DANTE’S SWEET SYMPHONY: STRUCTURE AND ORDER
My Dante materials and notes, in some kind of order, if not shape. Here’s where I show the working out of the answer, and gain extra marks (as my old physics teacher told).
I’m trying to establish a critical-practical moral method (numbers, music, rational freedom) before embarking on the familiar linear reading of The Comedy. I don’t want to produce yet another scholarly guide through The Comedy. There are many and they are excellent. I am seeking to define an overarching goal, a central theme, and a lot subsidiary themes. Peace, Justice, and Love. Harmony as attunement. Identifying the ways of peace and harmony. I have split music and numbers, but make essentially the same argument in each section. I shall see if there is a way of joining them. Parallelograms. The goal is political and spiritual harmony.
My thinking is to establish the foundations first, introducing the abstract truths (music, numbers, the metaphysics of rational freedom) as detached from the story, defining the method and the direction. Then the Comedic journey, the story and its telling and living as pilgrim journey, Dante’s poetic realism, by which Dante goes from abstract (#1) and method (#2) to myth and the elaboration of a journey from the Inferno to the Paradiso. Here I show the different facets of that journey: the personal and the political, attunement as process. I proceed from the self-creation of the privation and perversion of harmony (Inferno as anti-music, a diabolic inversion, linked to alienation and mechanised petrification. I move to reconnection and integration, emphasising will and agency (Purgatorio). Then harmony as destination and teleology (the Paradiso). The task before me now is to organize this book between method, creativity and creation. Something like that.
"The politics of harmony" would insinuate a process (politics) and a hope (harmony).
I have many more materials to add. In the Cambridge compendium to Dante, Dante is described as "the unfinished author." I’d say he was writing an unfinishable book, that’s how it feels like trying to write on it in any case.
But we are not on a destinationless voyage. I’m glad that people like Joel Kovel saw the impossibilities of living on such a voyage.
A Music and Numbers
1. Introduction: Why study Dante Today? [introductory essay introducing the themes The unfinished author - Why this book has been written – use this chapter to introduce the themes and how they unfold in each chapter
Rational Freedom Reasons to study Dante – Rational Freedom [introductory, although this is a substantial presentation of Rational Freedom. I need to locate RF properly. It really belongs in the Politics and Ethics section. Maybe introduce ‘rational freedom’ with Dante’s public intention
Dante in the age of ecology – need for collaboration [this demonstrates the contemporary relevance of ‘rational freedom.’ As such, it is a side-theme that belongs within a chapter on the political implications of rational freedom.
Dante’s public intention - a moral and instructive purpose [this establishes Dante’s political concern, a concern to communicate a message and change the world for the better – this could go in one single chapter on Dante and Politics, on the Empire, Authority, and Political Peace.]
2. The Metaphysics of Music [substantial material on the musical model and on the inner music of The Comedy. It may be best to go straight to the musical model and the notion of right order and right ordering, and then get into Rational Freedom, Politics, and Ethics.
The musical structure of the Comedy
3. Numbers Number-Crunchers in Paris – the virtues of numbers [I should really treat the numbers as a branch of the music. This section gets very complicated and boring, and isn’t that essential, as much as there is a numerology at the heart of Dante’s Comedy. The strength of the argument is the musical model as it relates to politics and ethics and human practice.
B Politics and Ethics
4. Rational Freedom [all the material on Rational Freedom should come here]
5. Dante, politics and the city
Dante and politics The Way of Politics
Citizen Dante [Dante’s political and democratizing intent should come here
Exile brings objectivity The Poet in Exile - Dante and Florence [political division and the need for political peace]
6. Political Peace
The Empire and the Church – the institutions of peace
Dante’s essential concept of human nature, government, and public life [Dante’s philosophical anthropology – rationality and sociality [metaphysical and philosophical foundations of Rational Freedom]
7. Ethics Definition of Nobility [this is Virtue Ethics
Injustice and Avarice [this is a species and application of Virtue Ethics]
C The Comedy – Inferno
8. Inferno – the broken connection to God and others
The architectonics of the poem – structure and subject
The Inferno as the inverted parody of true music
Dante’s mission is our journey - the right path
Losing Touch with others: The Broken Community
Losing Touch with God: Love Rejected and Betrayed
Limbo
Dante the Taxonomist of Moral Order [this is Ethics – and involves a presentation of Virtue Ethics
D The Comedy – Purgatorio
9. Purgatorio – the process of recovery and reconnection
Purgatorio: Musical Liturgy as Phamakon
Conversion: Recovering the path to one’s true self, recovering connection
process of rebuilding = active obedience to the Law The Path to Mutuality
The three components of musica humana - soothing, worshipping, and educative/training/teaching
Purg – the arrangement of the sins – love is the seed of every virtue and every vice – the ordering and direction of love – the distinction between natural and rational love Recovering the Vision of God
E The Comedy - Paradiso
10. Paradiso – coming home
The challenge of the Paradiso
The Freedom to Come Home to Oneself - Coming Home to Others in a Shared Story - Coming Home to God: The end that has no ending
The opening to Paradiso - Polyphony as Political Harmony
The poetry of spiritual gravitation - Trasumanar - Paradise as a realm beyond the normal senses
The opening to Paradiso weaves the political, ethical, and theological components of the poem - Piccarda Charles Martel
Justice
The Creation
Eternal Love and Light - the spiritual centre of the universe – the end of Paradise
The Trinity
heartleap - love as the unifying force
11. Epilogue and conclusions
Poetry as real
Real fiction and poetic creation [this could form a conclusion here to The Comedy, or go with the essays. If I reduce the Numbers chapter into the Music chapter, then I could have a nice round, perfect, and divine 10 chapters. Dante would be most pleased.
F Dante and Rational Freedom
Dante's Comedy—Letter and Spirit
1. Rational Freedom, right relations, inversion, and alienation - Dante and Marx Reason, Culture and Transcendent Truths
2. Freedom Rationalized - Dante and Max Weber
Idolatry and Fetishism - The disenchantment and despiritualization of the world
3. The Danteum - frozen music as immobility of the Inferno
4. Creation and creativity
God – two concepts – fact and value
Creator God or Natural Creativity? A poetics of chaos and harmony [need to add materials from Boyde and Moevs on Dante’s metaphysics – a metaphysics of creation
against reinventing the sacred - philosophical reason refutes itself
5. Unity and Diversity
unity in diversity – the politics of the common good
6.
Dante and his commentators [Wilde, Becket, Mandelstam – try to work these into a theme
7. The Politics of Love and Justice
A politics of Love and Justice combining the One and the Many
Individuals associate together, forming communities that build up to the one commonwealth [Rational Freedom, to be developed in relation to the Convivio and the Comedy
Functional order - a humanly scaled society
8. Political Peace as Planetary Accord
1 Introduction
Why Study Dante Today?
Introduction – the right order of things – restoring hope and connection
RATIONAL FREEDOM
Reasons to Study Dante
Dante in the age of ecology – need for collaboration
2 Popular art and political intention
Dante the educator, the man with a moral and instructive purpose
Dante’s public intention
THE METAPHYSICS OF MUSIC
((Music measures the relation to God))
((Objective reality and objective morality))
((The well-tempered harmony
((The influence of music in soulcare
((Commercial Music and Soul Music))
((familiarity and vision – beyond realism))
((Philosophical and religious influences))
5 The Music of the Spheres
Political Order and Harmony (needs to be placed)
THE CHINESE BRONZE BELL
((the dancer and the dance – getting in tune))
Dante’s poetry as physics
unfreezing Dante – Dante as conductor of music
the musical model as tempering well
The Early Years
DANTE AND MUSIC
((Dante’s love of music))
1 Music to Dante’s Ears: Exposure to Polyphony [polyphony
Introduction
[music woven into the fabric of the Comedy [polyphony
((The musical structure of the Comedy))
Dante and Guido Cavalcanti
[poem intended to be sung – music and number [rewritten notes
DANTE AND NUMBERS
[Harmony and proportion as closely related to beauty
((numbers – ratio and proportion))
((numbers - the Pythagorean tradition))
((numbers – numerological thinking))
((numbers – Wertheim against Platonism))
((numbers – Dante beyond numerology – innate love))
Political Disaster
[Dante enters politics
[exile brings objectivity
Language and Poetry
[music and poetry
Dante’s influences
[reconciling the various ethical and intellectual currents
Dante, politics and the city
[the ideal city state as the ideal human habitat – the universal as a constellation of well-formed city-states
[city and politics – reconciling the universal and self interest
Invitation to a Banquet
[establishing the philosophical foundations through a discussion of the early works
The empire and the church
[principles of government – reconciling order and liberty
[convivio – unity of knowledge over democracy of opinion – the need to cultivate reason
[universal government – principles – social animal – companionship
[the need for world government to deal with collective problems and achieve unity
Dante and the Empire – redemption from within
Political Peace
[introduction on Dante’s political philosophy
*[Dante’s contemporary relevance – Dante addresses problems of politics and the city, religion and theology, and ways of living [Peace Romanes
*[war and its resolution - Dante identified the remedy for the division and disorder of his time in the principle of universal peace and in its institutional embodiment
[Dante’s affirmation of a transcendent hope and standard - world peace under the imperial authority
[Dante’s essential concept of human nature, government, and public life – the proper end for human beings as social and rational beings
[the political peace of the universal ruler established and maintained by law
[peace not as absence of war but as a positive force for justice
The True Definition of Nobility
[virtue ethics and moral philosophy, supplying the modes of conduct and communities of character to give the politics of virtue substance
[the restoration of good society
[greed for money and possessions and the constraint of law
[sound minds – concern with character]
Injustice and Avarice
[convivio justice, goodness and love – injustice and avarice – blinded to infinity
The Comedy
[the architectonics of the poem
[the three souls – reason above all
[the scheme of the poem
The inner music of the Comedy
[a moral architectonics possessing an inherently a musical structure
[the architecture of the Comedy - triple rhyme
[the naturalistic and humanistic realities of the story that reveal the transcendental substance – Dante’s poetic achievement] [real fiction
Justice
[justice as the purpose of the Comedy] [justice – introduce, but develop at length later
[the restoration of earth to Eden - the restoration of innocence after penance
The Story Begins
[The Comedy – the structure – rhyme as beautiful linkage – inner music
Inferno’s Unholy Racket
[music’s distortion, inversion, and perversion in the Inferno
[Comedy – the hound that will destroy greed (the wolf) - law]
[Dante’s mission is our journey - the right path – (Rousseau and civic society) ]
[midway through life – our journey – the right road
[Limbo – philosophy without God
Dante and Averroes
((The Inferno – the world of anti-music))
[a world of disorder and disharmony, chaos and cacophony
[Inferno as the inverted parody of true music
Dante in Danger
[enclosure of Hell – the unmusic of Hell]
[Inferno - Florence and politics [politics – put above with ‘Hell is incoherence, discord, disunity, and disorder’
Dante the Taxonomist of Moral Order
[the moral infrastructure – vices and virtues – virtue ethics
[The Law of retaliation – Dante and eternal retribution – Dante the champion of vengeance
[sin – violence – nature and industry – avarice
[Ulysses’ act of arrogance – pressing knowledge and power beyond limits
[Inferno – war and discord
[towering giants – pride
[Inferno – the frozen lake – petrification
[Dante’s exquisite poetry of love, healing, and communion beyond political contention and retribution
[putting the human world under human jurisdiction – learning to do better
PURGATORY
[Purg is a creative forgetting beyond infernal notions of revenge, retribution and punishment
[poetry comes back to life - the renewal of life
[Purgatory - the system of purgation
Purgatorio: Musical Liturgy as Pharmakon
[Purgatorio – process of rebuilding = active obedience to the Law
[fellowship in penitence [Purgatory as a place of re-connection, solidarity, and movement
[three categories of musical material 1) deceptive 2) healing 3) angels
[The three components of musica humana - soothing, worshipping, and educative/training/teaching
((Casella’s song))
[singing in Purgatory performs the function of spiritual purification
[impact of music on mental and physical health – medicine for the soul and spiritual discipline
[Healing Songs: Music as Pharmakon
[Purg – In exitu - liberation of the Israelites from captivity in Egypt – liberation from a state of sin
[sharing in the highest good - Dante’s vision of a common humanity
((The limits of words))
[Dante establishes words and money as alternative currencies connecting people and places in different ways
[The idea of words functioning as guides
[Purg – overcoming sinful innate tendencies - The redemptive doctrine of Purgatory
[Purgatorio - the ascent requires both human effort and divine support - the levitational "God-ward" pull [free will and moral choice
[Purgatory - free will – the cause of decline – cultivation of virtue – a free necessity]
[the need for law and the supreme good [the politico-institutional architectonics supporting the moral infrastructure of free choice and personal responsibility
[nature and nurture – the human appetite requires education - permanence and power – restraint of law, guidance by ethical models
[empire and papacy
Close of Day and a New Dawn
[purg – peccatum, sin - need for guidance and instruction
[purg – song – salve regina
((hymns))
Love, Natural and Rational
[Love – natural and rational - the natural propensity which inheres in all created things – Conv [this relates back to the moral anthropology established earlier through the Convivio. The problem is one of structure. A short book would group the materials thematically and cover them one by one – ethics, nature, politics, relations
[Purg – the arrangement of the sins – love is the seed of every virtue and every vice – the ordering and direction of love – the distinction between natural and rational love
[purgation as a regaining of the right order of being - proper direction
The Christian Sibyl
[Beatrice
[the Earthly Paradise – justice and the human potential – last cantos of Purg
[theological virtues – the Griffin – liberation from the three beasts
[church and empire - God's plan of justice – the Gryphon]
[Beatitudes and the Songs of the Earthly Paradise
[Purg 30 - the penitential struggle is over – time for joy – the harmony of the polyphonous landscape
PARADISE
((the challenge of the Paradiso))
((possibility of vision transcending senses))
Paradiso: The Attuning of the Sky
[the musical model comprising musical metaphors
[words and music move us into the silence
[the idea of a heavenly harmony setting a template for harmony on Earth
[Music the tightrope between the physical plane and the metaphysical plane
[The interimbrication of myriad references to polyphonic performance throughout the Paradiso constitute a complex musico-moral architectonic
[the opening to Paradiso - Polyphony as Political Harmony - The two summits of Parnassus symbolize divine wisdom and human knowledge and the need for both
Beatrice in Heaven
[Par – the poetry of spiritual gravitation
[the end of natural law – dangers of transgression [forbidden knowledge
Trasumanar
[Paradise as a realm beyond the normal senses
[trans-humanizing experience is beyond language, intellect, and imagination – the failure of words
((The sweet symphony of Paradise))
Piccarda
[voluntary submission is peace - Piccarda
[equality and hierarchy – diversity and unity
[Par – Piccarda – all souls share beatitude to the extent of which each are capable
Charles Martel
[The opening to Paradiso weaves the political, ethical, and theological components of the poem and of life together
[harmonic unity through plurality and polyphony
[Boethian view of diverse voices joining together in harmonic unity - the idea harmony as political allegory
[the musical model reconciles seemingly irreconcilable elements in justice – dance of the theologians – the double merry-go-round of rainbows – the two garlands
Propaganda in Paradiso
[Dante’s Roman apologetics
[Justinian - the harmony that reigns among the different levels of beatitude - different voices rendering sweet harmony
Justice Unfathomed
[Politics and ideal justice – law and justice - Love Justice Ye Who Judge the Earth
Faith, Hope and Love
[faith, hope and love
The Creation
[creation of the universe
[poetic transcriptions of contemplative truth - God’s glory manifests itself in the Empyrean [forgotten truth
((Song and dance))
[polyphonic setting give a complexity but the texts are expressed in simple words - switch from words to music
[Nietzsche and Schopenhauer – music more penetrating than poetry
[heavenly polyphony as a sweet symphony of unity out of diversity
[Dante’s clock of singing souls is a perfect symbol of the notion of well-tempered order
[renders the mystery of the Trinity polyphonically, as a unity in diversity – the double garland
((The music that is beyond rational comprehension))
[the insufficiency of language, intellect, and imagination to predicate infinity requires has resort to musical metaphors
((Beyond the limits of speech))
[the vision that transcends an earth-bound sense-experience and the need to circumvent the limitations of language
[theology and music - the power to inspire hope – the wish to come home after the long, hard years of exile
[theological examination at the hands of St Peter, St James, and St John
Eternal Love and Light
((Conclusion – the musical journey))
[Music measures the distance to which we are estranged from or close to God.
[from the cacophony to sweet harmony
[the fluid vision of Eternal Light in Heaven
[punto – the point that overwhelms Par 12 and 30
((the end of the poem – into the light – the failure of geometry))
[trinity – unity of reason and faith
The Departure of Beatrice
[departure of Beatrice – unity in diversity
[Paradise – difficulties of approaching transcendence – making the intangible vision tangible
[Primum Mobile – model and copy – from time to eternity – intellectual light and love
[the divine glory that is reflected back through the universe – the return to origins
((the spiritual centre of the universe – the end of Paradise))
[Blinded by the light in the ninth heaven, Dante comes to see that God is the true author of the cosmos
[Primum Mobile - Love is the spiritual centre of the universe
[The crown and climax of the Comedy is Dante's vision of the Trinity.
[will and desire were turned by the circular motion of divine love
The Vision of the Trinity
[purpose – to bring people to the state of happiness - Trinity
[Trinity the climax - mystical vision – transcendence – the divine light – squaring the circle [I seem to have a lot this above, this needs to be properly ordered
PARADISE AND LOVE
((heartleap - love as the unifying force))
[the heartbeat of the supreme union that brings diverse voices together to reconcile differences and resolve divisions
[Dante’s achievement is to have integrated the two conceptions of God, the God of physical creation and the God of Love and personal relationships.
[real knowledge is a recollection of truths once known but lost and yet still held unconsciously
[reconciliation of the paradoxes and perplexities of our perspectivism lay in the realisation that the greatest profundity is simplicity: 'simplicitas Dei',
((conclusion on love as the answer))
Epilogue
[power of Dante as poet
Poetry as real – the power of Dante’s poetry
[the poem as work of art – Dante as storyteller – the power of words
SACRED POEM – THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL
((a sacred poem beyond fiction – real and rational))
((sacred poem – the real over the fictional))
[the purpose of Dante’s musical poetry is to turn the reader
[poetic fiction and imagination and reality
((the impossibilities of Paradise))
((the impossibilities of Paradiso – Wilde vs Beckett))
((the impossibilities of Paradise – Dante’s invention))
[a realistic fiction that is grounded in facts
[impossibilities are not just philosophic and scientific, they are scriptural and theological
[I wonder if I could bring Mandelstam in here, on a theme of turning and transcendence
Conclusions [use these conclusions by way of introduction to the musical structure of The Comedy
[the innate music of the Comedy – the structural relevance of musical references
[Dante’s journey through cacophonic, monophonic, and polyphonic landscapes possesses an inherently musico-moral structure
THE DANTEUM
((Danteum – Medievalism, the Hierarchical order and Fascism))
[idea of a functional order arranged in accordance with social purpose
[structure of medieval society, authority, hierarchy
[Dante as the culmination and transcendence of the Middle Ages – the maker of the modern world
[order and hierarchy – against frozen music – Dante as subversive with respect to medieval hierarchy and elitism]
((The Danteum))
[unity and commonality in building the social architecture of the perfect society
[Roman Empire as an ethical agency bringing unity and order on earth
[Paradise is a vertiginous height
[the moral infrastructure
((The Danteum – the petrification of Paradise))
((frozen music as immobility of the Inferno – Paradise as music, light and love – critique of the Danteum))
[Dante as the equivalent of Bach’s universalism [conversation
[Dante – the poetic equivalence of Bach – put with Bach above [conversation
[against Dante as ‘frozen music’ – against the tuneless noise of sculpture and architecture as mechanized form without content [conversation
GOD
((two concepts of God))
[God as the source of all physical motion in the universe and God as the source of love
((putting fact and value together))
[from agnosticism with respect to the good to indifference - rights are grounded in nothing but self-assertion
[forgiveness, judgement, power - Scepticism and relativism invite fundamentalism and judgment [forgotten truth
[the figure of Belacqua - a monument to scepticism between good and evil [forgotten truth
[impossibilities of living in the sceptical condition of Beckett’s world – you cannot live in indefinite postponement
[Turning involves the transformative power of Love.
[two concepts of God – fact and value - scientific knowledge has become the dominant conception of reason and rationality – morality relegated to irreducible value judgements
[disenchantment and despiritualization
Creator God or Natural Creativity?
[morality in an objectively valueless world
Forbidden Knowledge
[Dante’s search for knowledge beyond ordinary human knowing – experience
[full knowledge of things – the modern gnosis
[Dante the transgressor in daring to know what one ought not know – the modern age as an age of transgression
((the secret – against reinventing the sacred))
[the sacred beyond human invention
[beyond self-choice in a world emptied of meaning and value
[ultimate values beyond choice and invention
[philosophical reason refutes itself
[acting on our invented symbols – the ‘as if’ approach
[every living things needs a shrouding vapour
((fulfilment of the soul’s desire – eccentricity beyond control))
((to be in control, to be in charge))
UNITY AND DIVERSITY
((Shelley – unity and diversity))
[intertwining of the real and the rational
[The divine glory is revealed in the unity through diversity
((unity in diversity – the politics of the common good))
[a politics of Love and Justice combining the One and the Many
[individuals associate together, forming communities that build up to the one commonwealth
[the state or public community as the supreme community of all communities
[Light reveals communion as the purpose of the journey.
((functional order))
[a humanly scaled society in which the self-organising properties of social exchange, interaction and solidarity, buttressed by communities of practices and clusters of co-operators
[ordering principle - all souls are equal to each other because they are all equal to the one thing that is above them and which unites them
[diverse ranks coming to render sweet harmony
((functional order – the just society and love divine))
[the freedom of each is coexistent with and conditional upon the freedom of all
[Dante’s vision of a mediated society arranged in accordance with purpose and devoted to a common end
[the contemporary relevance of Dante’s political treatise, De monarchia
((Personal and collective responsibility))
[The character of the socio-institutional fabric is therefore a crucial part of achieving responsibility and adjusting patterns of behaviour to moral, social and ecological realities.
[Dante knew that human beings were social and political beings designed to live in a polis or city-state, a public community in relation to others
((Dante and Marx))
((Rational Freedom, Right Relationships, alienation and idolatry))
[qualifying rational freedom by way of natural law
[Dante’s sins as capitalist imperatives
((Reason, Culture and Transcendent Truths))
[bedrock metaphysical apparatus and commitment over against self-creation
((Culture, Power, and Truth))
FREEDOM RATIONALIZED
((Dante and Max Weber))
IDOLATRY FETISHISM
[rational freedom - Reason, right relationships, alienation and idolatry
[Dante against the ethical anthropocentrism of self-legislating reason
[God as the unifying transcendent principle capable of holding human self-legislators together
[the experiment of the directionless and destinationless voyage and the Love that seeketh not its own
[Personal and collective responsibility - the rational reconstruction of the socio-institutional matrix within which individuals relate together and act
[the praxis of domination – sin as structural oppression
Osip Mandelstam
CLIMATE ACCORD
((fire and ice – Dante’s Inferno and Max Weber’s ‘iron cage’ of capitalist modernity))
((Dante in the disenchanted world))
((Dante and Climate Accord))
HAPPY ENDING
((the human comedy – existential crisis))
((conclusion))
((happy ending – choices we make))
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