambiguous definition; they are nonetheless oxymorons based upon metaphors.
Dionysius, however, continues to insist that no metaphor or symbol can express the divine nature. But in so doing he swings back
