Page 16 - GALIET EXILE: Dante IV+

Galiet & Galiet
ecclesiastically corrupt, alien, estranged and theologically and ideologically torn, feels forever alienated from Beatrice, from Florence’s political and filial life, and from God’s divine light.
In its breadth, it is a journey through poetry’s invisible ladder where ‘dead poetry shall rise again’ and where the otherness of the other, Dante the poet and Dante the pilgrim must reconcile themselves as one through the experience of exile and homecoming. They must grow in strength and faith as the journey progresses from the path of exile’s dark hours in Inferno to the daylight expiation of sins in Purgatorio, to the eternal sunshine of divine love in Paradiso. Dante the poet must also shift from sweet new style poetics to divine poesy. Where Dante the pilgrim shall measure his words in Inferno, Dante the Poet shall unleash them in Paradiso in their exquisite and sublime form, a crescendo. Thus, in language and in being, Dante the pilgrim will attain Divine Grace in ‘la bondad infinita,’ represented by Beatrice, St. Lucia and the Virgin Mary. These are some of the infinite possibilities hidden in Dante’s identity waiting to be restored and realized. It is this poignant yet blessed and virtuous exile5 that transforms Dante as he casts characters that mirror aspects of his own exile.
The Looking Glass. In the mirror of exile, Dante sees an anti- world from which he seeks protection against a carnival of evil forces. Paradoxically, the exilic mirror, flaw and faith at once, becomes the deciphering amulet by which Dante’s finds his way in the labyrinth. His flaw has been pride. Yet, the mirror seems also to reflect the Hebrew inscription “I am that I am,” God’s self- revelation in Exodus 3:14, which reveals his essence but conceals his name. Thus, Dante must also reveal his essence while
5 Dante in Inferno 2, 8 claims that he finds good in Hell and the confusions that assail him. He also claims to share the good
company, during his exile, of the three ladies of justice. Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy I. Inferno. Trans. Robin Kirkpatrick. New York: Penguin Classics, 2006.
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