Commentary Par XXXI 79-81

For the figural equation, Beatrice as Dante's 'Christ,' see Hollander (Holl.1969.1), p. 261.  After calling attention to the poet's last words to Virgil in the poem ([Purg XXX 51]), 'Virgilio a cui per mia salute die'mi' (Virgil, to whom I gave myself for my salvation), he then continues as follows, discussing this tercet: 'At Dante's beginnings we do well to have in mind his endings, and vice versa.  It is Beatrice, the figure of Christ, who brings Dante to salvation; it is Virgil who brings Dante to Beatrice.  Dante does not (and did not in the Vita nuova) use the word salute lightly.  His last words to Virgil give him the highest function anyone less than Christ can perform, and that is to bring another to Christ.'  In this vein, see Scott (Scot.1973.1), p. 570.  See also Iannucci (Iann.1995.2), p. 483 (citing his earlier article [Iann.1979.1]), who also notes Beatrice's Christlike attributes in this passage (as, once again, does Scott [Scot.2002.1], p. 486).  This has become more or less the standard interpretation of those considered by some in Italy to be part of a so-called scuola americana, 'the American school' (of Dante studies).  And see Pasquini (Pasq.2001.1), p. 254, remarking on the 'near-heterodoxy' of these verses.

To be honest, this reading seems so obvious that one feels apologetic for harping on it.  However, to understand what blinders Dantists accustomed themselves to wearing whenever they came near the border of so 'blasphemous' a theologized poetic for the poem, see the allegorizing glosses of such as Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to this tercet).  In his reading (and he is far from being alone in it), Beatrice becomes 'theology' who comes down to this 'hell on earth' (our world, not Limbo) in order to bring her message to all mortals (including, we assume, Dante Alighieri).  This is so flagrantly wrongheaded that one has to admire Benvenuto at least for his stubbornness in not yielding to a Christological interpretation of Beatrice nor to a personal one of Dante, who, in his treatment, is only a stand-in for all humankind.  This, one of the most personal moments of the Commedia, is thus turned into a kind of simple-minded version of an uplifting moral tale, one only implausibly attributed to the genius of Dante.  Reviewing responses to this passage in the DDP, one finds the word 'Christ' only in Singleton's commentary (DDP Singleton.Par.XXXI.91) of 1975.  How did (or does) anyone read this passage and not think of Christ's descent into Hell and His subsequent harrowing of the Hebrew saints?  However, not even Giacalone, the first commentator who presents himself as a follower of the figural interpretation sponsored first by Auerbach (cited by him in 56 glosses) and then by Singleton (cited in 25), responds as one might have expected he would to this provocation.  It is surely more shocking that Singleton, who only mentions Auerbach once in his commentary, not even on that occasion (his gloss to [Purg XII 40-42]) refers to Auerbach's discussions of Dante's figural technique (something Singleton never did in any of his publications; see Hollander [Holl.2001.1], p. 38).  Talk about Harold Bloom's 'anxiety of influence'!