The Nun’s Priest’s Tale is given by a holy and intelligent priest. He has listened carefully to the other tales and now responds to them. He possesses an excellent and kindly wit. He uses a barnyard tale with animals as his characters to make his many points. The rooster in the barnyard is very sure of himself, overly sure. He has a dream that frightens him. His favorite hen tells him to ignore it. A fox shows up, compliments the rooster, and as he is stretching his neck to crow, the fox grabs him. The farmers follow in hot pursuit. The rooster tells the fox to call off the farmers, and when he opens his mouth to speak the rooster escapes. He kept his wits, and lives. He is now a humble rooster. The Pardoner’s Tale begins talks openly about himself: his only interests are self and money. He preaches on the sin of love of money, his own very sin. He convinces everyone of their own guilt to give him money, but ignores his own guilt. He is clever, intelligent, and pure evil. His story is of three men who seek to root out death, only to find death.
Dr. White’s introduction to this series sweeps a broad brush across a palette of major Catholic authors and poets, focusing on the three he considers the true “giants”: Shakespeare, Cervantes, and of course, Dante. White laments that few –– even scholars –– have read Dante; and that much of our Catholic literary heritage has been jettisoned. To White, Dante is the central poetic image for the Middle Ages, and the Inferno his personal vision –– one man’s journey; and something that must be read.
In this commentary, Dr. White expands his discussion of literature to include “art” in its broadest sense: painting, architecture, music, chant, drama, etc. In his view, all art is an extension of the glories of the Catholic faith, and he explains how the Church is a source of art in all its forms. White tells us art can draw souls to God and that literature does not only educate but can also delight us. He reminds us that literature provides for an interior life and that art feeds the soul.
Here Dr. White instructs the listener on how to approach literature. He advises a reader of Dante to first gain some background knowledge about the poet, who was born in 1265 and died in 1321, making him a true mediaeval writer. The significance of this, according to White, is that modern man sees a scientific universe, while mediaeval man saw God’s order; and Dante even defined hell as an ordered place. The Divine Comedy, according to Dr. White, takes the reader on a spiritual journey.
In this commentary, Dr. White describes Dante’s problems in writing The Purgatorio since he wrote it in the order in which it was to be read. And it was problematic because Dante had no literary framework –– no imagery of purgatory, so to speak, to draw on –– as he had of hell when he wrote The Inferno. Punctuated with inspired readings, White describes how Dante the pilgrim joins other pilgrim souls as they journey up the “mountain” of purgatory –– a place, unlike hell, of motion and movement.
Dr. White continues his discussion of The Purgatorio with a description of the role art and music play in Dante’s vision of purgatory. And though purgatory is, according to White, filled with song, the depictions of art that Dante explores as he travels through purgatory are instructive rather than entertaining. And unlike the loveless Inferno, souls in purgatory are taught the nature of love. Which brings Dante to a meeting with the lovely Beatrice –– the moment he had hoped for and the climax of the poem.
