Dante and the Troubadours: An Overview

Abstract

DANTE AND THE TROUBADOURS: AN OVERVIEW The essays in this volume embrace issues as general as the diachronic problem of the figure of the lady, as specific as one complex moment in the mosaic of dantesque intertextuality, and as speculative as the links that canbind poets inthe minds oftheir readers. Aileen MacDonald's essay deals with the most obvious source ofcontinuityin the lyric tradition as practicedbyGaucelm Faidit and inherited by Dante, namely the presence ofa ladywho stimulates both eros and text. We are confronted here by a problematic whose essential nature is the accreting of subtle distinctions within a paradigm of sameness; as always in such cases, it behooves us to distinguish with as much delicacy as possible, despitethefact that~orperhapspreciselybecause ofthe factthat--at either extreme ofsuch traditions the differences may seem overwhelming enough not to require finessing. We should beparticularlyvigilantindealingwithan authorwhoseauthoritywhose power as auctor~has enabled him to skew our reception and understandingofliterallyanyfigureortext he touches. Thus, the topic at hand-Dante's influence on our readingofthetroubadours -is one facet of a larger topic, which is Dante's tenacious influence on our reading ofanythingwithin his domain. Because the Commedia's basic textual strategy is the appropriation of reality,andbecauseDante'sgeniusistocommandourassenttohis fiction even when we do not know we are assenting,1 it is not surprising to find that contemporary historical chronicles are contaminatedbyinformationfromhistext. Whatistrueingeneral is more truewithrespect topoets, figures inwhom Dante mirrors himself. Thus, no matter howmanycaveatswe mayutter regarding ,forinstance,GuidoCavalcanti'simportanceastheformulator ofbasicstilnovùttenets, as long aswe use the expressiondolcestil novo-Dante's expression, which he coins inPurgatorio IA to baptize and bring into being the fraternity ofpoets to whom we thus refer~wementally, ifsubconsciously,place Dante at thecenter of the poetic configuration. As I have tried to document in my book Dante'sPoets, Dante systematically revises the reputations of his lyric precursors in ways that accord with his agenda; some poets' reputations suffer, and some are enhanced.2 Theserevisionshave inturnbeen absorbed intothe criticaltradition: undoubtedly, the uncritical disparagement that has pursued Guittone d'Arezzo until recently was in great part due to Dante's longstanding asperity toward the Aretine. Conversely, Dante's admiration for Arnaut has led critics to search for an idealized love in that TEODOLINDA BAROLINI troubadour's poems. In other words, if our topic is a call to vigilance, we could begin responding by noting that chief among Dante'sinsidiousinfluencesishisabilitytomakeusforegodistinction as we strive to make history conform to his powerfullyvoracious reading. As we know, Dante's voracity encompasses his own earlier selves, and so concern for distinction must begin with the poet's own itinerary.3 We must be careful not to flatten the dialectical twists ofthis itinerary into a straightforward progress from physically oriented early works to spiritual purity later on. We must rememberDante'ssonnettoCinodaPistoia,writtenafterhisexile in 1302, thus at least a decade after the youthful Vita Nuova, in whichhe characterizeslove as an overridingforce thatdominates reason and free will, and admits to having first experienced such love in his ninth year, that is vis-à-vis Beatrice: Io sono stato con Amore insieme da la circulazione del sol mia nona, e so com'egli affiena e come sprona, e come sotto lui si ride e geme (86.1-4) "Sotto lui si ride e geme": here the lover is literally "beneath " love's dominion, literallysommesso, to use theverb that in Inferno 5 characterizes the lustful, those who submit reason to desire, "chela ragion sommettono al talento" (39). AsFoster and Boyde comment: "This is the more remarkable in that Dante is now about forty years old and has behind him not only the Vita Nuova with its storyofan entirely sublimated 'heavenly' love, but also the series of canzoni that more or less directly celebrated a lovethathaditsseatinthemindorintellect" (2: 323). Bythesame token, Dante's last canzone is not a tribute to sublimation, but "Amor, da che convien pur ch'io mi doglia," that Cavalcantian testament to a deadly eros that afflicts the poet in the mountains of the Casentino, where it kneads him, reducing him to a pulp, leaving him both dead and alive: Cosi m'hai concio, Amore, in mezzo l'alpi, ne la valle del fiume lungo il qual sempre sopre me se' forte: qui vivo e morto...