To show the perfection of art, and the depth of purpose which was carried even into the minor details of the inner structure of the three worlds, would be a science in itself. This was recognized shortly after the poet’s death by his nation, in their appointing a distinct Lectureship upon Dante, which was first filled by Boccaccio.
But not only do the several incidents in each of the three parts of the Poem allow the universal character of the first form to shine through them, but the law thereof expresses itself yet more definitely in the inner and spiritual rhythm, by which they are contradistinguished from each other. The Inferno, as it is the most fearful in its objects, is likewise the strongest in expression, the severest in diction, and in its very words dark and awful. In one portion of the Purgatorio deep silence reigns, for the lamentations of the lower world grow mute: upon its summits, the forecourts of Heaven, all becomes Color: the Paradiso is the true music of the spheres.
The variety and difference of the punishments in the Inferno are conceived with almost unexampled invention. Between the crime and the punishment there is never any other than a poetic relation. Dante’s spirit is not daunted by what is terrible; nay, he goes to its extreme limits. But it could be shown in every case, that he never ceases to be sublime and in consequence truly beautiful. For that which men, who are not capable of comprehending the whole, have sometimes pointed out as low, is not so in their sense of the term, but is a necessary element of the mixed nature of the Poem, on account of which Dante himself called it a Comedy. The hatred of evil, the scorn of a godlike spirit, which are expressed in Dante’s fearful composition, are not the inheritance of common souls. It is indeed very doubtful still, though quite generally believed, whether his banishment from Florence, after he had previously dedicated his Poetry to Love, first spurred on his spirit, naturally inclined to whatever was earnest and extraordinary, to the highest Invention, in which he breathed forth the whole of his life, of the destiny of his heart and of his country, together with his indignation thereat. But the vengeance which he takes in the Inferno, he takes in the name of the Day of Judgment, as the elected Judge with prophetic power, not from personal hate, but with a pious soul roused by the abominations of the times, and a love of his native land long dead in others, as he has himself represented in a passage in the Paradiso where he says
“If e’er it happen that the Poem sacred
To which both Earth and Heaven have lent their hand,
Till it hath made me meagre many a year,
Conquer the cruelty that shuts me out
Of the fair sheep-fold, where a lamb I slumbered,
An enemy to the wolves that war upon it,
With other voice forthwith, with other fleece