Ozanam's Dante [pp. 790-795]

O.OZANAM'S DANTE.7
labors of the great Florentine. Italians, no doubt, have volumes
supplying their needs. Dr. Hettinger's recent work on the
Gottliche Komodie (not to mention others) will be welcome to the
readers of German, and Fr6dc6ric Ozanam's Dante, et la Philosopizie Catliolique an XIIIe Siecle must already have enlightened the
understandings of many who naturally turn to French sources
for able criticism and clear presentation of ideas.
In English Cary and Longfellow have given us excellent,
although not entirely faultless, translations of the Divine Comedy.
Of T. W. Parsons' fine version only a few cantos of the Purgatorio have been seen by the present writer. There are commentators, such as Foscolo and Gabriel Rossetti, who, however
learned and eloquent they may be, dishonor the poet by the fantastic and apocryphal interpretations they offer as his meaning.
There are others, as Carlyle, Lyell, Ruskin, Butler, Dean Church,
Canon Farrar, Maria Rossetti, Lowell, Norton, Harris, Miss
Bloxv, who (so far as their works are known to the writer) have
written reverently and appreciatively of Dante, but in a limited
fashion, and naturally from points of view which fail to command
the entire horizon swept by the poet-philosopher. No one
who could really place himself at the central point held by the
Florentine has yet attempted the task of aiding the English speaking people to comprehend the great Catholic poet. And
no other could provide English readers of Dante with the know ledge necessary to the comprehension of the inner as well as the
outer meaning of the poem, giving them not merely a meaning,
but thle meaning intended by the poet. Many gifts would be
needed to do the work properly, two rare ones in especial abundance of leisure and a receptive faculty akin to the creative
genius of the original author.
It was this same nobly imaginative, receptive faculty, with
wide learning, orthodox Catholicity, a pure and devout Christian
life, and a wonderfully attractive style, which so eminently fitted
Frederic Ozanam to be the interpreter of the great poet to young
France. A brilliant genius willing to set aside his own creative
gifts, and in all humility to devote himself to a sympathetic com prehension and exposition of the gifts and the work of another
man,.is a phenomenon too seldom encountered not to have left
behind it results worthy of the serious consideration of thinkers
of whatever nationality.
Miss ()'Meara's charming biography will doubtless have ren dered the name and life-work of the young professor of the Sor bonne familiar to most of our readers. A short analysis of the
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