New York Times Book Review, Sunday 16 July, 1933
In Italy: Papini’s new book on Dante
‘To write properly about Dante’, in the opinion of Papini, ‘one should be a Catholic, a Florentine and an artist’. In short, one should be Signor Papini himself. As this option is not open to every one, he has concluded that it is up to him to write this book, and so he has written it. As regards quantity, there was indeed no lack in the past; as regards quality, we must reluctantly come to the conclusion that if we have not had a really adequate book about Dante so far, we shall have to do without it a little longer. Perhaps the real explanation is that Dante is too big for a single volume to be written about him.
Dante Vivo he calls his book- the living Dante, or, as we should say in English, Dante the man. No mean ambition. Has Signor Papini succeeded? Is it possible to dispel the myth of the stern, prophetic figure before whom the women in the streets of Verona drew back in awe, saying that he had been in hell? Is much to be gained by gathering together as in a little heap all the gossip of contemporaries and of immediate posterity, and adding to it all that can be gleaned from the poet’s own writings? To the fetishist all that he can learn about his idol is precious, no matter how irrelevant, just as he is happy to collect his relics; but does all this contribute to the appreciation and understanding of his works? Signor Papini seems to take a ghoulish pleasure in reminding us of all Dante’s spiritual shortcomings, so grave, indeed, as to awaken misgivings in his mind whether Dante is not even now in a place of punishment (a whole chapter is devoted to this weighty matter, ‘Where is he now?’); that he was a headstrong, lecherous, envious man, overproud, a coward, forever complaining; that he was guilty of sacrilege in almost deifying a mortal woman, almost a heretic in siding with the condemned Joachim of Flores, and that he may even be suspected of practicing the black art.
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But while all this would be of great importance to the courts of the Inquisition in judging him, it offers no esthetic interest whatsoever. If it were true that it is not ‘possible properly to understand the poem without being a Catholic’, that would indeed be the gravest possible accusation that could be brought against Dante as an artist; and if it were true that the work was intended to convert the world, then it must be regarded as a complete failure, for we very much doubt if there is a single case on record of its having operated to cause any religious or moral conversion. At this rate we must be free-thinkers to enjoy Faust, and liberals to enjoy Schiller, and libertines to enjoy Baudelaire; although no doubt Signor Papini would say that we should do better not to read these unorthodox authors. After having said this much, let us add that the book of Papini contains some very interesting chapters, and that the lovers of his truculent and Attila-like style will enjoy it no less than his previous ventures into the field of literary criticism.
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At the same time we turn with a feeling of relief to a more modest personality. Filippo Burzio is not in a hurry to gain a hearing. As long ago as 1921 he was presented to the literary world on that very conspicuous platform, La Ronda, a periodical which created so many of the present literary reputations of Italy. At that time Giuseppe Prezzolini, with his usual keen flair for hunting out new talents (for, while we cannot always agree with Signor Prezzolini’s opinions, or raise enthusiasm for his system, still it cannot be denied that he is especially quick in discovering new talents), wrote of him that he was the one real discovery of La Ronda, and a personality well worth watching. But Burzio did not take advantage of the opportunity afforded him for obtaining facile success; he went on teaching higher mathematics at Turin, and from 1923 to 1929 produced nothing at all with the exception of a few purely scientific essays. Such restraint, from a man who is anything but poor in ideas or halting in the means for expressing them, is remarkable in an age when most publicists seem to feel a craving for bursting into print at least once a year.
His latest book, Il demiurgo e la crisi occidentale The demiurge and the crisis of the occident), is published by Bompiani, the enterprising young Milanese publisher, all of whose output deserves the attention of the serious reader, and deals, like most of his previous writings, with the problem of the individual in his relations with society. Taking over the old Platonic vocable ‘demiourgos’ and fitting it out with a new meaning of his own invention, the exact connotations of which, it is not always easy to grasp, Burzio imagines a man who gives to Caesar what is Caesar’s without restricting the rights of the spirit.
Avoiding, in Hegelian synthesis, both the extremes of materialist activity (which he call ‘antagonism-agonism’, and then as though that were not hard enough, simply ‘aa’, which is, to say the least, uncouth in a book which lays claim to being a work of literature) and of ascetic spiritualism, he insists that the demiurge should develop his personality in all directions. The man of letters must be able to make his living by a secondary occupation: a thesis not altogether new, since it was known to and practised by the Jews as late as the days of Spinoza. And the man of affairs must not lose himself in them entirely, but should find the time and the means to develop his inner life. In the pursuit of these ideals, Burzio chooses Goethe as a model, not a very happy one, except to those, and they must be few, who do not find Goethe as a man singularly antipatico.
In his desire to achieve complete manhood, Burzio is led into some quaint aberrations. The demiurge will be both St Francis and Don Juan. ‘You may love Clare in purity, but you may also seduce her; indeed, you must do so in order to exhaust the possibilities’ (the italics are mine). The trouble is that the choice of possibilities is inexhaustible, and it is hard to tell whether these ambitious canons will lead us after such promising beginnings. We are told that we are to avoid all violent conflicts with society, ‘Socrates and Jesus Christ were not true demiurges. Socrates was an intellectual, rather a sophist than not [sic] and mediocrely constructive; and Jesus Christ was a God… If at times the demiurge goes against his own methods, and accepts opposition rather than synthesis, that will happen as an outburst of temperament […] through one of those instincts which caused the personage in Hamlet [we wonder which?] to exclaim: ‘There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio […]’.
In short, Socrates (and no doubt Christ if he had been a man and not a God) should have worked for the success of their doctrines by means of comparison, transactions, diplomatic concessions and Machiavellian tactics- a theory that is more or less accepted in politics, but that we have never before heard propounded so baldly as the criterion to be followed by spiritual leaders.
However, there are very few weak spots of a very important book indeed, which, if there are still readers not utterly imbecilized by the writings of Prentiss Mulford and Rudolf Steiner, should play a considerable part in the moral education of the generation which has the fortune and misfortune to be growing up today and will fairly soon be faced with the choice between nationalism or internationalism, progress or decay, philosophy or football.