Dante’s canon, The Divine Comedy, has influenced many British poets both thematically and stylistically. There is an interpretation though, that British poets all borrowed from Dante in a traditional way. I will attempt, by contrasting two British poets, to disprove this interpretation. This paper will compare Shelley and Eliot’s influences from Dante as presented in two works: “The Triumph of Life” and “The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock”. It is important to define the terms, in discussing the issue of the canon’s influence on the British. A canonical work may be a work that has been accepted into the literary canon, one that has become a touchstone in the reading and teaching of literature. But the term canonical can suggest something else: that the work is orthodox and somewhat represents the central authoritative position at that moment in time. The term has become so loaded with religious connotations that it is often hard to separate the former from the latter. Western critics have often maintained that English poets have merely borrowed from Dante’s Divine Comedy as a canonical work. There are two occurrences surrounding the poets’ borrowings. The first one is that Shelley, as a Romanticist, borrowed Dante’s form; yet, he was progressive and unorthodox in presenting the content i.e he did not use Dante’s traditional content. The second one is that Eliot borrowed Dante’s content; yet, he did not use Dante’s form as Shelley did.
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I. Introduction
From the characterization to the plot, any author who truly wishes to make an impact on the lives of his readers must perfect nearly every element of writing. Some authors strive to accomplish a goal far greater than being memorable; however, they strive to be infamous. In fact, a controversial novel often creates a far more memorable or significant experience than one, which is widely read and accepted even if that meant the authenticity of the material is compromised.
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In English literature, Dante’s canonical work, the Divine Comedy, epitomizes his attempt at achieving a memorable experience. The underlying paradigm of life and suffering in Dante’s works exist even beyond the boundaries of literature, as it had obvious impacts on the masses and politics. But, perhaps no other poetry shows a wider and deeper influence of Dante than in British poetry from the 20th century. In F.W Bateson’s essay, “T. S. Eliot: The Poetry of Pseudo-Learning”, Bateson notes that Eliot once admitted in The Sacred Wood: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.” (Eliot) Whether this means that the work was borrowed in a religious context or as a touchstone, the stance is that English poets are no more than, put delicately, plagiarizers. This is by far an exaggeration and generalization of all English poets garnered from the reputation of the English for using Enlightenment ideas after a revival.
The clear flaw in this view is that T.S Eliot never used the canon as a reference to plagiarize off for the topic of his most acclaimed poem “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock.” A paradigm shift from the Romantic views of his predecessors to his modernist view would not occur until the turn of the 20th century. His poem is a response to the canon and a critique on the orthodoxy of Romantic ideals. What happens if we can show that Eliot displays a modernist response to the canon and even a critique on the orthodoxy of his predecessors? Critics such as F.W Bateson would have to grant that Eliot was not identical to his predecessors and that his works, notwithstanding the obvious influence, interpreted the canon in a different approach.
II. The Devout Eliot
Among all the English poets, perhaps none shows a wider and deeper influence of Dante than in Thomas Stearn Eliot. His acquaintance with the great Italian arguably begins with the year of 1910 when Eliot begun his poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Prior to Eliot, there have been to lesser extents more or less obvious borrowings from the Divine Comedy as seen in Shelley, Longfellow, Lowell and even Chaucer. What distinguishes Eliot from his predecessors was his acknowledgement of the essence of “poetry” that can be extrapolated from the Divine Comedy. Amongst Eliot’s essays, he attributes a great deal of poetic inspiration and admiration for the style and language of The Divine Comedy and even goes to say in one article, “It is a visual imagination in a different sense from that of a modern painter of still life: it is visual in the sense that he lived in an age in which men still saw visions.” (Eliot) His realization was that there was a modern notion of poetry for locking itself within certain time constructs-something that The Divine Comedy had ultimately overcome. It is of no surprise then that prior to Eliot, Shelley declared that the Titian’s Assumption “and the ‘Paradiso’ of Dante as a commentary, is the sublimest achievement of Catholicism.” (Shelley) In essence, Eliot’s stance differed in the view that he viewed the canon as an eternal standard transcending time, which unlike Shelley viewed the canon as a mere stylistic and social standard. As can be seen, on the most fundamental views of the canon, clearly Eliot deviates from the norm of opinions that great British poets maintained on the canon’s nature. Ergo, the statement that Eliot was the same as any other English borrower of Dante’s works is wrong. In light of this fact, the norm of opinions that great British poets maintained were garnered in an age of Romanticism.
III. Romanticism and Pre-Eliot Dante in England
Yet, Pre-Eliot Dante in England was based on a central theme that was conceived by readers and poets alike. These readers typically conceived an enthusiasm for a Dante of gloom and macabre, based solely on a few celebrated passages in the Inferno – notably the episode of Ugolino, a figure whose satanic hatreds are fueled by the indignity of political exile and the thirst for Revenge against Florence. A reason for this enthusiasm may be due to the preeminence of Romanticism in Europe at that time. Emphasis on the activity of the imagination was accompanied by a focus on the importance of intuition, instincts, and feelings, and Romantics generally put attention to the emotions as a necessary supplement to pure irrationality in the Age of Enlightenment. When this emphasis was applied to the creation of poetry, a very important shift of focus occurred. Wordsworth’s definition of all good poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” marks a turning point in literary history (Wordsworth). By locating the ultimate source of poetry in the individual artist, the tradition, stretching back to the ancients, of valuing art primarily for its ability to imitate human life (that is, for its mimetic qualities) was reversed. Such reasoning or imagination gave impetus for poets of the second Romantic Movement in Great Britain such as Percy Bysshe Shelley to create picturesque representations of the canon that are left to be contemplated by human perception. While there are some subtle differences in each poet, perhaps due to the social movements that occurred within these poets’ life periods, there is an inevitable unifying link between all of them; that is that these poets consciously or unconsciously borrowed from Dante in a Romantic context.
IV. Shelley, Conformer of Dante’s form
The aforementioned Shelley was one of the most important proponents to the Romantic Movement. Despite his relegation as a Romantic poet, Shelley appeared to exemplify characteristics that were atypical of the line of great Romantic poets. In the short essay of “A Defense of Poetry” Shelley attempts to clarify that, “the functions of the poetical faculty are twofold: by one it creates new materials of knowledge, and power, and pleasure; by the other it engenders in the mind a desire to reproduce and arrange them according to a certain rhythm and order which may be called the beautiful and the good.” Shelley is referencing to the vividness of the poetical faculty as a tools for humans to rearrange knowledge. He purposefully insinuates that all poetry imparts the reader with the desire to reproduce and arrange knowledge, power and pleasure into rhyme. He also realized that the canon was more of an aesthetic influence on the Romantic writers; that Romantic writers valued the canon for its vivid imagery. However clarified Shelley’s interpretation of Dante’s poetry may have been there is no fine line and strict context to prove that Shelley is a single faceted romanticist. It is noteworthy, that Shelley had already abandoned the orthodox view that Dante was a stern moral judge and didactic Christian poet, portraying him as a visionary idealist and precursor of Renaissance enlightenment – ‘Dante was the first awakener of entranced Europe’ (Shelley). Critics realize the ambiguity in Shelley’s conformation to Dante’s views – according to Richard Lansing, author of the Dante Encyclopedia, Shelley “while rejecting Dante’s politics and theology drew on his imagery for a number of works, including Prometheus Unbound, The Triumph of Life, and the Epipsychidion.” Evidently, while displaying a gamut of opinions that conflicted with Dante’s views on politics and society, Shelley admired Dante’s imagery and poetic constructs. Shelley is the sole exception in the line of great poets to have borrowed from Dante in a romantic sense. In all verisimilitude, Shelley wrote this as a tribute to Dante and therefore ascribed every line’s meaning with Dante’s vivid imagery.
Perhaps the most lucid representation of Dante’s imagery can be found in Shelley’s unfinished poem, “The Triumph of Life”. ‘The Triumph of Life” is incomplete breaking in mid-sentence with the question: ‘Then, what is life?’ To the end, Shelley was searching for understanding of the human condition with the Romantic elements reflected in his work. “The Triumph of Life” is pessimistic in the sense that it underlines the illusion of human life. “The Triumph of Life” is a bleak visionary poem, the narrator in Dante manner has an encounter with the figure of Rousseau who guides him through the vision of hell. Rousseau is not free from the hellish vision of which he provides commentary. According to Bruce Woodcock from the University of Hull, “He is as much a victim of the macabre dance of life as the mad revelling crowd of deluded souls who flock self-destructively into the wake of life’s chariot as it drives in triumph through and over them.” (Woodcock) Rousseau is portrayed in the form of a tree stump: an ironical metaphor expressing the malaise and futility of life. As such, “The Triumph of Life” is an ironical poem with the triumph being a cruel assertion of Life’s dominance over individual beings. In Rousseau, Shelley sees himself, Rousseau’s point is that he was seduced by life itself which turned his mind to ‘sand’. The most noteworthy component of “The Triumph of Life” lies within its unique structure. We have already established the understanding that Romantics found value in the aesthetic form of the canon. Following that line of reasoning, Shelley obviously found the stylistic influences rather appealing, as can be seen from the terza rima rhyme scheme. The text proclaims itself by Dante’s terza rima and circular rhyme suggesting the circles of hell. For instance, consider this passage:
With the spent vision of the times that were
And scarce have ceased to be.-‘Dost thou behold,’
Said my guide, ‘those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire,
‘Frederick, and Paul, Catherine, and Leopold,
And hoary anarchs, demagogues, and sage-
names which the world thinks always old,
‘For in the battle Life and they did wage,
She remained conqueror. I was overcome
By my own heart alone, which neither age,
‘Nor tears, nor infamy, nor now the tomb
Could temper to its object.’-‘Let them pass,’
I cried, ‘the world and its mysterious doom
‘Is not so much more glorious than it was,
That I desire to worship those who drew
New figures on its false and fragile glass. (Shelley)
There is nothing in particular about this passage that reveals structure that is necessarily different from the canon: Shelley still abides by the narrative form, the rhyme scheme and the allusions in the canon. Moreover, Shelley puts particular emphasis on the achievements of great intellectuals. The likes of Voltaire, Catherine the Great, and Leopold conjure an unorthodox image of mankind and that is that human nature is progressive, dynamic. Thus, humans are destined to pioneer new movements – this distinction that Shelley makes from his work opposes Dante’s theological commentary. To that end, Shelley’s works were not byproducts of Dante’s content, but rather aggregates of Dante’s form and Shelley’s humanism.
V. Eliot and Dante’s Roles as Social Critics
With the arrival of Eliot and his poem “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock”, the idealistic views of 19th century Romanticism were shattered and there was a paradigm shift into more modernist views of the canon. So what exactly was the modernist response of the canon in The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock? It was actually a culmination of Dante’s influence on Eliot, in which he materialized into a poem containing huge philosophical inquiries different from the Romantic poets. Concerning the nature of Eliot’s borrowing from Dante, “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock” does reveal a close connection between the two, but there is evidence to suggest otherwise. Evidence would make it seem as if Eliot had intended to make his work a representation of Dante’s Inferno through Prufrock. To demonstrate the close connection between the Inferno and Prufrock, take the epigraph for example:
“If I thought my reply were to one who could ever return to the world, this flame would shake no more; but since, if what I hear is true, none ever did return alive from this depth, I answer you without fear of infamy.”
– Dante, Inferno
The epigraph to this poem, from Dante’s Inferno, describes Prufrock’s ideal listener: one who is as lost as the speaker and will never reveal to the world the feelings within Prufrock’s present confessions. Despite his desires for such a listener, it is evident that no such figure exists, and due to the forced circumstances, be content with endless contemplation. However, to suggest that Eliot was an heir to Shelley, assuming there is any affinity at all, is an unsubstantiated view that few readers will ever seriously consider. Indeed, in Eliot’s earlier essays contain remarks so forthright that it would seem preposterous to liken the two. Shelley’s ideas were seen as “the ideas of adolescence,” “repellant,” ideas “bolted whole and never assimilated,” and the man himself as “humourless, pedantic, self-centered, and sometimes almost a blackguard.” The formal qualities of his poetry are scorned as well. “What complicates the problem still further,” Eliot claims “is that in poetry [as] fluent as Shelley’s there is a good deal which is just bad jingling.” (Eliot) With these remarks at hand, Eliot not only seems to be less than likely to have been influenced by Shelley, but in fact, a predecessor to Shelley’s modern day negative critics. In light of this fact, Eliot has distanced himself from the Romantic poet.
This distancing between Eliot and Shelley is also evident in their poetic structures. Take for instance this excerpt from “The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock”:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question….
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
Although “The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock” most closely conforms to a rhyme scheme as can be seen by the second, third, and fourth verses, this excerpt exhibits a deviation from the standard rhyme scheme into free verse where rhyme is not evident. Shelley on the other hand employed a strict constructionist approach in creating poetic form for “The Triumph of Life”. The terza rima that was demonstrated throughout his verses shows, as previously stated, a borrowing of aesthetic qualities from Dante’s work while clearly Eliot found little interest in borrowing Dante’s rhyme scheme.
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It is curious then to examine what Eliot borrowed from Dante. In lieu of form, Eliot borrowed heavily in content, and it is not so difficult to see the similarity in the two. The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock is a representation of the frustration and malaise in the daily life of a modern man. The epigraph itself was intended to show Eliot’s take on the modern man. Because the poem is concerned mostly with the erratic and to some extent ridiculous pondering of the narrator, the most significant issue lies over what Prufrock is attempting to accomplish. Many believe that Prufrock is attempting to confess to an unknown romantic interest as he alludes to the various physical characteristics in women: hair, clothing, and the body. Prufrock’s romantic interest is also evident when he states, “I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves/ Combing the white hair of the waves blown back/ When the wind blows the water white and black” (Perrine). Still there is the alternative view that Prufrock is providing a deeper philosophical insight to the society. According to Mc Coy and Harlan’s, authors of English Literature from 1785, “For many readers in the 1920s, Prufrock seemed to epitomize the frustration and impotence of the modern individual. He seemed to represent thwarted desires and modern disillusionment. Such phrases as ‘I have measured out my life in coffee spoons’ (line 51) capture the sense of the unheroic nature of life in the twentieth century. Prufrock’s weaknesses could be mocked, but he is a pathetic figure, not grand enough to be tragic.” (McCoy) In that sense, Eliot was concerned more with the individual and its purpose in life which demonstrated an emphasis on rationality in defining an individual’s existence.
This coincides with Prufrock, who, like Ugolino in the canon, is a subject to be ridiculed at. They are subjects who are not to be emulated due to their perpetuation of offenses. Concerning Prufrock’s “sin” as Dante would have called it, it is very subtle and can easily be dismissed as the musing of a mentally instable man. Yet, Prufrock introduces a suspicious symbol around the fifteenth line. Initially, the reader can assume the fog as a wandering cat on the alleys and streets, yet the fog can also be interpreted as somewhat an enigma that symbolizes the elusive nature of love. Although Prufrock is a timorous, feeble and frightened man who does not dare to speak to an audience, presumably his love interest, he often contemplates on doing so. He often wonders, “how [he] should begin” and “how [he] should presume” with the “butt end ways of his days.” In many ways, he confines his own desires so that any vestiges of lust or action are diminished into a passive state. Consequently, elusive qualities of the fog insinuate Prufrock recognition of love’s intangibility:
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
25
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
30
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea. (Eliot)
While it may seem admirable that there is a lack of passion and lust for love, the canon was in fact concerned with the passivity of the Christian church which inhibited any religious and or social progress. Prufrock commits the same sin by self inducing himself into a state of limbo, where decision is inevitably “a hundred indecisions” (Eliot). Likewise, Ugolino fulfills the same purpose in underlining a perpetuation of sin. As aforementioned, his sin is the commitment of treason as a Florentine. Dante’s condemnation of Ugolino is however much more explicit than Eliot’s condemnation of Prufrock. And so through the condemnation of Prufrock, Eliot has ridiculed mankind’s inclination to moral decay.
VI. Conclusion
Considering all of the influences on which Dante has become on Shelley and Eliot, there is an implied irony in the evolution of British poetry. The radically progressive ideas of Shelley in “The Triumph of Life” are conspicuous indications of Shelley’s deviation from the traditional Romantic. In addition to proposing the dogma that emotion is a key supplement to reason, Shelley augments the significance of mankind as the most important unit in the universe. As a result, for realists such as H.H Price, Shelley’s belief turns into an axiomatic truth. This may explain why Shelley admired the canon solely for its aesthetic qualities and not for the orthodox content. It is ironic though that as a contemporary of Shelley, Eliot would revert back to Dante’s concerns in humanity’s moral decay. When juxtaposing these two British poets, it is possible to conclude that the unifying link lies within the unorthodoxy of their ideas in the period that they lived in. Shelley was for example tilting more towards a humanistic perspective while Eliot assumed Dante’s role as a social reformer in a modernist milieu.
Thus, Dante’s presence as a paramount influence in British poetry was such that it would not have been surprising if Eliot had incorporated Dantesque ideas into his poetry. Indeed, the epigraph and even the stylistic qualities of the narrator remind the readers of the canon. Based on Virgil’s role as a guide to Dante in the canon, Prufrock bears a striking resemblance in his role as a guide to the readers. The role of Dante is filled by the readers hence employing an illusory effect on the latter. Furthermore, in contrast to romantic poems, the poem in its entirety evoked the image of a non conventional outlook towards mankind. By grasping the aforementioned eternal standard, Eliot augmented the importance of the human race in 20th century literature, a concept that previously did not exist.
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