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A review by sorinahiggins
Paradiso by Dante Alighieri
5.0
Exalted to the fifth heaven, Dante wrote:
And here my memory defeats my wit:
Christ’s flaming from that cross was such that I
can find no fit similitude for it…
my seeing Christ flash forth undid my force.
(Paradiso XIV: 103-105, 108)
This is the central contradiction of Paradiso and other visionary works: the supra-sensory vision of Christ is beyond language, yet the mystic poet inscribes ineffability.
Ecstatic experience is beyond comprehension. The utterly inexpressible—God the Son, glorified—is too large a signified to be borne on a linguistic signifier. Authors of transcendence resort to the distortions of simile and metaphor. However, reiterations of putative spiritual failure are accessory to literary achievement. Some writers retreat into stated silence; others exploit the power of the fragment; others rely on repetition—techniques designed to enhance the emotional power of the account. This paper proposes that Dante’s “weak” words comprise a consummate piece of craftsmanship. Only in admission of failure can a visionary succeed; only by inscribing the incompatibility can he overcome it. “Passing beyond the human cannot be / worded” Dante claimed (I:70-71)—eliciting admiration for how far his do travel, after all.
Such journeys are not without precedent. God Himself communicated encounters with Christ in the Scriptures. Christ is a mystical poem incarnate: the Word made flesh. Because of His leap from ineffable timelessness into expressive time, all who see Him will continue to scribble furiously, capturing the holy passion in fragmentary words, offering the success of their failure to all who will read and hear.
And here my memory defeats my wit:
Christ’s flaming from that cross was such that I
can find no fit similitude for it…
my seeing Christ flash forth undid my force.
(Paradiso XIV: 103-105, 108)
This is the central contradiction of Paradiso and other visionary works: the supra-sensory vision of Christ is beyond language, yet the mystic poet inscribes ineffability.
Ecstatic experience is beyond comprehension. The utterly inexpressible—God the Son, glorified—is too large a signified to be borne on a linguistic signifier. Authors of transcendence resort to the distortions of simile and metaphor. However, reiterations of putative spiritual failure are accessory to literary achievement. Some writers retreat into stated silence; others exploit the power of the fragment; others rely on repetition—techniques designed to enhance the emotional power of the account. This paper proposes that Dante’s “weak” words comprise a consummate piece of craftsmanship. Only in admission of failure can a visionary succeed; only by inscribing the incompatibility can he overcome it. “Passing beyond the human cannot be / worded” Dante claimed (I:70-71)—eliciting admiration for how far his do travel, after all.
Such journeys are not without precedent. God Himself communicated encounters with Christ in the Scriptures. Christ is a mystical poem incarnate: the Word made flesh. Because of His leap from ineffable timelessness into expressive time, all who see Him will continue to scribble furiously, capturing the holy passion in fragmentary words, offering the success of their failure to all who will read and hear.