Desire and Subjectivity in Danteʼs Divine Comedy. Guest Lecturer Manuele GragnolatiBy Maria Cruz

A man sets off on a metaphysical journey, goes through Heaven and Hell until he finally joins the force that moves the stars. His work was called a Divine Comedy, and for centuries people talked about his genius to depict the christian afterlife, about the soul and god. On Wednesday, March 17, Dr. Manuele Gragnolati came to talk about the man. The lecture was called “Desire and Subjectivity in Inferno V & the Divine Comedy”, and submerged students and faculty in a search to re-encounter the individual, and its position in relation to God. Manuele Gragnolati has a PhD from Columbia University. He is currently a fellow and university reader in italian literature, and italian tutor at Somerville College (University of Oxford). His research focuses on Dante and medieval literature and culture. His book Experiencing the Afterlife was published in 2005. One can identify two main forms of desire in Divine Comedy: love for God and love for Beatrice. The objects that inspires the feeling are radically different; from a certain perspective, one could say they are opposites. God is perfection, the ultimate end a soul could attempt to reach; Beatrice, on the other hand, is a mortal being and imperfect. Both embody different desires, but instead of drifting apart, in Dante they come together. In Canto V, the lustful are punished, driven by winds to nowhere constantly. It is in this canto that we encounter one of the first individuals Dante chose to single out: Francesca. She is the first real character to appear in literature in modern times. “Dante was the first one to represent men as a concrete individual in its unity and wholeness”, said Gragnolati. “In this way, he is picking up what was only starting in the classical tradition, although it wasnʼt quite sorted out. In the Middle Ages the individual was completely ignores in literature, until Dante”, he added. In Divine Comedy, there is no abstraction. The reader does not find an allegory, but a person that sins. Dante combines in a magistral way subjectivity and individuality, since he speaks of real people to address abstract concepts. Dante speaks of individuals while speaking of himself. Canto V comes right after the Limbo, where Dante traces his own classical genealogy. He celebrates his superiority to classical poets, it is his way to acknowledge his ambition towards his masterpiece. Dante wants to transmit the fullness of the experience of hell through a very vivid sensual description. In canto V he wants to make us believe that we are getting into Hell, but we find Francesca, something very different from what we expected. In order to have a better understanding, it is key to know the context in which the Comedy was written. In 1274, Purgatory was established as a dogma, and this meant that people were officially allowed to finish paying for their sins. Purgatory was an instance that came right after physical death. This enabled people to develop certain individuality. Before this dogma was established, in 1215 confession was made mandatory, and this was considered to be a seminal moment in western tradition that shaped a subjectivity centered on memory. It is in this way that an inner individuality begins to take form, and Dante cannot avoid putting individual subjects in the centre of the action. If we go back to Canto V, we encounter a very commonly human sin: lust, or the inability to control oneʼs own desires. There is a major opposition between reason and desire. When desire overrules, reason turns into lust. In Canto V the readers see that in the same way that the sinners couldnʼt have control over their desires, once in hell, the have no control over their bodies -they are carried away by the hurricane. Hell, in this way, is a constant repetition of sins, and which condition is to be obsessed with oneʼs own desires. When Francesca speaks she quotes lines of courtly love. This is a key aspect, since in that tradition the individual, as human, as opposite to God, is highly praised and all the action is centered around him. When Francesca speaks, the subject is always love, she is

a passive actor. In her words, she followed a passion imposed by love. “In the tradition of courtly love, love is something that cannot be resisted”, said Gragnolati. “What is wrong with Francescaʼs words?”, he wondered, “If you are guilty and not responsible, why is she in hell? Since according to her words, there is no agency on her side. What Dante is telling us, by putting her in this part, is that she is responsible”, the lecturer stated. Following this thread of thought, one could say that he wants to move away from courtly love, but Dante is not denying it. Rather, he is making evident something that is wrong about this tradition. He does not want to take away desire -since without it, there would be no subject-, but he wants to re-orient it. Dante is acknowledging the limits of courtly lyrics and leaving them behind. Now, Dante comes from vernacular tradition, firmly rooted in lyric. The reason why Divine Comedy is radically different is because he had to rethink this cultural heritage. In Purgatorio, right after the terrace of lust comes the Garden of Eden, where Dante meets Beatrice, his beloved. Here desire takes a completely different shape. It is the driver of any action, and it inspires two kinds of love: natural, which is always good; and oneʼs own freedom, which implies choosing well or wrong. Desire does not disappear, but instead is changed into a guide. While previously, in medieval lyric poetry, the subject was divided between choosing the earthly beloved or choosing God; Dante succeeds in completely unlearning this tradition. In Divine Comedy, the beloved acts as a guide towards God, an hence -when choosing- the subjectʼs integrity remains untouched. It is with these thoughts that Manuele Gragnolati successfully succeeded in presenting the Comedy as a journey, an odyssey to discover and understand the proper self.