The spirit of the epoch inclined to Allegory and Vision. When we remember the prestige of Virgil in the middle ages, both as a philosopher and also as the precursor of Christianity, it will be understood how his descent into Hades fascinated the imagination, and prepared the mind to accept the Vision as a proper form for conveying theological doctrine.[72] The Journey of S. Brandan, the Purgatory of S. Patrick, and the Visions of Tundalus and Alberic pretended to communicate information concerning the soul's state after death, the places of punishment, and the method of salvation. In course of time the Vision was used for political or ecclesiastical purposes by preachers who averred that they had seen the souls of eminent sinners in torment. It became an engine of terrorism, assumed satiric tone, and finally fell into the hands of didactic or merely fanciful poets.[73]
The chief preoccupation of the medieval mind was with the future destiny of man. This life came to be regarded as a preparation for eternity. Like a foreground, the actual world served to relieve the picture of the world beyond the grave. Therefore popular literature abounded in manuals of devotion and discipline, some of which set forth the history of the soul in allegorical form. Among other examples may be cited three stories of the spiritual life, corresponding to its three stages of Nature, Purification, and Restoration, conveyed under the titles of _Umano_, _Spoglia_, _Rinuova_. Many prelusions of this class were combined in one religious drama called _Commedia dell'Anima_, the substance of which is certainly old, though the form yields evidence of sixteenth-century _rifacimento_.[74]
The object of the foregoing paragraphs has been to show that the popular intellect was well prepared for religious poetry, and had appropriated the forms of Allegory and Vision. Not in order to depreciate the originality of Dante, but to prove in how vital a relation he stood toward his age, I have here insisted on those formless preludes to his work of art. In the Epistle to Can Grande he thus explains the theme of the _Commedia_: "The subject of the whole work, taken literally, is the state of souls after death, regarded as fact; for the action deals with this, and is about this. But if the work be taken allegorically, its subject is man, in so far as by merit or demerit in the exercise of free will he is exposed to the rewards or punishments of justice." Attending to the letter, we find in the _Commedia_ a vision of that life beyond the tomb, in relation to which alone our life on earth has value. It presents a picture of the everlasting destiny of souls, so firmly apprehended and vividly imagined by the medieval fancy. But since this picture has to set forth mysteries seen and heard by none, the revelation itself, like S. John's Apocalypse, is conveyed in symbols fashioned to adumbrate the truths perceived by faith. The same symbols portray another reality, not apprehended merely by faith, but brought home to the heart by experience. Attending to the allegory, we find in the _Commedia_ a history of the soul in this life--an ethical analysis of sin, purgation and salvation through grace. The poem is a narrative of Dante's journey through the region into which all pass after death; but at the same time it describes the hell and heaven and the transition through repentance from sin to grace, which are the actual conditions of the soul in this life. The _Inferno_ depicts unmitigated evil. The _Paradiso_ exhibits goodness, absolute and free from stain. In the one there is no relief, in the other no alloy; the one is darkness, the other light. The intermediate region of the _Purgatorio_ is a realm of expectation and conversion, where sin is no longer possible, but where the fruition of goodness is delayed by the necessity of purification. Here then are the natural alternations of day and night, the relative twilight of a world where all is yet transition rather than fulfillment. It may be observed that Purgatory belongs to the order of things which by their nature pass away; while Hell and Heaven are both eternal. Therefore the _Commedia_, considered as an apocalypse of the undying soul, reveals absolute damnation and absolute salvation, both states being destined to endure so long as God's justice and love exist; but it also reveals a state of purifying pain, which ceases when the men who need it have been numbered. Considered as an allegory of the spiritual life on earth, it describes the process of escape from eternal condemnation through grace into eternal happiness.