Читать книгу Gesammelte Aufsätze zur romanischen Philologie – Studienausgabe. Herausgegeben und ergänzt um Aufsätze, Primärbibliographie und Nachwort von Matthias Bormuth und Martin Vialon онлайн

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O voi che per la via d’Amor passate,

attendete e guardate

s’elli e dolore alcun, quanto ’l mio, grave.

This is, obviously, not a classical inspiration, but a paraphrase, or even a translation, of a passage from the Lamentations of Jeremiah (1, 12): O vos omnes qui transitis per viam, attendite et videte, si est dolor sicut dolor meus. Indeed, DanteDante has in some way diverted its meaning from the prophet’s original intention; he does not address everyone who happens to pass, but only those who pass by the rather esoteric way of love: the fedeli d’ AmoreFedeli d’amore. But a little later, in the final chapters after the death of Beatrice (29 and ff.), when he again quotes the Lamentations (Quomodo sedet sola civitas …), the development leads to a new address and apostropheApostrophe, this time directed to a much larger group of persons: Deh peregrini che pensosi andate … (Sonnet 24, ch. xli). And after many years, or even decades, he again several times chose to quote the motives of the first chapter of the Lamentations: in the apostrophe to Italy, Purg. VI, 78ff. (non donna di provincie, ma bordello), and in the Latin Epistola VIII written in 1314 to the Italian cardinals. In the meantime, his horizon had widened; he had long since ceased to address his verses to an esoteric minority. The range of his ideas now comprehended the whole world, physical, moral, and political; and he addressed himself to all Christians. The lettore in the Commedia is every Christian who happens to read his poem, just as the passage in the Lamentations was addressed to everyone who happened to pass through the streets of Jerusalem. DanteDante had reached a point where he conceived his own function much more as that of a vas d’elezione, a chosen vessel, than as that of a writer soliciting the favor of a literary public. Indeed, from the very beginning, he never had the attitude of such a writer. Although he expects glory and immortality, he does not strive for it by trying consciously to please the reader; he is too sure of his poetic power, too full of the revelations embodied in his message. Already in the Vita Nuova, his charm is a kind of magic coërcion; even though much of this work is an expression of grief and lamentation, his voice very often sounds no less commanding than imploring: calling up those who have intelletto d’amore, and ordering them into the magic circle of his verses (recall also the Casella episode in Purg. I).