Tolkien and Dante

Did Tolkien Really Call Dante "Petty"?
Ink and Fantasy | 9 Aug. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vDP_2OGlH0

I don't know in what way you think Dante was important for Catholicism.

He was important for expressing it in Italian as to eschatology, but thousands of priests were already doing so.

"Among the many celebrated geniuses of whom the Catholic faith can boast who have left undying fruits in literature and art especially, besides other fields of learning, and to whom civilization and religion are ever in debt, highest stands the name of Dante Alighieri, the sixth centenary of whose death will soon be recorded. Never perhaps has his supreme position been recognized as it is today. Not only Italy, justly proud of having given him birth, but all the civil nations are preparing with special committees of learned men to celebrate his memory that the whole world may pay honour to that noble figure, pride and glory of humanity."

I think "religion" here means "piety" rather than Catholicism as such. I cited In Praeclara Summorum, by the way. It's more to the point when discussing Dante, than when Dimond brothers use it about Geocentrism, quotemining one specific sentence in the concessive subjunctive.

I also think that the Latin superlatives translated as "highest" and "supreme" should be translated as "very high" ... it's mainly civilisation that's in debt, Christian civilisation in Italy.

And I venture to say that while the praise of the Divine Comedy and arguably also Italian of Dante are honest, they are also partly tactical, since Anticlericals were saying on the one hand that not appreciating Dante would be barbaric, and on the other hand, they were celebrating him for things like "De Monarchia" which was anti-Papal, a precursor, with Marsilius, of the infamous Kulturkampf a few decades previously endured by German faithful Catholics.

Tolkien obviously didn't care for being at odds with a Papal encyclical. Probably, his own feeling about Dante was a mixture of enjoyment and of the irritation he had here expressed.

5:05 Dante's Divine Comedy, as far as I can tell, is not religious allegory, but religious science fiction ("theology fiction" or "eschatology fiction" if you like). Same genre as "Pearl" which no doubt both inspired The Great Divorce and pleased Tolkien more than Dante, as per lack of pettiness.

To specify, if Dante disliked someone for political or personal reasons, he probably placed that someone in Hell or Purgatory (if he had died). It's as if Tolkien had named Shagrath and Ugluk some recogniseable English known person's name.

In fact, that's not just Dante. Michelangelo placed someone in Hell, that someone complained to the Pope who answered "there is no absolution from Hell" ....

ἀστροπελέκι

@Astropeleki

Dante also placed someone in Hell before he had passed away, because he had betrayed his guests and had them killed.

The soul of that specific damned explains that if someone commits such a heinous sin, their soul descends into hell before they're even dead.

ἀστροπελέκι

Oh wait, it's literally mentioned in the video, hahaha

Well, I guess it was worth mentioning the context of this specific "petty" representation.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

@Astropeleki It might have been a way to warn the guy, like in Michelangelo's case.

5:29 No, in the afterlife, people do NOT go from Hell to Purgatory.

As such a journey does not exist, Dante's work cannot be an allegory of that.

Also, while everyone in Purgatory goes to Heaven, they go from one specific place in Purgatory to one specific place in Heaven.

Again, what Dante writes is not an allegory for what in Catholic theology doesn't even occur.*

M1santhropist

@m1santhropist410

I've always thought while studying the Commedia that the term "allegory" must have reached a more prominent spot than it deserves, when applied to Dante's work. Granted, there is a whole level of textual interpretation that is founded on allegory, as the style demanded for its period, but I do not think it goes so deep to touch the more religious and theological tones of the work.

In this regard I think the way of symbolism would be the better one to try and understand the Commedia, and funny enough it reminds me a lot of what Tolkien himself did with his legendarium in general and with Lord of the rings in particular, representing the history of salvation through the lenses of a fictional story but at the same time deploying symbols that are 100% canonical and orthodox in his religious tradition.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@m1santhropist410 Can only agree.

However, given the screen name, may I recommend you take a look where misanthropists risk spending eternity in Hell or considerable time in Purgatory.

Mister Kitty And Friends

@misterkittyandfriends1441

The divine comedy is the journey of a man (or man in general) looking for a way to avoid hell, wherein he can be guided away from evil and vice through reason (as Virgil, up to a point) and later on to perfection via faith and love. Part of how one can reason away from hell is by noticing the effect of sin upon the human person.

It is absolutely compatible with Catholic theology - Dante is not dead in hell, he's essentially a visitor being given special permission by a surprising person.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@misterkittyandfriends1441 Yes, exactly.

It's a journey in the afterlife that is against Catholic theology and that Dante is not making an allegory of.

M1santhropist

@hglundahl name's insignificant. Doesn't reflect my views. But thanks for your interest in my salvation. I do not live my faith in fear of hell or Purgatory though, that's not how I was raised. Everyone is exactly where God wants, and He knows exactly where we are going to be. I live to serve the beauty of His craft, not my personal interest in being saved.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@m1santhropist410 Oh, maybe you should take a hint from Dante, but glad your name doesn't reflect your views .... I was actually more concerned with attitudes.

Everything that happens, either God directly wills, or allows. Sometimes taking a giant step back to allow.

* Usually. The Comedy in fact describes a kind of sight-seeing of other people's fates, which could occur as an exception.