The Figure of Beatrice: A Study in Dante, by Charles Williams

This is kind of a nerdy one. OK, not “kind of.” But it is totally worth it for fans of Charles Williams’ theology (the Way of Images, “in-Godding,” etc.) or readers of Dante. In fact, I believe that Williams’ big-picture insights can stand proudly next to Dorothy Sayers’ detailed commentary. Their work is complementary, each deepening understanding for the reader.

Williams observes that each structure of Dante’s universe serves a unique purpose in the redemption process. The Inferno is a place where individuals nearly become the sin that characterized their unrepentant life. Their fate is a perpetual, monotonous experience of the essence of their sin. For instance, flatterers wallow in excrement, because their flattering words were b.s. The unchangingness, for Williams, is important, because by remaining in sin, a sinner loses the Active life. This becomes more pronounced as Dante and Virgil descend. Purgatorio is a place for setting rights to wrongs. It is a place of activity and training, pursuing correction where flaws once dwelt, in the hopes of achieving greater righteousness. Paradisio is a place of right relationships—interpersonal and in relation to Love itself. Everyone is arranged within the rose of the heavens to fully experience Love though in different degrees and in different means. Yet still full. 

Beatrice herself is a “God-bearer,” as part of the Way of Affirmation. Her death is a mild way of Rejection, and her restoration is the culmination of Dante’s redemption and of the Way of Affirmation. Williams lays out her function in three different works, to emphasize her role of “being” salvation for Dante, in “This, too, is Thou; neither is this Thou.” Williams work on her as a character and the Ways is truly profound. A must read for any Dante scholar.