SOURCE: "The Women in the Middle: Layers of Love in Dante's Vita Nuova," in Italica, Vol. 61, No. 3, Autumn, 1984, pp. 185-94.

[In the following essay, Klemp explores the the ways in which Dante had revised his understanding of his love for Beatrice by the time he wrote the Convivio.]

One reason why Dante's contemporary readers, like his modern ones, find his poems difficult is because he is a revisionist author whose later works reinterpret earlier ones. In the Vita Nuova, for example, we meet a "donna gentile" whose identity is not revealed. The Convivio then reflects on Dante's earlier writings, including the Rime and Vita Nuova, and insists that this donna gentile is Filosofia. Finally, the Purgatorio looks back on all of these works and transforms the well-meaning donna into a vain creature. Dante's acts of revisionist literary history prevent us from discussing any of the writings in isolation. The Purgatorio blurs and undermines the Vita Nuova, in effect erasing all of its moral lessons. But the Convivio redefines our view of the earlier work, teaching us how to read it well. I will examine the Convivio's instructions about allegory to see how Dante uses them, retrospectively, to reveal a structural pattern in the Vita Nuova. Throughout the Vita Nuova, Dante playfully reminds his readers that they cannot identify his real love any better than they can comprehend his book of memory. After he writes his first poem about love ("A ciascun' alma presa"), he lets his friends read it: "A questo sonetto fue risposto da molti e di diverse sentenzie." Dante happily notes that all of his readers missed "Lo verace giudicio" (III, 15).

Flagrant revisionism accounts for many misinterpretations. The Convivio explains that in much of his early poetry—particularly the Rime and Vita Nuova—Dante wrote about "la mia condizione sotto figure d'altre cose" ("my condition under the cover of other things"). The early works contain nothing to suggest such an allegorical reading, but this does not prevent Dante from identifying the flaws that turn his readers into misreaders:

né li uditori erano tanto bene disposti, che
avessero si leggiere le fittizie parole apprese;
né sarebbe data loro fede a la sentenza vera,
come a la fittizia, però che di vero si credea
del tutto che disposto fosse a quello amore
[Beatrice], che non si credeva di questo
[Filosofia].
(II.XII.8)

Readers receive the blame for loving fiction and attending to matters amatory, while the author glosses over his part in the revisionism that misleads us. If, however, we become educable readers by following his revisionism, this statement from the Convivio alerts us to the parallel paths of love and literary interpretation. As Giuseppe Mazzotta argues [in Dante, Poet of the Desert], the Vita Nuova, like the Convivio, is a story of "self-reading": "Dante suggests—along with the more conventional metaphoric bond between love and poetry—the profound links which connect love and interpretation." Dante indicates that, as a lover and as a writer, he must first mislead us in order to help us discover the truth, and this explains much of his revisionism. The key decoys to lead us astray in the Vita Nuova are the ladies whom Dante pretends to love in order to maintain the secrecy of his love for Beatrice.

He describes the first lady as a "schermo de la veritade" ("a screen or defense of the truth," V, 3); the second, another "simulato amore" ("pretended love") is also a screen or defense (IX, 6). Just as Dante hides his love behind a screen in the Vita Nuova, so in the Convivio he discusses literary interpretation in terms of layers or coverings. He describes the relationship of the allegorical and literal levels as "una veritade ascosa sotto belle menzogna" ("a truth hidden beneath a beautiful lie," II.i.3). It appears, then, that the Convivio encourages us to revise our view of the Vita Nuova's structure by recognizing its parallels with the fourfold method of interpretation. Because poetry is born of love in the Vita Nuova, Dante's book of memory—revised by his statements in the Convivio—illustrates the correspondence between the pattern of the love experience and the pattern of allegorical discourse.

Many episodes in the Vita Nuova seem to be extraneous or confusing unless we recognize the correspondence between the four levels of polysemous writing and the book's four central women (the screen-ladies, the mortal Beatrice, Filosofia, and the spiritual Beatrice). Why, for instance, does Dante bother to introduce any screen-ladies? Scholars have frequency ignored these characters. One critic writes: "We will skip over the chapters where Dante uses the screen-woman." Less extreme, [Robert Hollander] underestimates their importance: "apparitions of Amore and of the gentile donna … are not to be considered as having as significant a function in the work as the apparitions of Beatrice." Without the screen-ladies, as I will argue, there can be no vision of Beatrice. The functions of the screen-ladies will lead to another question: why does Dante's relationship with Beatrice proceed so erratically? They meet at the age of nine (II). She reappears nine years later, for no apparent reason, and greets him, whereupon he retreats (III). And then she shuns him because of nasty rumors (X). They are reconciled before her death occurs in Chapter XXVIII, but he eventually finds another lady, Filosofia. Finally, he has a vision of the spiritual Beatrice wearing the "vestimenta sanguigne" ("bloodlike garment") of their first meeting, "e pareami giovane in simile etade in quale io prima la vidi" ("and she seemed as young to me as when I first saw her," XXXIX, 1). Have we been going around in circles, only to end up at Dante's and Beatrice's meeting when they were nine years old? No, we have instead learned that the pattern of the women in Dante's life, like the pattern of fourfold allegorical interpretation, is arranged in concentric circles. Since the women offer different kinds of love—simulated, earthly, philosophical, and divine—one layer of love leads to the next only when they are placed in their proper order.

Sequence is crucial to Dante's view of life and literature, or what the Convivio calls matters "naturale ed artificiale" (II.i.12). He repeatedly uses the words "impossibile ed inrazionale" to characterize the craftsman who builds an ark before he has prepared the wood, or a house before he has established its foundation (II.i.10-12). Hence an allegorist attempts the impossible if he presents the allegorical level before the literal, because he must lead his readers from the concrete "sobietto" ("subject") to the more abstract "forma" ("form") (II.i. 10). In the same section of the Convivio, he tells us that "sempre lo litterale dee andare innanzi" ("the literal must always come first") for one simple reason: "però che in ciascuna cosa che ha dentro e di fuori, è impossibile venire al dentro se prima non si viene al di fuori" (8-9). If the craftsman confuses this sequence, his efforts are also irrational: "Ancora, posto die possibile fosse, sarebbe inrazionale, cioè fuori d'ordine, e però con molta fatica e con molto errore si procederebbe" (13). As is well known, the correct sequence is the literal level, composed of "le parole fittizie" (3), which contains all other meanings (8); the allegorical, "una veritade ascosa sotto belle menzogna" (3); the moral, characterized by its ability to teach (5); and, finally, the anagogical, or "sovrasenso" ("transcendent meaning") dealing with "le superne cose de l'etternal gloria" ("the supernal things of eternal glory") (6). Only when this sequence is in its proper order can the allegorical writer, and presumably his reader, proceed beyond fictions toward a heavenly vision.

The narrative equivalent of this sequence appears in Chapter V of the Vita Nuova. Beatrice has already entered Dante's life, inexplicably disappeared for nine years, and returned—as "una maravigliosa visione" ("a miraculous vision," 111, 3)—to greet him. He promptly retreats to the loneliness of his room. Their relationship remains ambiguous until, in Chapter V, two new women are introduced sitting in a church, Dante tells us that "io era in luogo dal quale vedea la mia beatitudine," Beatrice (V, 1). She is, significantly, an earthly obstacle placed between Dante and the divine "regina de la gloria" ("queen of glory"), the Madonna, about whom words are being spoken, Dante's mind lingers on the mortal woman when yet another buffer appears: "nel mezzo di lei [Beatrice] e di me per la retta linea sedea una gentile donna" ("on the straight line between her and me sat a gentle lady"). With the screen lady's appearance, the layers of love are assuming their proper order, leading Dante and Beatrice to establish a love relationship after a nine-year delay.

This seating arrangement or sequence (Dante, the screen-lady, Beatrice, and the Madonna) helps to explain the erratic movement of Chapters 11 and 111, with all of their entrances, greetings, departures, and retreats. To use the language of the Convivio, before the church scene Dante the author has yet to establish his concrete foundation or subject, which is not merely love, but first the lowest form of love (the "simulato amore" or "simulacra," if—as Charles S. Singleton argues—Amore's statement in Chapter XII refers to the screen-ladies). The layers of love are as important as the layers of allegory, for a craftsman would find it impossible and irrational to begin with the higher love. His pattern of exposition resembles that of the allegorist, who cannot begin with the "sovrasenso." One must move from layer to layer, eventually recognizing that each layer (except the last), however enticing it looks initially, can in fact lead to the next. So Dante's early love for Beatrice in Chapter 11 is not only premature, but also impossible and irrational. He must begin at the beginning, so he requires the buffer of a "bella menzogna" to hide "una veritade"—that is, a screen-lady to conceal his love for Beatrice.

When Amore uses an enigmatic analogy taken from geometry, he endorses the idea of love as a circle to be penetrated: "'Ego tanquam centrum circuli, cui simili modo se habent circumferentie partes; tu autem non sic'" (XII, 4). If we recall the Convivio's explanation of allegory moving from the outside to the inside, where we find the "sovrasenso" (II.i.9), we recognize its correspondence to the pattern of the love experience in the Vita Nuova. Amore, the personified essence of love, is located in the center, and the women's different loves form concentric circles around him. Dante's journey will consist of moving from the outermost circle to the center. Before the appearance of the first screen lady, the craftsman behind the Vita Nuova shows us the consequences of moving too quickly to an inner circle of love without first passing through the outer circle. Dante the lover must proceed from the lower (outside) to the higher (inside) kinds of love, from a "simulato amore" to a real love—and ultimately to the real love, as Amore later yields to God. Before the layers fall into place in the church scene, all we find are Dante's and Beatrice's abrupt entrances and exits, "con molta fatica e con molto errore" ("with much toil and many errors").

Although Dante's line of vision in the church scene could potentially extend through two loves (the screenlady and Beatrice) and arrive at the highest love present (the Madonna), it does not. Filosofia and the spiritual Beatrice will later help him make this leap. In church, however, his vision stops with Beatrice, an earthly love whom he assumes to be the final truth. He is ironically trapped by the very weaknesses that the Convivio later attributes to his readers: a love of matters amatory and a reluctance to face "la sentenza vera" ("the true meaning," II.xii.8). Earthly love is, at this point, the highest love that he can acknowledge. As his journey momentarily returns to a series of erratic movements, Dante vacillates between two layers of love, simulated and true. One screen lady replaces another (IX-X), and Dante finds himself separated from Beatrice (IX) or shunned by her (IX). These forward and backward movements resemble those of an inexperienced writer or reader of allegory who, like this lover, lacks perspective. Just as a naive writer or reader might lack a clear vision of the "sovrasenso" to which all his efforts lead, so the lover in the Vita Nuova lacks an educator (Filosofia will arrive later) and a sincere commitment to the highest love.

In these early parts of the Vita Nuova, Dante briefly mentions—though he does not seem to understand—that Beatrice is linked to higher levels of reality, just as the allegorical sense is linked to the moral and anagogical. The famous canzone in Chapter XIX, "Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore," illustrates Dante's limited perspective. Beatrice, he tells us, is "quanto de ben pò far nature" (line 49), referring to the world of the senses in which the lovers live. But she is also "disiata in sommo cielo" (line 29); while this poem's other speakers (the angel, God, and Amore) all understand what this divine perspective implies, Dante the lover does not. They recognize that Beatrice will become a spiritual being. Dante lets them speak, but he continues to focus on Beatrice's physical appearance:

Color di perle ha quasi, in forma quale
convene a donna aver, non for misura.
(lines 47-48)

Even when he hints at her higher powers, Dante describes them in amatory terms that are deeply rooted in a physical being and not in a soul:

De li occhi suoi, come ch'ella li mova,
escono spirti d'amore inflammati,
che feron li occhi a qual che allor la guati,
e passan si che 'I cor ciascun retrova:
voi le vedete Amor pinto nel viso,
la 've non pote alcun mirarla fiso.
(lines 51-56)

Although the lover does not comprehend the spiritual significance of the eyes, a theme to be explored in the Convivio and Commedia, Beatrice is associated with heavenly beings throughout the Vita Nuova. While she is alive, however, Dante cannot understand the hints that her life has greater significance, for he is incapable of seeing beyond this earthly layer of love. He lacks an awareness of the corresponding levels of allegory, the moral and anagogical senses, even though outside sources remind him of Beatrice's connections with the spiritual world. Homer echoes through his mind: "'Ella non parea figliuola d'uomo mortale, ma di deo"' ("She appeared to be the daughter not of mortal man, but of God," II, 8; the verb here is very important, as we shall see when Filosofia enters Dante's life). Even people on the street notice: "'Questa non e femmina,"' they say, "'anzi e uno de li bellissimi angeli del cielo"' ("That is not a woman, but one those most beautiful angels of heaven," XXVI, 2). Once Dante faces Beatrice's mortality in Chapter XXIII, his vision begins to improve slightly, as Amore tries to lead him toward God. As in the church scene, Dante again sees Beatrice through the veil of another woman. Giovanna, Guido Cavalcanti's lover, approaches Dante, "E appresso lei, guardando, vidi venure la mirabile Beatrice. Queste donne andaro presso di me cosi l'una appresso l'altra" (XXIV, 3-4). Although Dante sees no significance in this episode or in the arrangement of the two ladies, Amore does:

Quella prima è nominate Primavera solo per questa venuta d'oggi; chè io mossi lo imponitore del nome a chiamarla cosi Primavera, cioè prima verrà lo die che Beatrice si mosterrà dopo la imaginazione del suo fedele. E se anche vogli considerare lo primo nome quo, tanto e quanto dire "prima verra," però che lo suo nome Giovanna e da quello Giovanni lo quale precedette la verace luce, dicendo: "Ego vox clamantis in deserto: parate viam Domini."

(XXIV, 4)

When we read Amore's typological analysis, we should remember that although John leads us to Christ, we must not stop there. For Christ states that He is in turn the means by which we arrive at a higher love: "Ego sum via, et veritas, et vita. Nemo venit ad Patrem, nisi per me" (John 14:6). After listening to Amore's analogy and etymologies, Dante decides to write a poem but to withhold material that might offend Cavalcanti. This reaction indicates that Dante has grasped little of Amore's lesson about symbolic relationships and layers of love.

When Dante learns of Beatrice's death in Chapter XXVIII, we might assume that his love for her would progress immediately to the spiritual layer. That it does not is less a sign of his ignorance than of his natural inability to skip levels. As we learn from the Convivio's explanation of the strict sequence of senses in allegorical discourse, the moral level must bridge the allegorical and the most difficult "sovrasenso." Dante shows us that he has the beginnings of knowledge, which will eventually lead to revelation, when he describes Beatrice's departure:

lo segnore de la giustizia chiamoe questa
gentilissima a gloriare sotto la insegna di
quella regina benedetta virgo Maria, lo cui
nome fue in grandissima reverenzia ne le
parole di questa Beatrice beata.
(XXVIII, 1)

We are immediately reminded of Mary's earlier roles in the Vita Nuova, both as a comforter of a distressed Dante (XII) and—more importantly—as "la regina de la gloria" ("the queen of glory") about whom he and Beatrice heard during the church scene (V, 1). When Dante gives further thought to Beatrice, he prematurely tries to interpret her existence in anagogical terms, as a sign of the highest things: "ella era uno nove, cioè uno miracolo, la cui radice, cioè del miracolo, e solamente la mirabile Trinitade" (XXIX, 3). The difficulty Dante experiences in trying to grasp this concept is revealed by the sentence's convolutions and repetitions, as he repeatedly pauses and attempts to explain his point ("cioè … cioè").

Even if Dante understood Beatrice's symbolic relationship to the Trinity, his vision is incapable of penetrating the deeper, divine layers of love. Just as he will require Matelda to act as a transition between Virgil and Beatrice in the Commedia, so he needs an intermediary in the Vita Nuova. Filosofia fills this role, providing further evidence that Dante the lover is about to explore deeper layers of love and the corresponding levels of allegory. His first vision of Filosofia is, significantly, indirect: "Allora vidi una gentile tonne giovane e belle molto, la quale da una finestra mi riguardava" ("Then I saw a young and very beautiful gentlewoman, who was looking at me from a window," XXXV, 2). By now, we have grown accustomed to seeing women only through someone or something, with Giovanna walking and the first screen-lady sitting between Dante and Beatrice. Also consistent is Dante's behavior, for he reacts as he did to Beatrice's greeting (III) and rejection (XII): "mi partio dinanzi da li occhi di questa gentile" (XXXV, 3). Although he turns away, he does connect Filosofia with Beatrice:

Avvenne poi che la ovunque questa donna
 [Filosofia]
mi vedea, si si facea d'una vista pietosa e
  d'un
colore palido quasi come d'amore; onde molte
  fiate
mi ricordava de la mia nobilissima donna
  [Beatrice],
che di simile colore si mostrava tuttavia.
(XXXVI, 1)

Later, in the Convivio, Dante revises this event and conveniently forgets the guilt and sorrow that accompany this new lady:

Per che io, scutendomi levare dal
pensiero del primo amore a la virtu di questo, quasi
maravigliandomi apersi la bocca nel parlare de
la proposta canzone ["Voi, che 'ntendendo il
terzo ciel movete"], mostrando la mia
   condizione
sotto figure d'altre cose.
(II.xii.8)

In the Vita Nuova, we initially hear nothing about Dante being raised from one love to the next; instead, we hear sighs, groans, and cries of self-condemnation (XXXVII). He resolves to love Filosofia in Chapter XXXVIII, a necessary action—though he does not realize it, as in the Commedia he does not comprehend Matelda's role—if he is ever to reach the immortal Beatrice. If we recall Dante's Homeric description of Beatrice in Chapter II ("'Ella non parea figliuola d'uomo mortale, ma di deo'" ('"She did not seem to be the daughter of a mortal man, but of God"'; italics added), a statement in the Convivio clearly indicates that Filosofia is a higher love. Dante describes her, without falling back on Homer, in these words: "questa donna fu figlia di Dio, regina di tutto, nobilissima e bellissima Filosofia" ("that lady was God's daughter, queen of everything, most noble and beautiful," II.xii.9; italics added). We know that Beatrice also descends from God, but in Dante's estimation after their first meeting, she merely seemed to have divine origins. Filosofia, on the other hand, does not at first sight seem to be God's daughter; she is indeed of heavenly origin, and she will lead Dante to an awareness that Beatrice shares her lineage.

Dante's new love is described as "savia" ("wise," XXXVIII, 1), a word that is never to my knowledge applied to Beatrice in the Vita Nuova. Hence we see Filosofia as a representative of the moral, instructive sense of allegory, which will lead Dante to the highest sense and highest love. For someone who has undergone a difficult education about the layers of love and allegory, Dante has remarkably little empathy with people who are also looking through veils to find the highest love. In Chapter XL, Dante watches many pilgrims pass by on their way to see "quella imagine benedetta la quale Iesu Cristo lascio a noi per essemplo de la sue bellisima figura". Again we see the use of layers, for the pilgrims cannot see the real Christ, so they turn to an image. Why, Dante wonders naively, are they not thinking about Beatrice and feeling grief for her loss? He fails to recognize that, like him, they must approach the highest love indirectly. Only through a veil may we approach the Son in this life; only through the Son may we reach the Father.

Dante's description of his thought or sign as "lo peregrino spirito" ("the pilgrim spirit") in the sonnet in Chapter XLI (line 8) is a small sign of his increased empathy with the pilgrims of the preceding chapter. They share the same journey, an ascent through various veils or layers toward a vision of heaven. The ending of the Vita Nuova is wide-open and filled with anticipation because, while we expect Dante to reach the highest love or an awareness of allegory's "sovrasenso," this "peregrino spirito" is not allowed a direct vision of God. And even the vision of the immortal Beatrice is, as we have come to expect, indirect: he sees her "per lo suo splendore" (line 7). Furthermore, when his spirit returns to convey its message from heaven, language becomes as inadequate as vision:

Vedela tal, che quando 'I mi ridice,
 io no lo intendo, si parla sottile
 al cor dolente, che lo fa parlare.
(lines 9-11)

Dante decides not to write about Beatrice until he can write more nobly. As Mark Musa argues [in Dante's "Vita Nuova"], the Vita Nuova presents "the glory of Beatrice, and the slowly-increasing ability of the lover to understand it—who must confess at the end, however, that he has not truly understood it." The supreme things, a clear awareness of divine love and the anagogical significance of life, evade him in the end, but the Paradiso's vision of Beatrice and the Trinity awaits him. It is significant, therefore, that the final vision of the Vita Nuova involves neither Dante nor screens, but rather the "benedetta Beatrice, la quale gloriosamente mira ne la faccia di colui qui est per omnia secula benedictus" (XLII, 3).

Harold Bloom considers current reader-responses to Beatrice:

The figure of Beatrice, in my own experience as a reader, is now the most difficult of all Dante's tropes, because sublimation no longer seems to be a human possibility. What is lost, perhaps permanently, is the tradition that moves between Dante and Yeats, in which sublimated desire for a woman can be regarded as an enlargement of existence. One respected feminist critic has gone so far as to call Beatrice a "dumb broad," since she supposedly contemplates the One without understanding Him … Dante, like tradition, thought that God's Wisdom, who daily played before His feet, was a woman.…

Beatrice is now so difficult to apprehend precisely because she participates both in the allegory of the poets and in the allegory of the philosophers. Her advent follows Dante's poetic maturation, or the vanishing of the precursor, Virgil. In the allegory of the poets, Beatrice is the Muse, whose function is to help the poet remember. Since remembering, in poetry, is the major mode of cognition, Beatrice is Dante's power of invention, the essence of his art.

Harold Bloom, "Introduction," Modern Critical Views: Dante, Chelsea House Publishers, 1986.