Friday, December 08, 2017

Bernard's familiar voice

(An interpolation - I do intend to get back to the question of parabasis in Paradiso 30)

As noted previously, the final cantos of the Paradiso come to life through the voice of Bernard of Clairvaux. I've not read more than a smidgen of Bernard's works, but this was a man who richly lived - a man on fire. Many of his works are readings of sacred texts, including The Song of Songs, which Bernard explored in 86 chapters.

I will just point to two aspects of Bernard's writing: First, it's a strong common style, accessible to anyone; second, when he reads, he quotes -- not just from the text in question, but from the Bible and other texts --  so liberally that one soon believes he must have had photographic memory.

To read the Song of Songs is to move through a wide range of subjects and styles, from great intimacy to worldly grandeur, the entire gamut seemingly in play at the same time. Anyone curious to see how Bernard reads such a poem might choose a chapter of his text at random. I happened upon Chapter 31, "The Various Ways of Seeing God." Reading it in conjunction with Paradiso 30-31 offers a rich set of accords; Bernard is wrestling with the same general problem of how to represent how one of human limitations can see God, and is thinking through some of the same modes of apprehension that Dante pilgrim experiences in the language of Dante poet. Try it out - read Paradiso 30, then Bernard's chap. 31, and see if you're not reminded of Dante's poetics.

Bernard is clearly a thoughtful reader. See what he does with the first lines of the Song, in chapter 1.
Tell us, I beg you, by whom, about whom and to whom it is said: “Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth.'' How shall I explain so abrupt a beginning, this sudden irruption as from a speech in mid-course?  
The interpretive strategy bears upon the understanding of "mouth" and a full meditation on what mouths do - they speak, and in this case, the speaking is not just of words, but of the Word. Bernard is thinking through a complex intercourse of flesh, spirit, and the power of language. He should know, as his mouth launched the Second Crusade, the one that both summoned Cacciaguida and ended his life.

The connection between Dante and Bernard thus is personal, as well as stylistic and interpretive. One can perhaps even see a shadowy preface of Dante's bold treatment of the pontiffs in Bernard's startling familiarity with the living Pope in his De Consideratione:


Bernard is one of those writers whose voice leaps off the page with vivacity, as indeed it will in Paradiso 33. To Dante, this contemplative of the Word was, in life and in writing, a stylist to emulate.

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