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• W3113697305 abstract "Beatrice's Praise and Virgil's Consolation, Two Appraisals Richard Hughes Gibson What can words do for the damned? This question has obviously dimmed in significance in modern times, but it was a live one for hundreds of years of Western thought, attracting the commentary of Augustine, Peter Lombard, Gilbert Prevostin (Praepositinus), William of Auxerre, Albert the Great, Abelard, and Bonaventure, among others.1 (The so-called Tractarians of the Oxford Movement were, for example, still arguing about it in the 1830s.) As Robert Hollander has noted, this issue is considered on several occasions in Thomas Aquinas's writings, including a review of previous commentators' suggestions in the so-called Supplementum to the Summa.2 The question was no mere scholastic exercise, however. Whether the words of the faithful have any efficacy over the fate of the damned is a question with practical implications. Should suffrages be offered on their behalf? And if so, to what effect? Could the faithful's observances—such as prayers and fasting and almsgiving—liberate a soul from Hell? If not, might they still, to some degree, diminish the damned soul's suffering? That Dante thought about these questions is clear. Indeed, we can point to a specific moment in Paradiso as irrefutable evidence: the pagan emperor Trajan's appearance—stationed in the Eagle's eyebrow—among the blessed in Paradiso 20. Our poet was building on the widely circulated story of Gregory the Great quite literally praying Trajan out of Hell. Aquinas favored the version of the story in which the emperor was brought back to life so that he might believe and be baptized and thus die a second time as a Christian, and it is this version that Dante relates [End Page 77] in Paradiso 20.3 And just as Thomas suggests that this second chance was not a deviation from God's will but an expression of it, so Dante uses Trajan as an exemplification of how the Will of God is won because It would / be won and, won, wins through benevolence (vince lei perché vuole esser vinta, / e, vinta, vince con sua beninanza, 98–99).4 So Trajan's second chance, the pilgrim learns, was the reward of living hope: di viva spene, che mise la possane' prieghi fatti a Dio per suscitarla,sì che potesse sua voglia esser mossa. (Par. 109–11)5 As Hollander notes, Trajan (presumably ranging among the limbicoli) would have been hopeless prior to his reanimation.6 His resurrection, then, is not brought about by his hope—or some other virtue. The victory indeed belongs to the living hope embodied in Gregory's generous and, by God's grace, powerful words. Even before Trajan appears, however, the Commedia presents numerous occasions for reflection on what words can and can't do for the damned. Indeed, one could argue that the issue of words' efficacy permeates Inferno, coming to the fore with particular force at the moments when a damned soul elicits a sympathetic response from the pilgrim. What can Dante's words do for Francesca? For Brunetto? Of course, in these cases the limits of words' efficacy are crystal clear. Dialoguing with the pilgrim does not alter these souls' ultimate fates, and at no point does Dante hint that he has prayed and fasted for them on the other side of his journey. Moreover, whatever pleasure his conversation brings is often counterbalanced by some implied or sometimes quite explicit pain, a Hellish surcharge on speech (e.g., the violence that prompts Pier to speak up). Yet the question at hand doesn't just apply to the pilgrim. It arises for the first time in the Commedia in fact, and with a more uncertain outcome, in relation to Beatrice. I refer to her enigmatic pledge to Virgil in Inferno 2.73–74: Quando sarò dinanzi al segnor mio, / di te mi loderò sovente a lui. What exactly is Beatrice saying here? Is she suggesting that she plans to intercede for him and, thus, that there is yet hope for him? Is she posing some other possibility? Is she just being polite? This conundrum has become something of a legendary thorny issue, calling forth many..." @default.
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• W3113697305 date "2019-01-01" @default.
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• W3113697305 title "Beatrice's Praise and Virgil's Consolation, Two Appraisals" @default.
• W3113697305 doi "https://doi.org/10.1353/das.2019.0003" @default.
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