Rewriting Souls: Lectio and Imitatio in Dante's Purgatorio

Abstract

Rewriting Souls:Lectio and Imitatio in Dante's Purgatorio Jason M. Baxter Lire c'est mediter et c'est prier. —Jean Leclercq For J. B. Introduction Much recent Dante scholarship has focused on the need for enriched contextualization of the Commedia against the background of the cultural complexity of the Middle Ages. In contrast to many older readings of Dante in relation to a single thinker (e.g., Aquinas) or system of thought (e.g., Aristotelianism), contemporary scholarship has explored Dante's poem as an extraordinary synthesis of multiple philosophical, poetic, and theological traditions, thus bringing to light the full implications of Gianfranco Contini's polisemia dantesa, which "unfolds entirely on the literal level, by means of a multiplicity of internal echoes and cultural allusions."1 [End Page 713] That Scholastic moral philosophy did much to shape the architecture of Dante's Mount Purgatory is well known; that in Purgatorio Dante rewrites classical auctores and contemporary vernacular poets is also well known.2 But until recently, scholarship has paid little attention to another strand that makes up the complicated textual fabric of the canticle: monastic theology.3 This paper contributes to our appreciation of the polisemia of Purgatorio, by focusing particularly on the role played by monastic affective reading (lectio) in effecting deep spiritual cleansing (purgatio). At the same time, though, this strand of monastic lectio is interwoven with yet another medieval textual practice: Dante willingly conflates monastic reading (which Hugh of St. Victor and other writers associated with imitatio, as seen below) with that rhetorical imitatio taught and practiced in medieval schools.4 In the Middle Ages, such rhetorical imitatio was the writing process by which an aspiring auctor imitated an authoritative classic: that is, the compositional method by which an original authoritative [End Page 714] text was internalized and then transformed in a new textual composition. In this article, I will focus on how Dante combined these two distinct medieval textual practices in his Purgatorio, thereby creating an image of souls who are "rewritten" by God (the results of a rhetorical imitatio) by means of their meditative "reading" (that is, through the practice of moral imitatio).5 Fervor Caritatis and Purgatio: Affective Lectio in the Late Middle Ages From ancient through medieval Christianity there was a broad consensus that good yet impure souls (boni but imperfecti) would have to spend time in the afterlife undergoing purgation—suffering in ignis quidam purgatorius, although explanations varied as to what exactly the end of such purgation was.6 Scholastic theologians thought of purgatory as the place where souls paid off the debitum iustitiae, that is, the "the payment 'to the uttermost farthing' of the temporal penalty incurred to the Justice of God by sin, the eternal penalty having been already remitted by the Mercy of God."7 The monastic tradition, on the other hand, emphasized not the legal element, but focused on purgatory as a place of purity, where the final deficiencies of love were burned away in an excruciatingly painful ignis purgatorius. It was the aim of medieval spiritual masters (such as Guigo II, Peter of Celle, John of Fecampe, Hugh and Richard of St. Victor, and Bernard of Clairvaux) to avoid the need for the cleansing fires of the afterlife by cultivating a love (fervor caritatis) in this life strong enough to burn away moral flaws: "This I assert without hesitation, that if the fire that the Lord Jesus has sent down to earth burns in us with the ardor envisioned by him who sent it, the purgatorial fire … will find in us neither wood, nor hay, nor straw to consume."8 Thus, the souls within Dante's Purgatorio, who were spiritually lax in life, must now submit themselves to that disciplina [End Page 715] that was the hallmark of monastic spiritual experience. Even if now they have rationally renounced their choice of earthly goods (cf. Purg. 6.25–27), their affectus has not been warmed enough by the fire of love (foco d'amor [Purg. 6.38]) to burn away their habitual inclination toward creatures. And yet, although they still have their characteristic earthly dispositions (lo modo usato [Inferno 4.126]), they are now in a...