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Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
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Language as Sin and Salvation: A Lectura of Inferno 18 /
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(Bernardo Lecture Series ; No. 19)
ISBN 978-1-4384-5738-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4384-5740-6 (ebook)
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BERNARDO LECTURE SERIES
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1 Reading Inferno 18
I
nferno 18 has had an unbalanced and reductive critical recep-
tion.1 In general, scholars have reacted with embarrassment,
sternness, and incomprehension when faced with the mix of
sex and excrement that characterizes and delimits the canto. At
the close of the Trecento, the commentator Francesco da Buti, profes-
sionally citing Horace, the master of poetic propriety, to support his
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did go on, again relying on Horace, to attenuate his negative assessment:
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Language as Sin and Salvation
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Language as Sin and Salvation
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0DOHEROJH LV WKXV LPPHGLDWHO\ DVVRFLDWHG ZLWK 3KOHJHWKRQ ,Q WKH ¿QDO
section of the same canto, after the interlude of Jacopo Rusticucci and
his companions, Dante adds to the rapid sketch that he had executed in
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tion of “that dirty water” (104), and then (106–14) Virgil’s casting into
the void of the mysterious “cord” (106), which, whatever its precise
connotations, necessarily stands in contrast to “that deep abyss” (114),
QDPHO\ 0DOHEROJH DQG ¿QDOO\ ± WKH ³PDUYHOORXV´ DUULYDO
RI *HU\RQ WKH HPERGLPHQW RI WKH FLUFOH RI IUDXG Inferno 17 has the
exact same structure as its predecessor. It begins by referring to Male-
bolge; there follows a digression; and it comes to a close by returning
to the world of deception. Verses 1–27 present a detailed portrait of the
“beast” (1), so that it too introduces Malebolge and anticipates Inferno
18’s proemial duties; verses 28–78 focus on the usurers; while verses
± GHSLFW WKH WHUULI\LQJ GRZQZDUG ÀLJKW RQ *HU\RQ¶V EDFN
A carefully orchestrated and relatively lengthy prelude thus leads
up to Inferno 18. Indeed, when Dante concentrates on presenting the
“plan” (6) of the “evil zone” (4) in lines 1–18, he is in essence simply
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Language as Sin and Salvation
7KH H[FHSWLRQDO QDWXUH RI WKLV ³VXSHUÀXRXV´ UHSHWLWLRQ LV D VLJQ RI
its importance. It encapsulates and highlights the care and attention
that the poet has taken when introducing Inferno 18, and hence “the
place . . . called Malebolge.” The highly meticulous construction empha-
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novitas is immediately brought to the fore:
Moreover, the complex organization that prepares for the eighth circle
foreshadows the area’s ideological and stylistic complexity, which, in its
turn, microcosmically points to the formal and thematic wealth of the
Commedia. This is why it is only in Malebolge, and in the two cantos
leading up to Inferno 18, that, beginning with “le note / di questa come-
día [the notes of this comedy]” (Inf. 16.127–28), Dante designates and
GH¿QHV KLV SRHP DQG LWV FRQVWLWXHQW SDUWV Inferno 18 in particular and
the circle of fraud simple in general engage with a “new” commitment
in the demanding duty of establishing and legitimating the status of the
Commedia as “comedy.”14 Such a delicate task needed an appropriately
sophisticated prelude.
7
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Language as Sin and Salvation
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poor, as the Psalmist said: “Raising up the needy from the
earth, and lifting up the poor out of the dunghill” [Ps. 112.7].
Likewise too this same sin is extremely widespread among
9
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For the moment, I do not intend to linger on the fact that the Scriptural
fornicaria DSSHDUV WR KDYH H[HUFLVHG D GLUHFW LQÀXHQFH RQ 'DQWH¶V UHS-
resentation of Thais and of the second bolgia in general—a borrowing,
in any case, which several scholars had previously noted. Instead, in the
wake of the two early commentators, my purpose here is to stress the
commonality of the language employed by Dante and Biblical authors.
Having to gloss “subject-matter” that medieval readers, well versed in
Horatian precepts that warned against the use of offensive terms, would
have deemed “spoken so disgustingly,”21 Pietro defended and legitimated
his father’s recourse to such language by emphasizing its Scriptural gene-
alogy. It is for this reason, I believe, that he accumulated examples from
the Bible which, like the allusions to the “Psalmista” and “Ysaya,” do
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EROJLD 6LPLODUO\ ZKHQ *UD]LROR TXRWHG WKH SDVVDJH IURP -RHO ZKLFK LV
also not exactly germane to Inferno 18, he had the same aim in mind: to
account for Dante’s linguistic boldness in terms of Biblical linguistic usage.
Inferno 18’s debts to excremental Scriptural vocabulary suggest
a relationship between the canto and the Bible that can be designated
as “of genre”—a relationship that goes beyond simple intertextuality,
which is how modern Dante scholarship has treated the poet’s reworking
of Ecclesiasticus 9.10, judging it a simple borrowing whose functions
are exhausted in the descriptiones RI WKH SURVWLWXWH DQG WKH ÀDWWHUHUV¶
contrapasso. However, if the passage from Ecclesiasticus is treated in
isolation, as if it only has a limited function in Inferno 18, then much of
10
Language as Sin and Salvation
its connotative vigor is lost. Dante introduced the image, whose Biblical
pedigree is self-evident, of the woman whose sexual activities debase
her to the state of excrement not simply for straightforward descriptive
HQGV EXW DOVR DV *UD]LROR DQG 3LHWUR KDG XQGHUVWRRG WR VWUHVV WKDW KLV
linguistic choices, however problematic, imitated the style of the supreme
auctor and not the dictates of a pagan praeceptor, however authorita-
tive. But not only. As the two fourteenth-century Dantists had further
appreciated, the poet wished to underscore that the association between
the second bolgia and the Bible was not restricted to Ecclesiasticus 9.10.
The aggressive presentation of the puttana merdosa served also as a
stimulus to seek out further ties between the canto and Scripture. The
connection between the promiscuous woman and excrement is in fact
a Biblical commonplace famously established in the story of Jezabel:
Queen Esther too, fearing the danger that was at hand, had
recourse to the Lord. And when she had put away her royal
apparel, she put on garments suitable for weeping and mourning,
11
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Language as Sin and Salvation
In any case, however the three sins may have been distinguished in
practice, it is clear that all of them had their origin in the same error:
the desire to “tell dirty stories.” Indeed, the proliferation of designations
and distinctions for what, ultimately, was the same sin underlines the
seriousness and anxiety with which the Middle Ages treated turpiloquium.
It is understandable, therefore, that, faced with the repulsive sexual sin-
QHUVRIWKH¿UVWWZREROJLDV'DQWHVKRXOGKDYHPRYHGZLWKFDXWLRQDQG
with appropriate linguistic reticentia.
Yet, as in Inferno 18, there were instances when it was neces-
sary to address sexual materia. With more than a touch of pragmatism,
St. Augustine raised the question of how to discuss Adam and Eve’s
physical relations before and after their expulsion from Eden:
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Language as Sin and Salvation
the sin of the tongue that “destroys the good actions of another person,
or diminishes them; or invents bad actions which are nonexistent, or
DPSOL¿HV DQG KLJKOLJKWV WKHVH LI WKH\ DUH SUHVHQW´44 Thomas Aquinas
GH¿QHG³GHWUDFWLRQ´ZLWKJUHDWHUSUHFLVLRQWRXFKLQJRQPDWWHUVFORVHWR
Dante’s personal circumstances:
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Language as Sin and Salvation
Sàvena and the Reno; 60–61]”—also has links to lying. When Augustine
insists that every lie leads to damnation, he cites Jesus’ words: “Unde
ore suo ipse Dominus: ‘Sit, inquit, in ore vestro, est, est; non, non: quod
autem amplius est a malo est’ [Hence from his own mouth the Lord
himself said: ‘Let in your mouth be yes, yes; no, no: and what is over
and above these is of evil’]” (5.6). The sententia is taken from Matthew
5.37, and is part of Christ’s attack on the swearing of oaths, to which he
constrasts the adequacy of honest speech. The passage, which enjoyed a
degree of popularity in the Middle Ages,52 ZDV LQWHUSUHWHG DV DI¿UPLQJ
the primacy of truth: yes that means yes. Conversely, the “greedy” sipa
uttered by the Bolognese lacks any basis in truth.
Having established the key importance of lying, Dante expands
KLVDQDO\VLVDQGWUHDWPHQWRIOLQJXLVWLFVLQVGUDZLQJZLWKFRQ¿GHQFHRQ
various aspects of the tradition of vitia oris. In this, as we have begun to
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¿UVWWZREROJLDVDQGHVSHFLDOO\WKDWRIWKHÀDWWHUHUV)RULQVWDQFHVRPH
of the Scriptural passages on which he constructed the second bolgia
come from the two Old Testament books, Ecclesiasticus and Proverbs,
that were central to discussions of the sins of the tongue.53 It is enough
to think of “omnis mulier quae est fornicaria quasi stercus in via concul-
cabitur” (Ecclesiasticus 9.10), or the verses that also appear to lie behind
the description of Thais, “Et ecce mulier occurrit illi ornatu meretricio
praeparata ad capiendas animas, garrula et vaga, quietis inpatiens nec
valens in domo consistere pedibus suis [And here’s a woman who goes
to meet him in harlot’s attire, prepared to deceive souls, talkative and
wandering, not bearing to be quiet, not able to abide still at home]”
(Proverbs 7.10–11). The early commentators of the Commedia, when
HOXFLGDWLQJWKH¿JXUHRI7KDLVLPPHGLDWHO\DOLJKWHGRQ WKHVHSDVVDJHV
DOPRVW FHUWDLQO\ LQÀXHQFHG E\ WKH WUDGLWLRQ RI WKH VLQV RI WKH WRQJXH54
In any case, the relationship between sex and linguistic sins was well
established in this.55 Similarly, the substantial presence of alimentary
allusions in Inferno 18 can in part be explained by the notion that sins
of language were linked to those of gluttony56—a connection that had
been forged by canonical statements such as “Of the fruit of a man’s
PRXWK ZLOO KLV EHOO\ EH VDWLV¿HG DQG WKH RIIVSULQJ RI KLV OLSV ZLOO ¿OO
him. Death and life are in the hand of the tongue. They who love it,
shall eat its fruits” (Proverbs 18.20–21), and “Do you not understand that
whatever enters into the mouth goes into the belly, and is expelled into
25
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the toilet? However, the things that come out of the mouth, exit from
WKH KHDUW DQG WKHVH GH¿OH D PDQ´ 0DWWKHZ ± D sententia that
Augustine had canonized in the De mendacio. The distance separating
such excerpts from a metaphorical language based on ideas of corrup-
tion, degradation, and pollution to describe the peccata linguae and their
effects is small:
26
Language as Sin and Salvation
wisdom is found, and a rod on the back of him that lacks sense” (10.13;
and see also 26.3). To create the torment of the panders and seducers,
Dante combined the notion of the sinful tongue that strikes those who
do not control it by exercising their intelligence with the Scriptural topos
of the whip of the Lord that punishes the evildoer: “And the Lord of
hosts will raise a whip above him” (Isaiah 10.26). Finally, it is likely
WKDWWKHWUDGLWLRQDOLPDJHRI*UDPPDWLFDJUDVSLQJDZKLSDOVRLQÀXHQFHG
the depiction of the “horned devils with big whips” (35).59 If the mem-
bers of the two “bands / . . . that the whip . . . drives away” (80–81)
had followed with due attention their grammar lessons, in which it was
normal to underline the relationship between language and ethics, they
PD\ YHU\ ZHOO KDYH DYRLGHG HQGLQJ XS LQ WKH ¿UVW EROJLD 7KH ZKLS
which in life could have taught them to live morally—the image may
also be found in the Bible (for instance, Proverbs 20.30)—now can only
LQÀLFW ³SDLQ´ 60
6 Concluding “prudently”
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The supreme exemplum of the prudent individual was Job, who, tellingly,
“sedens in sterquilinio [sits on the dungheap]” (Job 2.8), but who, in
VWDUNRSSRVLWLRQWRWKHÀDWWHUHUV³QRQSHFFDYLW ODELLVVXLV>GLGQRW
sin with his lips]” (10). Furthermore, and in this instance in contrast
WR WKH LQKDELWDQWV RI WKH ¿UVW EROJLD WKH ³SUXGHQW LV KH ZKR ORRNV WR
future things, both rewards and torments; and such a person does not
murmur about a scourge. For he freely bears the rod who saves him-
self from the sword of eternal punishment; he endures patiently being
beaten by him from whom he anticipates a heavenly inheritance.”62
If, in Hell, the presence of the Old Testament patriarch can only be
evoked intertextually, a prudens does in fact move “rather lightly” (70)
among the sinners. The prudent person’s “sermo purus” is recalled by
the pilgrim’s “chiara favella [clear speech]” (53), who, thanks to its
effects, triumphs over evil: “I say it with ill will; / but I am forced
by your clear speech” (52–53). The viator’s frank words, spiced even
with a metaphor—“pungenti salse [pungent sauces]” (51)—typical of
the conventional “low,” highlight the falsity and deception of Jason’s
“parole ornate [ornamented words]” (91). It is the intent behind words,
as the entire tradition on the peccata linguae concurred, that counts, and
not their formal elegance or crudeness (with the exception of course
of obscena verba). As is evident from the Commedia, “moderate” text
of a “prudent” scriba Dei ZKR DV RFFXUUHG DPRQJ WKH ³UXI¿DQ´
has learned to speak “purely” during his otherworldly journey, we,
the poem’s readers, have the duty to recognize the ways in which it
blends language and ethics. If we stop at its lictera, and we evaluate
LWPHFKDQLVWLFDOO\LQWHUPVRILWVUHODWLRQVKLSWRWKHDUWL¿FLDOFULWHULDRI
medieval poetics, or we judge it anachronistically in terms of its confor-
mity to standards of decorum and good taste that have little to do with
the sensibilities of medieval culture, we will signally fail to appreciate
WKH HWKLFDO QHYHU PLQG WKH GLYLQH IRUFH RI LWV ¿QHO\ WXQHG OLQJXLVWLF
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Language as Sin and Salvation
Notes
1. Until quite recently, the only analyses of the canto were those written
VSHFL¿FDOO\ IRU WKH F\FOHV RI lecturae Dantis; see Salvatore Accardo, “Il
canto XVIII dell’Inferno,” in Inferno. Letture degli anni 1973-’76 (Rome:
Bonacci, 1977), 443–59; Marino Barchiesi, “Arte del prologo e arte della
transizione,” Studi danteschi±*LXOLR%HUWRQL³,OFDQWR
dei lenoni e degli adulatori,” Archivum Romanicum 12 (1928), 288–302;
Lanfranco Caretti, “Canto XVIII,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera: Inferno
(Florence: Le Monnier, 1971), 583–616; )XOFR7RPPDVR *DOODUDWL 6FRWWL
“Il canto XVIII dell’Inferno,” in Letture dantesche: InfernoHG*LRYDQQL
*HWWR )ORUHQFH 6DQVRQL ± *LDQQL *UDQD Il canto XVIII
dell’“Inferno” (Turin: SEI, 1959); *HRUJHV *QWHUW ³&DQWR ;9,,,´ LQ
Lectura Dantis Turicensis: InfernoHG*HRUJHV*QWHUWDQG0LFKHODQJHOR
Picone (Florence: Cesati, 2000), 243–57; Mario Martelli, Canto XVIII
dell’“Inferno” (Naples: Loffredo, 1981); Edoardo Sanguineti, “Il canto XVIII
dell’Inferno,” in Nuove letture dantesche (Florence: Le Monnier, 1968),
vol. 2, 137–60; H. Wayne Storey, “XVIII,” in Dante’s “Divine Comedy”:
Introductory Readings. I. “Inferno,” ed. Tibor Wlassics (Charlottesville:
University of Virginia, 1990), 235–46. During the last few years, the canto
has begun to attract the interest of scholars independently from the needs
of “readings” of the Inferno; see Stefano Carrai, “Attraversando le prime
bolge: Inferno XVIII,” L’Alighieri 37 (2011): 97–110; Roberto Mercuri,
“Trame metalinguistiche nel canto XVIII dell’Inferno,” Annali dell’Istituto
Universitario Orientale. Sezione Romanza 32 (1990): 201–11; Francesco
Tateo, “Il canto XVIII dell’Inferno,” L’Alighieri 12 (1998): 33–43;
Pasquale Tuscano, Dal vero al certo: indagini e letture dantesche (Naples:
(GL]LRQL VFLHQWL¿FKH LWDOLDQH ± 7L]LDQR =DQDWR ³/HWWXUD GHO
canto XVIII dell’Inferno,” Per leggere 6 (2004): 5–47, which is by far the
EHVWDQDO\VLVRIWKHFDQWRWKDW,KDYHUHDG6HHDOVR=\JPXQW*%DUDĔVNL
“Inferno XVIII,” in Lectura Dantis Bononiensis, ed. Emilio Pasquini and
&DUOR *DOOL YRO %RORJQD %RQRQLD 8QLYHUVLW\ 3UHVV ±
29
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI
di Pisa, 2010–11, 773. All translations are my own. Even when translating
Dante, I have aimed at linguistic and syntactic accuracy rather than at
HOHJDQFH 7R VDYH VSDFH DQG WR GLVUXSW WKH ÀRZ RI P\ DUJXPHQW DV OLWWOH
as possible, I have normally just provided the translation into English of
passages that I cite. All quotations from and references to the Commedia
are from the following edition: La Commedia secondo l’antica vulgata,
HG *LRUJLR 3HWURFFKL YROV )ORUHQFH /H /HWWHUH 2).
30
Language as Sin and Salvation
Franco Angeli, 1988); Pierre Payer, The Bridling of Desire: Views of Sex
in the Latter Middle Ages (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993);
5XWK 0D]R .DUUDV Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others
(London: Routledge, 20122); Anthony Weir and James Jerman, Images of
Lust: Sexual Carvings in Medieval Churches (London: Batsford, 1986).
7. “Degrading” and its cognates are a constant in the critical tradition on the
canto.
8. Although all these phrases are taken from the lecturae previously cited, I
do not give references for these as they are meant to illustrate a general
trend.
10. Dante Alighieri, Commedia. I. Inferno, ed. Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi
(Milan: Mondadori, 20087), 535.
12. I cite from the online version of the dictionary. The entry attingere may
be found at: http://woerterbuchnetz.de/LEI/?sigle=LEI&mode=Vernetzung
&lemid=YA01939.
6HH =\JPXQW * %DUDĔVNL, “Sole nuovo, luce nuova.” Saggi sul
rinnovamento culturale in Dante (Turin: Scriptorium, 1996). See also
Teodolinda Barolini, The Undivine Comedy (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1992), 74–78.
14. “In Malebolge, Cantos 18–22, 24, 26, 28, and 30 (i.e., nine cantos out
of thirteen) have proems emphasizing the craftsmanship of the poet; they
contribute strongly to the formal unity of these thirteen cantos. . . . This
new self-conscious emphasis, which begins at 16. 128–29 in connection
ZLWK WKH LQWURGXFWLRQ RI *HU\RQ UHSUHVHQWV D PDUNHG FKDQJH IURP WKH
31
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cantos preceding Malebolge: it is one of the ways Dante makes the entire
poetic texture more elaborate and more intense, as well as keeping before
WKH UHDGHU WKH SUREOHPDWLF UHODWLRQ RI SRHWU\ ¿FWLRQ DOOHJRU\ WR IUDXG´
Dante Alighieri, Inferno, ed. Robert M. Durling and Ronald L. Martinez
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 282.
15. Franz Quadlbauer, Die antike Theorie der “Genera dicendi” im lateinischen
Mittelalter (Vienna: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., 1962).
16. “Species huius artis dicuntur tria genera stilorum qua a quibusdam
YRFDQWXU¿JXUDHDTXLEXVGDPFDUDFWHUHVDXWVWLOL¿JXUHDSSHOODQWXUTXDVL
FRPSRVLWLRQHV YHUERUXP 7UHV VXQW ¿JXUH GLFLWXU XQD ¿JXUD KXPLOLV
idest compositio verborum pertinentium modo ad parvas, ut in bucolicis
LQYHQLWXU GLFLWXU DOLD ¿JXUD PHGLRFULV LGHVW DOLD FRPSRVLFLR YHUERUXP
SHUWLQHQWLXPDGSDUYDVUHVPRGRDGPDJQDVGLFLWXUDOLD¿JXUDDOWDLGHVW
compositio verborum pertinentium ad magnas res et altas” (MS Vaticano
Reg. lat. 1431, fol. 36r-v; the manuscript, of French origin, was copied in
the twelfth century: Birger Munk Olsen, L’Étude des auteurs classiques
latins au XI et XII siècles, 3 vols. (Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1982–87),
vol. 1, 501).
17. On the “comic” character of culinary and alimentary references, see John
& %DUQHV DQG =\JPXQW * %DUDĔVNL, “Dante’s ‘canzone Montanina,’ ”
Modern Language Review 73 (1978): 297–307 (305); Ernst Robert
Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1990), 431–35; .DWKU\Q*UDYGDO“Vilain” and
“Courtois”: Transgressive Parody in French Literature of the Twelfth and
Thirteenth Centuries (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), 63
and 78.
32
Language as Sin and Salvation
20. I cite from the second redaction of Pietro’s commentary in the version
that can be read on the website of the Dante Dartmouth Project.
2Q WKH UHODWLRQVKLS EHWZHHQ ZRPHQ DQG ÀOWK LQ PHGLHYDO FXOWXUH VHH
Alexandra Cuffel, Gendering Disgust in Medieval Religious Polemic
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007); Signe Morrison,
Excrement, 45–54.
23. On the Bible as a linguistic and stylistic summa, see Alastair Minnis,
Medieval Theory of Authorship (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2010), 130–38.
24. See Martha Bayless, Sin and Filth in Medieval Culture. The Devil in the
Latrine (New York: Routledge, 2012); Signe Morrison, Excrement, 25–44
(the whole book, however, examines the relationship between excrement
and the sacred).
25. See James N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1982), 231–50. Furthermore, Adams concludes
that “in Terence there is no trace of the lexical obscenities or of current
metaphors. He avoided mention of the sexual organs . . . Most of his
references to sexual practices take the form of metonymy” (218–19).
26. See Tesoro della lingua italiana delle origini [TLIO], entry: merdoso.
27. The bibliography on Horace in the Middle Ages is substantial; see at least
“Fortuna dal medioevo all’età contemporanea,” in Orazio. Enciclopedia
oraziana, vol. 3, 79–524; .DUVWHQ )ULLV-HQVHQ ³µ+RUDWLXV OLULFXV HW
ethicus.’ Two Twelfth-Century School Texts on Horace’s Poems,” Cahiers
de l’Institut du Moyen-Âge Grec et Latin 57 (1988): 81–147, “The Ars
Poetica in Twelfth-Century France. The Horace of Matthew of Vendôme,
*HRIIUH\RI9LQVDXIDQG-RKQRI*DUODQG´ Cahiers de l’Institut du Moyen-
Âge Grec et Latin 60 (1990): 319–84, “Horace and the Early Writers of
Arts of Poetry,” in Sprachtheorien in Spätantike und Mittelalter, in Sven
(EEHVHQ 7ELQJHQ 1DUU ± DQG ³0HGLHYDO &RPPHQWDULHV
33
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI
2Q 'DQWH DQG +RUDFH VHH DW OHDVW =\JPXQW * %DUDQVNL ³7KUHH 1RWHV
on Dante and Horace,” in Dante: Current Trends in Dante Studies, ed.
Claire Honess [special issue of Reading Medieval Studies 27 (2001):
5–37], “Dante e Orazio medievale,” Letteratura italiana antica 7 (2006):
187–221, “ ‘Valentissimo poeta e correggitore de’ poeti’: A First Note on
Horace and the Vita nova,” in /HWWHUDWXUDH¿ORORJLDWUD6YL]]HUDH,WDOLD
Miscellanea di studi in onore di Guglielmo Gorni, ed. Maria Antonietta
7HU]ROL$OEHUWR$VRU 5RVD DQG *LRUJLR ,QJOHVH YROV 5RPH (GL]LRQL
di Storia e Letteratura, 2010), vol. 1, 3–17, and “ ‘Magister satiricus’:
Preliminary Notes on Dante, Horace and the Middle Ages,” in Language
and Style in Dante HG -RKQ & %DUQHV DQG 0LFKHODQJHOR =DFFDUHOOR
(Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013), 13–61; Suzanne Reynolds, “ ‘Orazio
satiro’ (Inferno IV, 89): Dante, the Roman Satirists, and the Medieval
Theory of Satire,” in “Libri poetarum quattuor species dividuntur.” Essays
on Dante and “Genre,” HG =\JPXQW * %DUDQVNL 6XSSOHPHQW RI The
Italianist 15 (1995): 128–44; Claudia Villa, “Dante lettore di Orazio,” in
Dante e la “bella scola,” 87–106.
2QO\ WKH ¿UVW ¿YH ERRNV RI WKH Speculum universale have been published
in a modern edition: Radulphus Ardens, Speculum universale, ed. Claudia
34
Language as Sin and Salvation
Heimann and Stephan Ernst (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011). Books 6–8 are
quoted from MS Paris BN, lat. 3229, while books 9–14 are regularly cited
from MS Paris BN, lat. 3240. The passage quoted is found in book 13
and can be read at fol. 164rb.
33. See Carla Casagrande and Silvana Vecchio, I peccati della lingua (Rome:
Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1987), 393–406; Edwin D. Craun, Lies,
Slander, and Obscenity in Medieval English Literature: Pastoral Rhetoric
and the Deviant Speaker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997),
141, 158–72, 177.
36. On laughter in the Middle Ages, see Casagrande and Vecchio, I peccati,
395–98; Risus Mediaevalis: Laughter in Medieval Literature and Art,
HG :HUQHU 9HUEHNH +HUPDQQ %UDHW DQG *XLGR /DWUp /HXYHQ /HXYHQ
University Press, 2003).
³3HU'LH0LQ=HSSDRUVRQJLRQWHOHWXH´OO±LQ0HRGHL7RORPHL
Rime, in Anna Bruni Bettarini, “Le rime di Meo dei Tolomei e di Muscia
da Siena,” 6WXGL GL ¿ORORJLD LWDOLDQD 32 (1974): 31–98 (58).
41. John Chrysostom, In Epistolam ad Ephesios, Homiliae XXIV LQ 3*
col. 119.
35
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI
43. Casagrande and Vecchio, I peccati; Craun, Lies, Slander. See also, but with
FDXWLRQ *DEULHOOD ,OGLNR %DLND “Lingua indisciplinata.” Transgressive
Speech in the “Romance of the Rose” and the “Divine Comedy,” PhD
thesis, University of Pittsburg, 2007.
45. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theol. 2.2.73.1.resp.3. See also Peter the Chanter,
Verbum abbreviatum, in PL 205, col. 56. On detractio, see Casagrande
and Vecchio, I peccati, 331–51; Craun, Lies, Slander, 136–53.
*XOLHOPXV 3HUDOGXV OLVWV WZHQW\IRXU VLQV RI WKH WRQJXH blasphemia
[blasphemy], murmur [malicious whispering], defensio peccati [excusing
sin], periurium [perjury], mendacium / falsum testimonium [lying / false
testimony], detractio, adulatio>ÀDWWHU\@maledictio [swearing], convicium
[speaking in insults], contentio [quarreling], bilinguium [hypocrisy],
rumor [spreading rumors], iactantia [boasting], revelatio secretorum
[revealing secrets], indiscreta comminatio [threats], indiscreta promissio
[rash promises], ociosa verba [idle chatter], multiloquium [loquacity],
turpiloquium, scurrilitas, bonorum derisio [ridiculing the good], pravum
consilium [bad counsel], seminatio discordiarum [sowing of discord],
indiscreta taciturnitas [imprudent taciturnity]. In Malebolge, employing a
variety of approaches, Dante succeeds in presenting the majority of these:
QLQHWHHQ RXW RI WZHQW\IRXU +H DVVLJQV D VSHFL¿F EROJLD WR HDFK RI IRXU
sins: adulatio, bilinguium, pravum consilium and seminatio discordiarum.
Turpiloquium and scurrilitas, as we have noted, are assessed in metaliterary
WHUPVLQWKH¿UVWWZREROJLDV)XUWKHUPRUH0DODFRGD¶VEHKDYLRU²³HGHOOL
avea del cul fatto trombetta” [and he had made of his arse a small trumpet;
Inf. 21.139]—is typical of a scurra (see John of Salisbury, Policraticus 1.8;
and also Allen, On Farting, 165–67), while the devils who threaten the two
wayfarers commit the sin of indiscreta comminatio. The remainder of the
vitia, such as mendacium / falsum testimonium and detractio, are associated
with other sins. In any case, it was typical in the Middle Ages to associate
the peccata linguae with other transgressions. Thus, the thief Vanni Fucci
LVDOVRDEODVSKHPHU³JULGDQGRµ7RJOL'LRFK¶DWHOHVTXDGUR¶>VKRXWLQJ
µ7DNHWKDW*RGWKH\¶UHDLPHGDW\RX¶@´Inf. 25.3); Sinon is the emblem
36
Language as Sin and Salvation
51. On the relationship between greed and lying, see Casagrande and Vecchio,
I peccati, 251, 279; Craun, Lies, Slander, 13, 41.
6HH WKH SDVVDJHV IURP *UD]LROR DQG 3LHWUR GLVFXVVHG HDUOLHU 6HH DOVR
Benvenuto da Imola, Comentum super Dantis Aldigherij Comoediam, ed.
-DPHV 3 /DFDLWD YROV )ORUHQFH %DUEHUD YRO *XLGR GD
Pisa, Expositiones et Glose super Comediam Dantis, ed. Vincenzo Cioffari
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1974), 347.
37
ZYGMUNT G. BARAŃSKI
55. Casagrande and Vecchio, I peccati, 399, 405; Craun, Lies, Slander, 22,
49, 51, 179.
56. Casagrande and Vecchio, I peccati, 141–74, 399, 405; Craun, Lies, Slander,
7KH WLHV OLQNLQJ WKH ÀDWWHUHUV WR &LDFFR DQG KLV IHOORZVLQQHUV KDYH
been noted by Accardo, “Il canto XVIII,” 455.
60. On the links between grammar and the sins of the tongue, see Reynolds,
Medieval Reading 2, 18.
38
=\JPXQW * %DUDĔVNL is the Notre Dame Professor of Dante and Ital-
ian Studies at the University of Notre Dame and the Serena Professor
of Italian, Emeritus, at the University of Cambridge. He has published
widely on Dante and medieval Italian literature.
39
The Aldo S. Bernardo Fund
The Aldo S. Bernardo Fund is the endowment fund for the Center for
Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the State University of New York at
Binghamton. Established in 1989 by a gift from the founding co-director
of the Center, the fund aims to support Center programs with a special
emphasis on medieval and Renaissance Italian studies. Since its inception,
the Bernardo Fund has supported the Bernardo Lecture series as well as
book purchases for the Bartle Library. The endowment has continued to
develop and is now also used to support a range of programs associated
with the Center’s teaching and research activities.
The Research Foundation of the State University of New York at
%LQJKDPWRQZKLFKLVDSULYDWHQRWIRUSUR¿WFRUSRUDWLRQFKDUWHUHGXQGHU
the laws of the State of New York, receives tax deductible donations on
behalf of the Bernardo Fund.
ﱰﱯ
40
The Occasional Papers: Earlier Volumes
1. Robert Hollander, Dante and Paul’s “Five Words with Understanding”
(1990). Five words spoken with understanding are preferable to
“ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.” With insight and wit,
Hollander analyzes speeches of Nimrod (Inferno 31) and Plutus
(Inferno 7) and other instances of garbled or mixed speech.
7KRPDV 0 *UHHQH Besieging the Castle of Ladies *UHHQH
traces the mysterious motif of the castle defended by women across
centuries, regions, and cultural expressions—e.g., an early chronicle, a
staged game, the Roman de la Rose, English manuscript illuminations,
French ivory caskets, and early modern versions. Each instance, like
the entire series, poses questions about sexual politics and sexual
control.
41
Paradiso PD\ EH FRQVLGHUHG D PHGLHYDO YHUVLRQ RI VFLHQFH ¿FWLRQ
+RZHYHUZKHUHDVPRGHUQZULWHUVRIVFLHQFH¿FWLRQWHQGWRVHOHFWD
WKHPHWKDWZLOOEHVWLOOXVWUDWHDSDUWLFXODUVFLHQWL¿FWKHRU\)UHFFHUR
DUJXHV WKDW ³'DQWH FKRRVHV KLV VFLHQFH WR ¿W KLV WKHPH´
:LOOLDP - .HQQHG\ Totems for Defense and Illustration of Taboo:
Sites of Petrarchism in Renaissance Europe (1998). Critical
commentaries appended to early printed editions of Petrarch’s Rime
Sparse,.HQQHG\DUJXHVLQÀHFWHGWKHUHFHSWLRQDQGXQGHUVWDQGLQJof
Petrarch’s vernacular poetry in Renaissance Europe. As a consequence,
WKH DXWKRU¶V H[SUHVVLRQ RI KLV VSHFL¿F ,WDOLDQ VRFLDO FXOWXUDO DQG
political identity came to acquire a protonationalist value for his
later readers. The Petrarchan sonnet, the most widespread vernacular
literary mode in sixteenth-century Europe, became a site for early
H[SUHVVLRQVRIQDWLRQDOVHQWLPHQW.HQQHG\H[SORUHVWKLVSKHQRPHQRQ
in the poetry of Du Bellay in France and of Philip Sidney and his
niece Mary Worth in England.
42
Dante’s own lyrics (e.g., “Lo doloroso amor,” the “rime petrose,”
“Io sono stato con Amore insieme,” “Amor, da che convien pur ch’
io mi doglia,” and “Doglia mi reca ne lo core ardire”), the essay
reconstructs the complex and arduous ideological pathway that Dante
traversed to reach Inferno 5.
10. Maria Rosa Menocal, Writing Without Footnotes: The Role of the
Medievalist in Contemporary Intellectual Life (1999). Menocal argues
that intellectual engagement with a public beyond the walls of our
own specialties, and even beyond the walls of the academy, was
ORQJ D FRPPRQSODFH DQG VLJQL¿FDQW SDUW RI RXU ZRUN DV SURIHVVRUV
and writers in the humanities. In reconceptualizing our place in the
academy, a task called for by the variety of crises that threaten to
make of literary studies a small and insular corner of that academy,
it seems imperative to consider the principally negative effect of
specializations that have followed the contours of national aspirations
and national languages, and of critical language that excludes all but
fellow specialists. Medievalists, in particular, with so much material
that echoes so richly with contemporary concerns, have a special
opportunity to lead the way in returning our work to that sphere of
public intellectual conversations of which it was once a part.
9LFWRULD .LUNKDP Dante the Book Glutton, Or, Food for Thought
from Italian Poets (2002). Boccaccio’s Little Treatise in Praise of
Dante (ca. 1350) documents his subject’s love of learning with a
43
story about how he went to Siena to see a book, then sat reading
it all day with such absorption outside a shop on the piazza that he
failed to notice the noise from Palio festivities going on all around
KLP ,Q WKH PLG¿IWHHQWK FHQWXU\ WKH KXPDQLVW 0DQHWWL UHSHDWV WKLV
anecdote in his Vita of Dante, adding that like Cicero’s Cato, the
poet could be called “a book glutton” (“helluo libri”). The image
of Dante as a book gobbler belongs to a rich Western tradition that
runs from Ezechiel, St. John on Patmos, and Plato’s Symposium via
Augustine, Macrobius, Petrarch, and Dante himself, down into modern
,WDOLDQ ¿FWLRQ E\ 8PEHUWR (FR 7KH LGHD KDV YLVXDO FRXQWHUSDUWV LQ
the typology of the author portrait, which depicts writers with their
ERRNV IURP ODWH DQWLTXH PRGHOV WR PHGLHYDO *RVSHOV DQG VHFXODU
Renaissance manuscripts. Most literary sources speak only of
reading and “digesting” without pushing the metaphor to its logical
FRQFOXVLRQ 0DUWLDQXV &DSHOOD ¿IWK F KRZHYHU LPDJLQHV /DG\
Philology vomiting up books before her apotheosis as Mercury’s
bride. Commemorative statuary of a type known humorously in
Italian as the “caccalibri” (“book pooper”) completes the intellectual
food cycle in another way, showing books streaming from behind
Niccolò Tommaseo in Piazza Santo Stefano at Venice, and Benjamin
)UDQNOLQ RQ &ROOHJH *UHHQ DW WKH 8QLYHUVLW\ RI 3HQQV\OYDQLD -RKQ
Crowe Ransom’s amusing poem, “Survey of Literature,” caps this
illustrated history of literature as food for thought.
13. Rachel Jacoff, Dante and the Jewish Question (2003). Beginning with
recent expressions of discomfort that two distinguished medievalists
have noted in their relationship to texts that are at once beloved but
also pernicious in their propagation of misogynistic and anti-Semitic
clichés, this essay addresses Jacoff’s own discomfort with Dante’s
reiteration of the deicide charge against the Jews in Paradiso 7 and
elsewhere. It explores Dante’s divergence from his major source,
St. Anselm’s Cur deus homo, and the implications of Anselm’s own
complex relationship to the Jews. The essay addresses the issue of
the changing relationship of the medieval Church to the Jews in the
thirteenth century and some of the theories that have been proposed
by historians for the increasing sense of danger the Church manifests
in this period. It concludes with a discussion of the issues at stake
44
in teaching such issues and their pertinence to our own historical
moment.
45
FDVH WKDW E\ WKH WLPH 'DQWH WKH SLOJULP KDV ¿QLVKHG KLV VRMRXUQ RQ
the terrace of the envious, it can be seen that Siena is more likely
to repent of its envy than Florence is of its pride. Therefore, the
treatment of Siena, and of the Sienese encountered in Purgatory,
becomes an act of humility on the part of Dante the poet, equivalent
to that of Provenzan Salvani, who gained his salvation by begging
in the Campo of Siena.
17. Albert Russell Ascoli, ‘Favola fui’: Petrarch Writes his Readers.
Building upon his 2008 book Dante and the Making of a Modern
Author$VFROLKHUHUHÀHFWVRQWKHH[WHQWWRZKLFK3HWUDUFK¶VDGGUHVVHV
WR DQG ¿JXUDWLRQV RI KLV UHODWLRQVKLS WR KLV UHDGHUV LQWHUVHFW ZLWK
the oft-asserted “modernity” of his authorial stances. In particular,
Ascoli argues that following in the wake of Dante’s double staging
of himself as reader of his own works (especially in the Vita Nuova),
Petrarch shows a keen and probing awareness of how the process of
SRHWLFVLJQL¿FDWLRQLQYROYHVDFRQWLQXDOLQWHUFKDQJHEHWZHHQDXWKRU
and reader, as well as a strong desire to control the nature of that
interchange as much as he can. Ascoli asserts that between Dante
and Petrarch two primary—and contradictory—features of literary
PRGHUQLW\ FDQ EH LGHQWL¿HG WKH DI¿UPDWLRQ RI WKH SUHHPLQHQFH RI
authorial intention and the foregrounding of readerly freedom of
interpretation.
18. Lino Pertile, Songs Beyond Mankind: Poetry and the Lager from
Dante to Primo Levi (2013). Is there is a degree of suffering and
degradation beyond which a man or a woman ceases to be a human
being? A point beyond which our soul dies and what survives is pure
46
physiology? And if yes, to what extent may literature be capable
of preserving our humanity in the face of unspeakable pain? These
are some of the issues that this lecture explores by considering two
systems of suffering, the hells described by Dante in his Inferno and
Primo Levi in Survival at Auschwitz.
47