The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-02-14
Mr.. BELLoWs's COURSE.
The lecturers Talk on Dante and His
Circle.

The severe storm of yesterday after
noon did not prevent the gathering OF an
audience that quite filed the main room
of the Advent church to listen to Mr..
Bellows's talk upon Dante, Petrarch, Boo
caceio and the minor poets of Dante's
circle.
The speaker, at the outset, disclaimed
any intention Of giving ''lecture" about
Dante, that task should only be under
taken by those students who have pro-
foundry studied the great Italian poet,
and have, perhaps, given lifetime to his
Interpretation. He only offered few
notes on the mighty theme, and sought
to communicate somethin' of his en-
thusiasm for the vastnes, nd the holi-
ness of thSsinger of the line Comedy.
In the beginning, Mr.. Bell sketched the
main outlines of thought and activity in
the 18th century, which were the love of
Greek and Latin letters, as evinced by
the work of Petrarch and Boccaccio; the
fresh Towering of art in Giotto, where
las Mr.. Browning shows in "Old Pictures
in Florence a part of which was read)
the old classic perfection made way for
the more seemingly incomplete but real
ly higher and nobler ideal Of the modern
artist, and the strange development of
scholasticism, which so eolored Dante's
poem. George Eliot's @Romola' pre-
SCENTS, in the picture of the old scholar
Bardi, the love of letters, as Browning's
Bishop orders his tomb at St. Praxeds'
represents the strange mixture Of
sensuality and splendor and delight in
elegant Latin Of the Renaissance.
Petrarch was sentimentalist, like
Rousseau and Stern but as human
ist'' he did good service to the cause of
literature, and in later time he inspired
Surrey and Wyatt in England to give
elegance and form to their poetry. One
of his sonnets was read. Doccaccio has
lightness and elegance, and, as Sismondi
says, perfect purity of language, which
is needed to offset the impurity of his
stories. Perhaps his greatest interest to
us is in the inspiration that he supplied
to CHANGER who, using his story of
''patient Griseldis, = wrote the immortal
CLERKS Tale from which beautiful
passage was given.
Upon the subject of the moral purpose
of literary or artistic work, and the just
now popular canon of 'art for arts
sake" the speaker had something to say,
quoting with approval a judgment of
Sidney Lanier to the effect that the true
artist must first see that moral beauty
and aesthetic beauty are one, or his work
will not be great work.
A number of poems by poets of Dante's
circle, or perhaps little before him, were
read-the translation being the most ex-
quisite rendering of Dante Gabriel Ros-
setti The same translator's version of
the "Vita Nuova' also afforded some
extracts giving a picture Of Dante's love
for Beatrice and his NEW BIRTH through
the love.
Our view of the Divine Comedy is apt
to be one-sided; we have been too deeply
impressed by the horrors of the Inferno,
and have failed to see how under them
all is the justice of God-not his anger
which is here vindicated, while in the
Purgatorio there is divine tenderness,
passion of absorption in the plan and
purpose of God, Tin whose will is our
peace that quite removes the poem
from the realm of mere vindictiveness or
cruelty, The awful pictures or the sand
desert or the frozen lake or the burning
cauldrons are awful because they repre-
sent man S ability to deny the law of good,
and to persist in evil The description of
Francesca and her lover, whirling about
in the whirling mist, is one of the great
passages of all poetry-remarkable as is
SO much of Dante's verse, for its few
strokes that suggest SO much more than
they tell. The passage describing the
arrival of the Celes ial pilot and Dante's
meeting with his old friend Casella in
Purgatory was read as showing the
tenderness and the celestial sweetness
of ''the poet saturnine'' while in conclu-
sion few lines were given portraying the
Rose of heaven, in whose centre sits
Beatrice who has lured the soul of her
lover all the way from the place of tor
ment, through the remorse and penitence
for sin, into the peace of heaven.