Dante's Conception of History

OF the great poets of the world Dante is far the most interested in the actual historical past of mankind.The very conception of history is unknown to Homer : the past is hidden apparently from his eye and certainly from ours by the golden mists of his imagination.Is there in either of the Homeric poems one single mention of or allusion to a certainly historic fact or person?Certainly I can mention none.This is, of course, no hostile criticism of the sovereign poet, as Dante calls Homer: his limitations belong to his age and his glory suffers no diminution.Virgil is deeply penetrated by a sense of history.Rome-her past, her greatness and her future-is the real subject of his poem.The historical judgments in the vision in the sixth book are full of interest : the siege in the second book has an actuality which is entirely absent from Homer's battles : the topography of the later books is of real historical value.But even in Virgil history is usually presented in symbol.The poet seems almost to fear that his poetry would evaporate if confronted with concrete facts.The Punic Wars are implicit in the story of Dido and Bneas, but we get no hint of Cannae or Trasimene.In English we have Shakespeare's historical plays, whose great merits it is not necessary here to analyse ; but I will venture to say that their value is not primarily historical.In saying so I do not allude to the mistakes of fact or omissions of important points in the Roman or the English plays.It is more important that the spirit of the past is not seized.The men of Rome and of mediaeval England are Elizabethan Englishmen.Nor does Shakespeare show any feeling for the relation between the present and the past which is the most important part of the historic sense, We know that Milton had thought much on history: there are fine historic touches especially in the Paradise Regained

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