Tay Tay's Clever

[Pixie Dust]

Le_Regard wrote:
I'm really struggling for the right words at the moment, and I just want you to know that if I'm going to look into Dante for you it means I *REALLY* like you.

I really like you too. I appreciate your research.

[Pixie Dust]

Le_Regard wrote:
Dante is not like, high school crush level of commitment.

Ride or die level, I get it.

[Le_Regard]

Pixie Dust wrote:

Ride or die level, I get it.
I'm concerned this might be AFTER you die level.

I was wrong before by the way, it wasn't Florentine.  They spoke Tuscan in Florence, first of all, but it wasn't even in Tuscan.  Dante was a guy with something so important to say he MADE THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE just to say it right.

The Divine Comedy is *properly speaking* of EPIC proportions.

I'll do The Divine Comedy as long as you want, I love The Divine Comedy, but FYI it gets TIBETAN almost immediately.

[Le_Regard]

There are three parts to The Divine Comedy.  Dante was guided through Hell and Purgatory by Virgil, the epic poet.

But he needed Beatrice to guide him through the mysteries of Heaven.

In real life though, Beatrice was more like this idealized symbol of unattainable love.  He said he loved her "at first sight", and he wrote her love poems, and was just love sick and couldn't stop thinking of her.

I'm not sure if there was or was not any expectation that his love would ever be consummated, but I'm guessing there wasn't, and being hopelessly unobtainable and yet somehow spiritually elevating seems to have been the point.

In fact this is so common you can just read the wikipedia for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtly_love



And again...  the weirdest thing about it is that DANTE knew what he was doing.  HE knew there were two Beatrices, a literal and symbolic one, but for some reason...  you'd think The Paradisio would be a poem about Heaven, or God, or something right?  But no...  still basically a love poem for Beatrice.

[Le_Regard]

If I had to guess...  if I had to take a wild guess about what Dante really wanted, it was not to have to stare into the Abyss alone.

If you're seeing it alone... can you ever be sure it's really there?

[Le_Regard]

So all of that, but as a courtesy I am also going to just skip ahead and tell you this is all leading up to "Hell Is Other People".

Also, and I'm just giving all the answers away for free right now, if someone were to write a feminist Divine Comedy from the real Beatrice's point of view I think it would probably sell millions of copies.

[Atlantean]

Darn it now I want to read it. Have to add it to my list now. -_- thanks!

Just from what you said I think the two Beatrices are her higher self and her lower self.

[Pixie Dust]

I've greatly enjoyed Dante.  I'm not as well read as you, but the insights he reveals are wonderfully layered.  I have more to say but I'll wait until I have a keyboard in front of me.  

As for seeing things alone, there's much a girl only sees alone.  Sometimes it's easier to deny a nightmare when no else has been witness.  Dante may not have required validation but companionship.  Being so effortlessly brilliant can be defeating and isolating.

[glance left]

Personally, I want to simply inwardly merge with "Beatrice" and be done with the whole absurd diverting mess.  Externalizing her/it just turns into an exhausting, frustrating wild goose chase that only stops when my impulse energy sputters to nothing.  Then, it's the unfortunate "walk of shame" back to square one to recover and try again....hopefully with more internal integrity this time

Beautiful drawing of the tunnel....Gustav Dores I believe did the etchings.  Funny thing is, during meditative visions....I more often see a scintillating square tunnel!  Go figure.....

[Pixie Dust]

Le_Regard wrote:
I was wrong before by the way, it wasn't Florentine.  They spoke Tuscan in Florence, first of all, but it wasn't even in Tuscan.  Dante was a guy with something so important to say he MADE THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE just to say it right.

The Divine Comedy is *properly speaking* of EPIC proportions.

I'll do The Divine Comedy as long as you want, I love The Divine Comedy, but FYI it gets TIBETAN almost immediately.

I love The Divine Comedy   It's a nice foundation for most of what matters in life.  Just so you know, Dante apparently chose a more vulgar language to express his masterpiece.  He could've taken the high road, but he chose the low road   I think the lower class would receive it better from a vulgar perspective, and they're likely the ones who needed to hear the story the most.  Also, leave it to Dante to share a serious message in the most unconventional of ways.  

From Wiki:
Dante called the poem "Comedy" (the adjective "Divine" was added later in the 16th century) because poems in the ancient world were classified as High ("Tragedy") or Low ("Comedy").[30] Low poems had happy endings and were written in everyday language, whereas High poems treated more serious matters and were written in an elevated style. Dante was one of the first in the Middle Ages to write of a serious subject, the Redemption of humanity, in the low and "vulgar" Italian language and not the Latin one might expect for such a serious topic. Boccaccio's account that an early version of the poem was begun by Dante in Latin is still controversial.[31][32]

[Pixie Dust]

Le_Regard wrote:
There are three parts to The Divine Comedy.  Dante was guided through Hell and Purgatory by Virgil, the epic poet.

But he needed Beatrice to guide him through the mysteries of Heaven.

In real life though, Beatrice was more like this idealized symbol of unattainable love.  He said he loved her "at first sight", and he wrote her love poems, and was just love sick and couldn't stop thinking of her.

I'm not sure if there was or was not any expectation that his love would ever be consummated, but I'm guessing there wasn't, and being hopelessly unobtainable and yet somehow spiritually elevating seems to have been the point.

And again...  the weirdest thing about it is that DANTE knew what he was doing.  HE knew there were two Beatrices, a literal and symbolic one, but for some reason...  you'd think The Paradisio would be a poem about Heaven, or God, or something right?  But no...  still basically a love poem for Beatrice.

I like to believe each person wears many masks, but that it's more complex as it extends into the arena of the soul (or Spirit, w/e).  We have our tonal selves and our soul, and sometimes the two mingle with one another.  Sometimes we see in others more than just their tonal identities and have the luxury of gazing into their soul.  When we are aligned enough within, we're able to gaze without to see beyond the veils of reality--including into the potential of others.  

I personally believe Dante was impacted by Beatrice's soul, which is likely very different than her tonal identity.  That's just the way people seem to be, so vastly ignorant of who they are without their masks.  Dante was a visionary with the sort of powerful insight into the things beyond normal understanding.  That type of intelligence doesn't come around too often.  

Yet, he was so taken with Beatrice that he put the concept of existence secondary to his love for her.  

It's not too often an intellectual is guided past the gates of Heaven as a mortal.  Given a tour and such.  I thought only slaves gave tours and Beatrice, the way Dante made her sound, seems more like an angel than a slave.  Weird.

[Pixie Dust]

Le_Regard wrote:
So all of that, but as a courtesy I am also going to just skip ahead and tell you this is all leading up to "Hell Is Other People".

Also, and I'm just giving all the answers away for free right now, if someone were to write a feminist Divine Comedy from the real Beatrice's point of view I think it would probably sell millions of copies.

I like free answers I can't disagree with the conclusion that "Hell is Other People".  No one wants to read about a woman's POV.  It would read like Twilight or 50 SofG.  

There I saw him, his skin glistening with soot and blackness, and he keeps looking at me funny.  Maybe he's just constipated?  No, no, he's saying something.  He's exchanging pleasantries, ah, I should probably say hi or something.

Yeah, that actually does sound comedic.  I would buy a copy

[Pixie Dust]

glance left wrote:
Personally, I want to simply inwardly merge with "Beatrice" and be done with the whole absurd diverting mess.  Externalizing her/it just turns into an exhausting, frustrating wild goose chase that only stops when my impulse energy sputters to nothing.  Then, it's the unfortunate "walk of shame" back to square one to recover and try again....hopefully with more internal integrity this time

Beautiful drawing of the tunnel....Gustav Dores I believe did the etchings.  Funny thing is, during meditative visions....I more often see a scintillating square tunnel!  Go figure.....

Externalizing a creature like Beatrice was the only option for Dante.  He didn't know her very well, he had to create and conceptualize her without her input.  Merging with something unknown is unpredictable.  I wonder how different Dante's tale might have been if he had actually befriended Beatrice.

And if souls do return to take on tonal bodies, might those two entwined beings ever meet again.   Such a profound dynamic leaves marks.

[Pixie Dust]

Pixie Dust wrote:
glance left wrote:
Personally, I want to simply inwardly merge with "Beatrice" and be done with the whole absurd diverting mess.  Externalizing her/it just turns into an exhausting, frustrating wild goose chase that only stops when my impulse energy sputters to nothing.  Then, it's the unfortunate "walk of shame" back to square one to recover and try again....hopefully with more internal integrity this time

Beautiful drawing of the tunnel....Gustav Dores I believe did the etchings.  Funny thing is, during meditative visions....I more often see a scintillating square tunnel!  Go figure.....

Externalizing a creature like Beatrice was the only option for Dante.  He didn't know her very well, he had to create and conceptualize her without her input.  Merging with something unknown is unpredictable.  I wonder how different Dante's tale might have been if he had actually befriended Beatrice.

And if souls do return to take on tonal bodies, might those two entwined beings ever meet again.   Such a profound dynamic leaves marks.  

Heck, and maybe "officially" Dante only met her twice.  Perhaps, there was more to Dante's tale that remained out-of-print.  Back in their day and age, I imagine protecting the virtue of Beatrice was a thing...and if they did courtly love, then degrees of expression could be pretty limited.

A writer like that in love with a woman like her--has drama written all over it.  It couldn't have been as simple as the biography makes it appear.

[Le_Regard]

Pixie Dust wrote:It's not too often an intellectual is guided past the gates of Heaven as a mortal.  Given a tour and such.  I thought only slaves gave tours and Beatrice, the way Dante made her sound, seems more like an angel than a slave.  Weird.

I want to just throw out here that for a neo-Platonist like Plotinus (whose school was in ROME, by the way, nevermind he wrote in Greek) Soul (Psyche), and Intellect (Nous) are different principles. Intellect is higher, one step closer to the Source of everything.

I'm not saying that's TRUE, I'm just saying that's neo-Platonism.

This was before Dante's time of course and the uh... Empire had found Jesus by then. But reading between the lines, it's probably fair to say that this tradition never actually died.

I'd have to reread the Paradisio again, but from memory, the heavenly Beatrice was just kind of radically One with God and spread out through all of Heaven already by the time Dante got there, so what was in it for HER was not at all made clear.

[glance left]

I just meant turning the whole unrequited love thing inward toward the abstract.  The externalized obsession is kind of ironic given the thrust of his body of work in terms of "redemption".  Oh well....humanity:  irony on a stick

[Le_Regard]

I think the hardest thing about interpreting Dante is he's definitely talking about Heaven and Hell, Angels and Demons, but he was not exactly just a water carrier for the Holy Roman Church, either.  Which parts are orthodox and approved theology and which parts are maybe wildly heretical but Dante saw them in visions or just made them up (and they went viral before the Church could stop it) just isn't all that clear.

One thing more or less for sure though is he wanted ordinary people to read it, not just scholars and professional theologians -- those people would have probably preferred Latin.

It's not really all that usual that a PAGAN POET was his mentor and guide through the Inferno and Purgatory and a WOMAN was his guide through Paradise.

[Le_Regard]

Milton's Paradise Lost is another good example of a narrative that...  well...  it just ISN'T IN THE BIBLE, but it became SO POPULAR it is in many ways historically more important than what IS in the Bible, and basically only obsessive-compulsives and theology professors really care about the difference.

[Le_Regard]

Pixie Dust wrote:
glance left wrote:
Personally, I want to simply inwardly merge with "Beatrice" and be done with the whole absurd diverting mess.  Externalizing her/it just turns into an exhausting, frustrating wild goose chase that only stops when my impulse energy sputters to nothing.  Then, it's the unfortunate "walk of shame" back to square one to recover and try again....hopefully with more internal integrity this time

Beautiful drawing of the tunnel....Gustav Dores I believe did the etchings.  Funny thing is, during meditative visions....I more often see a scintillating square tunnel!  Go figure.....

Externalizing a creature like Beatrice was the only option for Dante.  He didn't know her very well, he had to create and conceptualize her without her input.  Merging with something unknown is unpredictable.  I wonder how different Dante's tale might have been if he had actually befriended Beatrice.

And if souls do return to take on tonal bodies, might those two entwined beings ever meet again.   Such a profound dynamic leaves marks.  

She died when she was 24.  Dante (depending on what month he was born in) would have been either 24 or 25.  He outlived her by 30+ years.  They could have been friends.  Maybe he would have married her, eventually.

But it wasn't possible.  She had married someone else in 1287 (and died in 1290).  Dante himself was married in 1285, but even so, Beatrice's death affected him deeply.  He saw her in his dreams and, who knows, maybe it was even really her.

From the way he wrote the Paradisio I think it's very clear that he was reinterpreting the idea of Sainthood.  Beatrice was uncanonized by the Church, obviously.  Beatrice is not a Saint, according to the Church.  You cannot buy cards and medals of Beatrice at Catholic bookstores.  But Dante thought he knew better.

I think Dante knew better too.

[Pixie Dust]

I love that Dante offers an alternative perspective to religion.  The Bible has been written and interpreted in so many styles that it's confusing and complicated.  Dante deviates from the norm and there's something powerful in doing the unexpected and not following the crowd.  

I can see how Beatrice might be difficult to understand.  What might a creature such as her require, what reason would she have to reveal Paradise to Dante?  What is Dante?  Dante is an educated writer and capable of reaching any and all audiences.  He's mundane.  Beatrice has Paradise to manage.  There is only so much time one can squeeze into a lifetime.  I would assume Beatice would show Dante Paradise for multiple reasons.  One, she seems to accept him.  Two, he is intelligent enough to understand what she shows him.  Three, he's interested in learning.  Four, she recognized his ability to comfort the afflicted.  

Dante offers Beatrice a lot.

[Pixie Dust]

Le_Regard wrote:
Pixie Dust wrote:
glance left wrote:
Personally, I want to simply inwardly merge with "Beatrice" and be done with the whole absurd diverting mess.  Externalizing her/it just turns into an exhausting, frustrating wild goose chase that only stops when my impulse energy sputters to nothing.  Then, it's the unfortunate "walk of shame" back to square one to recover and try again....hopefully with more internal integrity this time

Beautiful drawing of the tunnel....Gustav Dores I believe did the etchings.  Funny thing is, during meditative visions....I more often see a scintillating square tunnel!  Go figure.....

Externalizing a creature like Beatrice was the only option for Dante.  He didn't know her very well, he had to create and conceptualize her without her input.  Merging with something unknown is unpredictable.  I wonder how different Dante's tale might have been if he had actually befriended Beatrice.

And if souls do return to take on tonal bodies, might those two entwined beings ever meet again.   Such a profound dynamic leaves marks.  

She died when she was 24.  Dante (depending on what month he was born in) would have been either 24 or 25.  He outlived her by 30+ years.  They could have been friends.  Maybe he would have married her, eventually.

But it wasn't possible.  She had married someone else in 1287 (and died in 1290).  Dante himself was married in 1285, but even so, Beatrice's death affected him deeply.  He saw her in his dreams and, who knows, maybe it was even really her.

From the way he wrote the Paradisio I think it's very clear that he was reinterpreting the idea of Sainthood.  Beatrice was uncanonized by the Church, obviously.  Beatrice is not a Saint, according to the Church.  You cannot buy cards and medals of Beatrice at Catholic bookstores.  But Dante thought he knew better.

I think Dante knew better too.   




  

Yeah. Dante certainly wasn't a conventional thinker. Right, and Beatrice was no Saint. Yet, in Dante's perspective she was. It was very personal between the two, something Dante never quite explained in enough detail to justify his opinion to his readers. She's just this majestic and beautiful creature and he leaves it at that. Strange, really. For someone as esteemed as Dante, one would assume he would offer more. He's seemingly evasive in certain aspects regarding Beatrice.

[Le_Regard]

Pixie Dust wrote:
I love that Dante offers an alternative perspective to religion.  The Bible has been written and interpreted in so many styles that it's confusing and complicated.  Dante deviates from the norm and there's something powerful in doing the unexpected and not following the crowd.  

He did something even better than not following the crowd.

Lots of people break with the mainstream and make their own path, but somehow Dante made a path that has guided art and literature for 700 years.

[Le_Regard]

Pixie Dust wrote:
 Yeah.  Dante certainly wasn't a  conventional thinker.  Right, and Beatrice was no Saint.  Yet, in Dante's perspective she was.  It was very personal between the two, something Dante never quite explained in enough detail to justify his opinion to his readers.  She's just this majestic and beautiful creature and he leaves it at that.  Strange, really.  For someone as esteemed as Dante, one would assume he would offer more.  He's seemingly evasive in certain aspects regarding Beatrice.

I don't know that Beatrice was not a Saint -- IS not a Saint.  Maybe she is.

We know very little about the real Beatrice's life... and although anyone can read Dante, even now, the mysteries of life and death, Heaven and Hell, these are something else entirely.

[Pixie Dust]

Yeah, so I gotta excuse myself from this conversation.  Authenticity appears to still be an issue and ain't nobody got time for that.

Goodbye.

[Le_Regard]

"See you in the dark
All eyes on you, my magician
All eyes on us
You make everyone disappear..."

-Taylor Swift, "So It Goes..."