The Symbol of the Dante Award

...Obvi-ously, for instance, the conduct of mathematical in- quiry has had an incalculable effect upon the making of Europe...

...Eighth: On Dante's Doctrine of Relations Between Soul and Body, by L. Guiffr~, University of Palermo...

...Obscurity, indigence, isola- tion-these are walls over which no individual can climb and which will stifle even communities in their ominous shadow...

...The nine papers finally selected as most suitable were ranked by the jury as follows: First: Dante and His Vision of Life, by Katherine Br~gy, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...

...We set out to look for a paper having "literary merit" and "an interpretative rather than philological or re- search character," and we had to hew to our line...

...When a benefaction of this sort takes the form of a monument or a flag-pole, it is, of course, more easily seen...

...It alone can place the figure of the poet on such a pedestal as the average vision can take in familiarly, with an effort not too exhausting...

...Ninth: Dante's Guides, by Madame Sarah Brownson, Manhattanville, New York...

...This was understood very well by a long array of illustrious Americans, who went from the study and translation of the Divina Commedia toward as sympathetic and fulsome a com- merce with western civilization as their time and cir- cumstances would permit...

...In the first in- stance, the fact that so many pe*,..~ns are competently interested in him proves, the aloofr, ess of the majority notwithstanding, that the "forces of defense" we so earnestly need exist in some measure...

...Reverend M. I. Stritch, S.J., professor of philosophy, St...

...John S. Leahy has sponsored an unusu- ally significant work on behalf of the common welfare...

...Second: Dante, the Central Man of All the World, by Herbert H. Yeames, Hobart College...

...Joel E. Spingarn, editor and one of the deans of American criticism...

...But whatever may be the value of symbols like these, the fact remains that civilization today is largely the product of literature and scholarship...

...C. A. Dinsmore, lecturer in the Yale Divinity School...

...In some cases, writers established the authority with which they spoke by accompanying their manuscripts with published volumes on Dantean subjects...

...And yet such a summary is badly needed...

...Many papers submitted for the competition attempted pre- cisely this...

...We no longer really teach through carved images or figura-tive towers...

...But in due time the manuscripts, very like a deluge, made their descent...

...Much can be said for individuals, for intelligent units, scattered here and there...

...Henry Osborn Taylor, author of The Mediaeval Mind...

...But we have not yet sat down to talk to it competently, under the magnificent arches of our inheritance...

...Any lover of tradition, anyone con-vinced of the transcendent value of the western mind, has, regardless of his deep affection for native Ameri- can experience and mentality, no other recourse than to borrow from Europe the materials of defense...

...Many papers developed details of Dantean research, set forth theses involving history or interpre- tation, in a manner too erudite to satisfy the require- ments upon which the contest was based...

...But released from its place in the unity of civilization, this mathematical inquiry has led steadily to the formation of a philoso- phy which, through Spinoza and Kant, attempted noth- ing else than a "Copernican overthrow" of the Euro- pean mind...

...Dino Bigongiari (chairman) professor in the department of Romance languages, Columbia University...

...Sixth: Dante and the She-Wolf, by Alfonso de Salvio, Evanston, Illinois...

...On behalf of the jury let us say that perhaps no more notable group of men who combine scholarship with literary practice has ever been assembled in America for one purpose...

...and it was seen that though some few were expectantly holding out a more or less poorly disguised bait, we had reached several hundreds of genuine Dante readers...

...We even approach art through the me- dium of what we have read about it...

...Mind in the making" is a substance kneaded by literature, journal- ism, and research...

...It seems to us that the gener- osity of Mr...

...And if we ac- cept Dante as the most important of the three, adopt- ing now a frankly human point of view, we shall prob- ably be right, for the reason that his towering achieve- ment adds poetry to the symbolism of the cathedral and to an ably, if not completely, digested philosophy...

...Though these facts are obvious to anybody who opens his eyes, it remains true that precisely those who should "defend the occident" in this country seem indifferent to them...

...A more detailed statement of the data accumulated during the contest may prove interesting...

...In the second place, Dante is after all merely a sample of the riches--doctrinal, thoughtful, cultural--accumu-lated by Christian Europe...

...Their business is not so much to oppose one or the other force which has attacked western culture from the outside--Bud- dhistic mystical cults or imperialistic absorption in tech- nical progress, for example--as to fortify it against dissolution from within...

...The donor of the Dante Prize Award joined with the editors of The Commonweal in believing that many Americans are actively interested in Dante, and that this existing though not organized community of inter- est ought to be welded together and welded by some public effort...

...The labor involved in dealing with them, of organizing that inevitable sifting process which must antedate the award of a prize, can by no means be termed the burden of half a day...

...Dante happens to be a dual proof of why those walls must come down...

...and many similar examples might be introduced...

...Perhaps one should say that no unanimity of opinion prevailed...

...Nevertheless, the real value of the contest lies to a great extent in the manuscripts we were forced to rule out...

...Fifth: Beatrice and Dante, by Roderick Marshall, Leonia, New Jersey...

...The jury was composed of the following: Dr...

...Third: Dante's Divine Comedy and Its Appeal to the Modern Age, by Albert R. Bandini, Stockton, Cali- fornia...

...The mere fact that Dantean literature is a kind of storehouse into which all the materials (even some dark and not easily malleable materials) of the west- ern world have gone, is what makes a brief, pertinent summary of it so difficult...

...It is as impossible to avoid Dante if one talks of the "western mind" as it would be to miss the Himalayas in northern India...

...It was really a most absorbing collection of manu- scripts...

...To their readiness to accept an exacting duty and their discernment, the progress of our effort is deeply indebted...

...We need as much of it as we can get and assimilate...

...Thus an element which had gone into the making of occidental culture threatened the dissolu- tion of that culture...

...Whatever the name of the defender--Chesterton, Barr~s, Massis, Theodor Haecker--his concern is always with the preservation of a certain form that is constantly threatened by the derangement of the materials which have been so deli- cately and patiently organized by that form...

...and there existed the fear that it would merely encourage pro- fessional "literary competers" to thumb a few manuals on the subject in the hope of arriving at glory and gain...

...Is not another, more subtle form of recognition in- volved in the matter...

...It was the business of the jury to decide which of these succeeded best, which method of ap-574 THE CO M i proach had led to the most fruitful results...

...These indicate to what dimensions scholarly in- vestigation of Dante's work has grown during recent years, and they establish a point which need not be lost sight of--that the Divine Comedy cannot be gulped down like ginger beer or absorbed as one drinks in sea air, but that it is something one adds to one's spiritual stature through an exercise as difficult in its own way as the struggle of a weakling for athletic strength...

...The approval of a group of men so distinguished individ- ually certainly ought to mean general public endorse- ment and recognition...

...About three hundred manuscripts were received, only a few of which ran beyond the number of words allowed...

...The authors hailed from all parts of the world--England, Ireland, France, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, and some thia'ty states of the Union being represented...

...There were authors who had gained a foothold among reputable scholars...

...March 3 ~ , I927 THE COMMONWEAL 573 THE SYMBOL OF THE DANTE AWARD By GEORGE N. SHUSTER I T IS, perhaps, the most striking intellectual char- acteristic of our age that so many "defenders of the occident" have appeared...

...and it alone can enkindle that enthusiasm which may carry uninitiated readers over the barriers in the way...

...Significantly enough, the defenders are for the most part Catholics--and converts...

...No one knew, of course, whether the offer of a prize would have the desired effect...

...Isolated though it be and perhaps relatively small, the Dante Prize Award is therefore a salutary exam- ple of what must be done on a far larger scale if thought upholding the long career of western men is to be developed effectively...

...To it we owe the vast architectural and mechanical syntheses which even now are termed "won- ders" of the world, as well as habits of thought so soundly established that they are unconscious no less than representative of the race...

...Charles Hall Grandgent, chairman of the Romance department, Harvard University...

...Reverend T. Lawrason Riggs, chaplain of the Catholic Club, Yale University...

...Louis University...

...To all, I suppose, three syntheses stand out as most expressive of the wholly unparalleled unification of Eu- ropean life--as the greatest exemplars of what must be defended: the cathedral of Chartres, the philosophy of Saint Thomas, the poetry of Dante...

...He is the mountain scenery of thir- teen crowded, formative centuries...

...James J. Walsh, president of MONWEAL March 3 o, t9z7 the Dante League of America, and noted lecturer...

...Nevertheless, it brought its own refreshment--contact with work seri- ously done ; with minds who were not merely toying with a "chance...

...but the drift of American letters and schol- arship can be estimated pretty fairly if one merely observes the impact of accumulated modernisms upon the churches...

...Reverend Thomas M. Schwertner, O.P., Dominican editor and scholar...

...At least half a dozen papers found enthusiastic recognition on the part of some one arbiter...

...there were young people who combined a fresh vigor with a culture that speaks well for their alma maters...

...Could we properly acclaim a treatment of the influence of Sta- tius upon the Divine Comedy, or a summary of argu- ments designed to show that Dante's astronomy was more modern than has usually been assumed...

...Seventh: Dante and the Twentieth Century, by Monsignor John T. Slattery, Albany, New York...

...Fourth: For the Better Understanding of Dante, by Reverend Francis Lucidi, Catholic University of America...

...This fact should come home pleas- antly to those whose efforts seem, inevitably, to have met with no acceptance...

...John H. Finley, editor of the New York Times...

...Our age, despite its ear-marks of frivolity and indolence, is perhaps at heart more earnest than the era preceding it was...

...That these should be encouraged, no matter how many more im- mediately urgent needs may seem to stand in the way, needs emphasis rather than formal demonstration...

...Yet there are many who, without coming to the conclusion that the reli- gion of the Popes is verily the matrix in which the life of the West was formed, agree with Paul Val6ry that "Christianity proposes the subtlest, the most impor-tant, and even the most fertile problems to the mind...