Howells on Dante

1895

Again I say it is a great pity that criticism is not honest about the masterpieces of literature and does not confess that they are not every moment masterly; that they are often dull and tough and dry, as is certainly the case with Dante's, writes William Dean Howells in The Ladies' Home Journal.

Some day perhaps we shall have this way of stating literature, and the lover of it will not feel obliged to cheat himself into the belief that if he is not always enjoying himself it is his own fault. At any rate, I will permit myself the luxury of frankly saying that while I had a deep sense of the majesty and grandeur of Dante's design many points of its execution bored me, and that the intermixture of small local facts and neighborhood history in the fabric of his lofty creation is no part of its noblest effect.

What is marvelous in it is its expression of Dante's personality, and I can never think that his personalities enhance its greatness as a work of art. I enjoyed them, however, and I enjoyed them the more as the innumerable perspectives of Italian history began to open all about me. Then indeed I understood the origins if I did not understand the aims of Dante.