ABSTRACT
La poesia di Dante tends to establish contradictory or, rather, counterbalancing symmetrical structures, such as the odd asymmetrical canticle of different cantos, which creates a new symmetry by bringing the total number of cantos to one hundred. In the Comedy Dante uses Bertran de Born and Sordello as exempla of the uses to which a poet can put his poetry in the service of the state. Sordello’s position depends entirely on the importance Dante attaches to political unity and peace as the basis, the sine qua non, of mankind’s temporal wellbeing. In some ways, however, Dante reverses the real-life situation. Sordello, who wrote a biting and savage poem, is reincarnated as an emblem of unity; whereas Bertran, whose poems in fact had little political impact, becomes an emblem of schism. If Dante has different political poets, they must perforce have more than gossip value; they must illustrate more than the fate that each found on dying.
