Time, telos and mysticism in the 'Divina Commedia

This study examines Dante's fictional representation of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in the light of that character's obscure allusion to sleep and the flight of time at Paradiso 32.139, a verse which has yet to be given a satisfactory interpretation. A detailed analysis of medieval ideas on prophecy, visions, mysticism, sleep, and the body, and of the relevance of these ideas to the Divina Commedia, paves the way for the proposal that the "sleep" in question is the protagonist's final vision of God (Par. 33.140-45), anticipated by Bernard as a participation in the "sleep of glory" of the blessed and as the imminent mystic telos or "end" of the time allocated by divine providence to the journey-vision. It is then argued that, with this anticipation of the end, Dante exploits specific features of the historical Bernard's reputation and writings---above all his authority on the theme of time's flight and his manner of bringing a sermon to an end with a reference to the pressure of time---in order to bring teleological closure, in the attainment of the mystic goal, to both the theme of time and the text of the poem. The scope of the study broadens greatly, however, as a result of the necessarily detailed treatment of the relevant issues, to the extent that significant new light is shed on a number of other matters of interest to scholars. Most notably, it is shown that the poem explicitly presents itself as the record of a prophetic "vision" in which divine truth was revealed, not in a dream or a waking vision, but in an actual journey in body and soul, and that the protagonist's slumber in the Earthly Paradise (Purg. 32.64-84) figures the mystic union of the soul and Christ, the supreme goal of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Christian mysticism. It emerges that both time and mysticism are functions of the Christian teleology or eschatology on which the poet's prophetic vision rests, and that the structure of ultimate ends which underlies the Divina Commedia is more comprehensive than the "duo ultima" scheme of the Monarchia.