Dante “Imagining” His Journey Through the Afterlife

V isio or fictio? The debate over whether Dante’s Comedy is a visio or a fictio has continued for more than a century and a half, with the vast majority of scholars arguing in favour of the fictio thesis. The contrast between the literary genres of the “vision” and the “otherworldly journey” offers more or less the same alternative. This subject is discussed in an influential essay by Cesare Segre, who argues that the Comedy begins as a vision, but continues as a realistic, extremely detailed, and purely literary narrative of a physical journey.1 It is, however, an explicit, unambiguous fact that Dante himself presents his poem as a vision. One need only recall the words of Cacciaguida in Paradiso 17—“tutta tua vision fa manifesta . . .” (Par. 17.128)—or the words of St. Bernard at the end of Paradiso 32. After explaining the placement of the angels and the saints who occupy the various benches of the White Rose of the Empyrean, Bernard tells Dante that he must now cut short their talk—the clock is ticking and he has to hurry if he wants to be in time to see God: