The Theme in the Work
In Paradise, language is the subject as much as the medium. The poem opens by saying that what was seen cannot be told, because the intellect, as it draws near what it desires, sinks so deep that memory cannot keep up with it, and it begins to invent what language does not have. In the first canto Dante coins the verb transhumanize to name the change of being, and declares it impossible to say in words:
Trasumanar significar per verba / non si poria; però l’essemplo basti / a cui esperïenza grazia serba.To signify what "transhumanize" means, to pass beyond one's own humanity, cannot be done in words, and only one who has lived the experience understands the example. The incapacity to say is not a stylistic flaw, it is the subject.
In the second, the warning to the reader divides those who stay on the shore from those who follow in the boat:
O voi che siete in piccioletta barca, / desiderosi d’ascoltar, seguiti / dietro al mio legno che cantando varca, / tornate a riveder li vostri liti: / non vi mettete in pelago, ché forse, / perdendo me, rimarreste smarriti.Whoever follows in a small boat should return to the shore they already know, because the deep sea that opens from here on is another level of difficulty.
In the ninth, the poet creates verbs from the pronoun to express the difference between one who sees another's desire in God and one who still needs to ask:
perché non satisface a’ miei disii? / Già non attendere’ io tua dimanda, / s’io m’intuassi, come tu t’inmii, why does it not satisfy my desires? I would not wait for your request if I intuated myself, as you inmii yourself; that is, if I entered into you as you enter into me.
In the eighteenth, the souls stop speaking and become an alphabet: they sing as they fly and form D, I, L, and then a whole sentence, and writing is born from song and flight before it becomes words.
sì dentro ai lumi sante creature / volitando cantavano, e faciensi / or D, or I, or L in sue figure., thus, within the lights, holy creatures, flying, sang, and made themselves now D, now I, now L, in their figures.
In the nineteenth, the Eagle speaks with an I made of we, and grammar is the sign of justice:
ch’io vidi e anche udi’ parlar lo rostro, / e sonar ne la voce e «io» e «mio», / quand’ era nel concetto e ‘noi’ e ‘nostro’., for I saw and heard the beak speak, and sound in its voice "I" and "mine," when in its thought it was "we" and "ours."
In XXIII and XXIV, the poem confesses that it must leap, and the pen leaps:
e così, figurando il paradiso, / convien saltar lo sacrato poema, / come chi trova suo cammin riciso., and so, figuring Paradise, the sacred poem must leap, like one who finds his path cut off.
Però salta la penna e non lo scrivo: / ché l’imagine nostra a cotai pieghe, / non che ’l parlare, è troppo color vivo., therefore the pen leaps and I do not write it: for our imagination, not just speech, is too vivid a color for such folds.
In XXVI, Adam teaches that language is custom and that the name of God changed, from I to El, like a leaf that goes and another that comes:
Pria ch’i’ scendessi a l’infernale ambascia, / I s’appellava in terra il sommo bene / onde vien la letizia che mi fascia; / e El si chiamò poi: e ciò convene, / ché l’uso d’i mortali è come fronda / in ramo, che sen va e altra vene, before I descended to the infernal anguish, I was called on earth the supreme good from which comes the joy that wraps me; and El was called afterward: and this is fitting, because the custom of mortals is like the leaf on the branch, which goes and another comes.
In XXX, the poet gives up following Beatrice's beauty in verse, like every artist at the limit of art. And in XXXIII, the close: memory yields, what remains is emotion, and the poet asks for a spark of glory to leave to future people.
Da quinci innanzi il mio veder fu maggio / che ’l parlar mostra, ch’a tal vista cede, / e cede la memoria a tanto oltraggio. / Qual è colüi che sognando vede, / che dopo ’l sogno la passione impressa / rimane, e l’altro a la mente non riede, from here on my seeing was greater than speech can show, which yields to such a sight, and memory yields to so great an excess. Like one who sees in a dream, and after the dream the emotion impressed on him remains, while the rest does not return to the mind.
The language of Paradise does not fail by chance. It is built to fail in distinct ways, and each failure teaches something: the new verb shows the limit of vocabulary, the pen that leaps shows the limit of imagination, and the memory that yields shows the limit of sight. What remains to the poet is emotion, and it is that which the reader receives.
Who Embodies It
Dante is the poet who invents verbs, leaps, and asks for a spark. Adam is the first speaker, who says what language was. The eagle of justice is the voice that sounds I and thinks we. Beatrice is the one whom the poet gives up singing.
Where It Appears
- Canto I: The poet invokes Apollo and coins the verb transhumanize, declared impossible in words.
- Canto II: The poet warns the reader of the little boat that the water he takes was never sailed and is guided by Minerva, Apollo and the Muses.
- Canto IX: Dante creates the verbs intuarsi and inmiarsi to ask Folquet to understand him as he understands another's desire.
- Canto X: The poet tells the reader to stay on the bench, chewing over what he has tasted, if he wants to be glad before he is tired.
- Canto XVIII: The souls of Jupiter write in flight the letters D, I, L and the sentence that commands loving justice.
- Canto XIX: The Eagle speaks with I and my where the thought was we and ours, and answers that its song is like the eternal judgment for mortals.
- Canto XXIII: The poet confesses that the sacred poem must leap, like one who finds the path cut off.
- Canto XXIV: The pen leaps over Peter's examination, because imagination is too vivid a color for such folds.
- Canto XXVI: Adam says that his language was extinct before Nimrod and that the name of God changed from I to El.
- Canto XXX: The poet declares that his pursuit gives up Beatrice's beauty, as every artist does at his limit.
- Canto XXXIII: The poet says that the seeing was greater than the telling, and asks the highest light for a spark of glory for future people.
Where the Readings Diverge
Beatrice has a voice in Paradise, and the theme of language includes what is said and to whom a voice is given.
The text supports two readings of the poet's insistence on the limit of saying. In the first, it is sincere modesty of one who faces a matter that human language cannot reach. In the second, it is the rhetoric of one who knows that a confessed limit convinces more than description, and prepares the reader for the final vision in which beauty no longer fits in verse. Both hold, and the poem uses both: the pen that leaps and the verb that is invented.