ABSTRACT
Dante combines the ancient insights into the power of love in their classical and Christian forms with the new myth of romance. The result is a philosophical, religious, political, prophetic love poem where love of a particular woman, love of wisdom, love of justice, love of the language, in general, and poetry, in particular, conspire to demonstrate love of God and God's love. Dante is the penultimate type to emerge from within Christendom. From Thomas Aquinas, Dante had learnt that love's power of animation is threefold: natural, sensory and rational. The huge gap between Augustine's Civitas Dei and the church visible of Dante's time is almost the first thing that strikes any reader of the Comedy. To understand God's word means that the imagination must grasp the rich array of resemblances which are as common to words as things, and which point to the creative fecundity of the divine.
