John Kleiner - Book Review: Mismapping the = Underworld: Daring and Error in Dante's 'Comedy'

From: Subject: John Kleiner - Book Review: Mismapping the Underworld: Daring and Error in Dante's 'Comedy' - Philosophy and Literature 19:2 Date: Mon, 3 May 2004 20:38:11 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0103_01C4314E.8D2FB2A0"; type="text/html" X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0103_01C4314E.8D2FB2A0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Location: http://0-muse.jhu.edu.opac.sfsu.edu/journals/philosophy_and_literature/v019/19.2br_kleiner.html John Kleiner - Book Review: Mismapping the = Underworld: Daring and Error in Dante's 'Comedy' - Philosophy and = Literature 19:2

Copyright =A9 1995 The Johns Hopkins = University Press.=20 All rights reserved.

Philosophy and=20 Literature 19.2 (1995) 415-416=20

Book=20 Review

Mismapping the Underworld: Daring and = Error in=20 Dante's 'Comedy'

Mismapping the Underworld: Daring and Error = in=20 Dante's 'Comedy,' by John Kleiner; 182 pp. Stanford: = Stanford=20 University Press, 1994, $32.50.

Critics once emphasized the unity and apparent perfection of = Dante's=20 Divine Comedy. In Mismapping the Underworld, John = Kleiner=20 emphasizes instead the imperfections, the inconsistencies, and=20 inaccuracies in Dante's work both to give a more accurate = assessment of=20 Dante's artistry and, as he remarks, to help readers "learn to = enjoy" the=20 imperfections (p. 2).=20

The five chapters of the book are devoted to various cruces in = the=20 Vita nuova and the Comedy. The first chapter = considers=20 numerology in the Vita nuova: pointing out that scholars' = arguments=20 for that work's numerological symmetry have been flawed, Kleiner = asks if=20 Dante had as much "passion for order" as scholars have assumed. = The second=20 chapter, from which the title of the book is taken, considers = earlier=20 scholars' attempts to draw accurate maps of Dante's vision of Hell = and=20 inaccuracies and inconsistencies in that vision. Probably not many = readers, for example, have realized that Satan, partially buried = in the=20 ice of Cocytus at the bottom of Hell, must be about 2,500 feet = tall, if=20 one calculates his height from the evidence Dante has given us, = and even=20 the part of his body extending above the ice must approximate "the = height=20 of the World Trade Center." One must then ask how Dante, the = narrator in=20 the poem, is able to give such detailed descriptions of the = tormented=20 bodies of Cassius, Brutus, and Judas dangling from Satan's mouth: = "at=20 their height they should be as insignificant a sight as a trio of = deluded=20 tourists waving from the top of the Empire State Building" (p. = 44). One of=20 the reasons why scholars have attempted to map the underworld so = precisely=20 is, as Kleiner points out, that Dante makes it seem so much more = concrete=20 than the "dreamlike" surface of earth. (Here C. S. Lewis may have = taken a=20 clue from Dante, in his notion that the concrete belongs to = Heaven, that=20 things on earth are only "shadowlands.")=20

The third chapter concerns Dante's reputation as a student of = classical=20 literature. Here, focusing on two cantos of the Inferno and = the=20 Purgatorio, Kleiner considers Dante's inaccurate citations = from=20 Virgil, Statius, and other [End Page 415] classical writers = and his=20 intentional use of "masterful distortions" to create the effect he = wanted.=20 In the fourth chapter, Kleiner discusses Dante's use of scientific = material, such as his precise description of the duration of a = lunar=20 eclipse that no one on earth would have been able to gauge and his = design=20 of an impossible experiment concerning reflected light. The final = chapter=20 associates Dante's interest in Geryon, the monster who appears in = Canto 16=20 of the Inferno, with the medieval fascination with the = grotesque.=20 Moreover, the Ovidian allusions in this canto, Kleiner believes, = make the=20 encounter with Geryon a meditation on poetry and show "fiction's = proximity=20 to fraud, its perilous attractiveness, and its susceptibility to=20 perversion" (p. 132). Thus the Geryon episode represents Dante's = concern=20 with the dangers inherent in reading, dangers depicted earlier in = the=20 Inferno in, for example, the Francesca and Paolo episode of = Canto=20 V, in which the lovers had been seduced into committing adultery = after=20 reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere. In such episodes, = Dante=20 reminds us of the power a writer has over his readers and of his = duty not=20 to use that power irresponsibly.=20

Because of the post-Renaissance emphasis on the importance of = unity in=20 a work of art and the later emphasis on realism, earlier critics = naturally=20 emphasized the unity and consistency of Dante's work. A great = work, they=20 assumed, had to have these qualities. As Kleiner's book reminds = us,=20 however, earlier writers did not always prize them as highly as = modern=20 critics do, and some inconsistencies and errors (some deliberate, = some=20 not) seem to have been acceptable. Inaccurate citations of = classical works=20 are due in part to the fact that medieval writers often knew = earlier works=20 only from commonplace books and in part to their belief that they = could=20 freely adapt and change earlier stories whenever it suited them. = Part of=20 the enjoyment the educated reader or listener must have had would = have=20 been in detecting these discrepancies. The inaccuracies in the use = of=20 scholarly citations, the willingness to distort sources if it = served one's=20 purpose to do so, and the lack of concern over inconsistencies are = characteristics that Dante shares with other early writers like = Chaucer=20 and Shakespeare. (Hamlet's reference to death, for example, as = "The=20 undiscovered country from whose bourn / No traveler returns"=20 [III.1.79-80], after the ghost of Hamlet's father had indeed = returned in=20 Act I.) By emphasizing Dante's inaccuracies and inconsistencies, = Kleiner=20 gives readers a more accurate assessment of Dante as a medieval = writer.=20

Edward Donald Kennedy =
University of North=20 Carolina, Chapel Hill

http://0-muse.jhu.edu.opac.sfsu.edu:80/journals/philosophy_and_= literature/v019/19.2br_kleiner.html.

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