T. K. Seung - The Fragile Leaves of The Sibyl: Dante's Master Plan (1962)

The Fragile Leaves of The Sibyl: Dante's Master Plan (1962)

Seung’s first book, The Fragile Leaves of the Sibyl: Dante’s Master Plan, is a highly original reading of Dante’s Divine Comedy, which is crucial for understanding Seung’s development as a philosopher. He articulates and illustrates his method of interpretation in his trilogy on hermeneutics, Cultural Thematics: The Formation of the Faustian Ethos (1976), Structuralism and Hermeneutics (1982), and Semiotics and Thematic in Hermeneutics (1982). These three volumes contain Seung’s contribution to the revitalization of literary and philosophical hermeneutics and constitute the methodological groundwork for his study of Kant, Plato, Nietzsche, Spinoza, Goethe, Wagner, and normative political theory.

The Fragile Leaves of the Sibyl grew out of a term paper Seung wrote during the first year of his graduate studies at Yale University. The subject is the most central issue in Dante Studies: the thematic unity of the Commedia, which many Dante scholars still regard as either unsolved or unsolvable. For centuries, Dante readers have pondered about the relation between Dante’s construction of the three realms of the afterworld (Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise) and Dante’s journey through those three realms. It is not easy to say what Dante’s main concern is – to describe a journey through the afterworld or to unfold a vision of the universal order? At least, obviously, journey and order are two interdependent themes in Dante’s poem. The account of the journey presupposes a cosmic order, and the order can be understood only through the account of a cosmic journey.

In The Fragile Leaves, Seung says, we know that the Commedia has three parts (Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso), but we do not know how these three parts constitute one poem. We learn that the three parts describe three worlds, but we do not see how the three worlds are unified into one cosmos. We find many themes and scenes in Dante’s narrative, but we do not understand how those themes and scenes are woven into the central plot of Dante’s text. In an article, “The Metaphysics of the Commedia” published twenty five years after The Fragile Leaves of the Sibyl, Seung restates his approach to Commedia as the problem of unity and division in Dante’s vision: “What is the principle of unity that holds together the nine circles of Hell, the seven terraces of Purgatory, and the ten spheres of Paradise,” and “What is the principle that divides Hell into nine circles, Purgatory into seven circles, and Paradise into ten spheres?”

Seung elucidates the poem’s thematic unity by using three principles essential to medieval Christian thinking. The first principle is the medieval classification of virtues and sins. It provides the framework for understanding the formal structures of the three realms. Seung shows that Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise are structured in accordance with the medieval table of seven natural virtues and three supernatural virtues, which are implicitly celebrated in the ten spheres of Paradiso. The natural virtues are humility, mercy, meekness, fortitude, liberality, temperance, and chastity, and the supernatural virtues are the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. The contraries to the natural virtues are the seven deadly sins of pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust, and they are condemned as sinful acts in the various sections of Inferno, and on the seven terraces of Purgatorio they appear as vicious dispositions being purged into their virtuous opposites. Moreover, in the beginning of Inferno the supernatural virtues are thematized as being absent; in the beginning of Purgatorio they appear as distorted; near the end of Purgatorio they are celebrated as regained; and finally in the last cantos of Paradiso they are presented in full display.

Seung then shows that Dante's first principle of construction (the classification of virtues and sins) is based on his second principle, the tripartite theory of the human soul (vegetative, sensitive, and spiritual) and their powers (concupiscible, irascible, and intellectual). The natural and supernatural virtues and their contraries reflect the powers of the tripartite soul in virtuous and vicious dispositions or in virtuous and sinful acts. Dante's third and final principle of construction is the Holy Trinity. Since the human soul is created in the image of God, Seung holds, the triadic structure of the human soul resembles the trinitarian structure of divine nature, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. By establishing a systematic connection between the three parts of the human soul and the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, Seung demonstrates that everything Dante witnesses in his epic journey is meant to be an allegorical reflection of the Holy Trinity and their activities. Because Dante scholars have failed to recognize this systematic allegorical function of Dante's epic, Seung maintains, they have reduced it to a grand Human Comedy, in which the mass of humanity Dante encounters in his journey can hardly leave any room for the presence of God. By his trinitarian reading, Seung securely installs the Holy Trinity as the epic hero of Dante poem. Apart from this interpretation, Seung says, his poem is an epic without an epic hero. Many Dante scholars have tried to cope with this poetic anomaly by exalting Dante the traveler as the epic heror. But he is only a traveling reporter, who cannot take a single step in his journey without the aid of his three guides. He never shows a heroic stature in any of his numerous actions.

Seung's trinitarian reading is best exemplified in his allegorical interpretation of Dante’s three guides. Traditionally, Dante studies have focused on two guides: Virgil leads Dante through Hell and Purgatory, and Beatrice appears in the Terrestrial Paradise near the end of Purgatorio, where she replaces Virgil and becomes Dante’s guide through the spheres of Paradiso. The former has commonly been interpreted as representing Reason and the latter as representing Faith. However, Seung points out that this traditional account has committed the inexcusable mistake of completely ignoring Dante's third and final guide Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who appears at the end of Dante's ascent to the highest heaven. Only through Saint Bernard’s prayer to Virgin Mary is Dante granted the beatific vision of the Holy Trinity. The final guide consummates Dante's long journey, which has been initiated and sustained by his first and second guides. Therefore, the role of the former is far more important than the roles of the latter. But the most important guide could not be accommodated within the traditional Dante studies, because they have operated with the dyadic Thomistic schema of natural and supernatural orders. Virgil and Beatrice have represented these two orders and left no room for Saint Bernard. According to Seung’s trinitirian reading, Dante's three guides allegorically represent the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity: Saint Bernard is Dante’s ultimate and third guide. Virgil represents the Son, Beatrice represents the Holy Spirit, and Saint Bernard represents the Father.

Since the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity are the ultimate point of reference for every action of Dante’s narrative and every component of his universal vision, Seung argues that the central theme of the Commedia is the Holy Trinity and its governance of the entire universe. This is his trinitarian reading of Dante's epic, which is ultimately simple and systematic. But he admits that the trinitarian meaning of the poem is not easily discovered. In order to discover it we should make a systematic parallel reading of the poem’s three parts. When we focus on an episode or segment of Inferno, we should try to relate its thematic content systematically to the corresponding episode or segment of Purgatorio and Paradiso. This method of reading can be described as connectionist reading, and it stands in contrast to the prevalent method of reading in Dante studies, which commonly interpret the different episodes, segments, and parts of the poem as self-contained entities and not as thematic particulars of one cosmic theme.

Seung’s trinitarian reading occupies a unique position in Dante studies due to its simple principles of interpretation that lead to a comprehensive understanding of the poem’s thematic content. No other scholars have ever attempted such a comprehensive and systematic account of Dante's epic. Marc Cogan’s project may appear as ambitious as Seung's. In The Design in the Wax: The Structure of the Divine Comedy and Its Meaning (1999), he claims to have discovered the ordering principles of Dante’s universal vision. But Cogan's ordering principles are limited to the orderly understanding of human virtues and sins displayed in Dante's other world. These principles correspond to the first of Seung's three principles, but Cogan does not present any higher or deeper principles that can correspond to Seung's second (the tripartite theory of the human soul) and third (the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity) principles. Hence he cannot even think of connecting human virtues and sins to the Holy Trinity. Thus his reading of the Commedia remains all too human as it has been sanctioned by the long tradition of Dante studies. The magic of Seung's trinitarian reading is to transform this human epic into a divine one. Kenelm Foster of Cambridge University described this magic touch as the stroke of Seung's intuitive genius in his review of The Fragile Leaves of the Sibyl (Blackfriars - November 1962).

There has been increased recent interest in Seung's work on Dante. Jesper Hede (University of Copenhagen in Denmark) has published an extensive defense and elaboration of Seung's Dante interpretation in comparison with Cogan's interpretation and the prevalent methods of reading in Dante studies.