Abandon Hope?
by Denis J. M. Bradley
“Was Dante, ‘fiery and uncompromising,’ also a medieval bigot and a rigidly dogmatic moral scold? Shaw thinks that Dante’s ‘moral certainties’ do not blind him to the ambiguities of ‘real human behavior in a real human world.’ So we can continue to learn from the Commedia about the human condition in today’s secularized world. But is it as easy as Shaw suggests to abstract contemporary metaphysical, moral and psychological universals from the particular ‘supernatural economy’—widely regarded as unbelievable or even unintelligible fantasy—of the Commedia?”
A basic Dante bibliography would now run in excess of 50,000 items; something new appears on the list every day. So why would Prue Shaw add yet another introduction, albeit one with a droll cinematic subtitle, to the Divine Comedy?—because she holds that the “sacred poem,” notwithstanding what she calls its antiquated theology and erroneous science, illumines the individual’s role in society and the cosmos, even for readers who do not share Dante’s medieval Catholicism or his “hierarchical and judgmental” view of good and evil actions.
Shaw considers seven themes in that moral universe: friendship, power, life, love, time, numbers and words, and devotes a chapter to each. These thematic chapters are capacious, each developed as a graceful if somewhat miscellaneous narrative. Five additional sections provide information about the dramatis personae, the poem’s meter, a glossary, an outline of the principal events in Dante’s life and suggested further readings. Academics can admire the competence with which Shaw popularizes received scholarship; novices can benefit from the pedagogical guidance provided by her very British classroom analogies. Both professional and amateur Dantisti can find in her numerous asides inexhaustible matters to ponder and feel when reading Il Summo Poeta.
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