Božestvennaja t’ma v Božestvennoj Komedii Dante [Il divino buio nella Divina Commedia di Dante]

Poetics of light in Dante’s «Divine Comedy» is one of the most important topics for understanding the poem and one of the least investigated in the Russian literary studies. In this paper the light motive (one of the main in this poem) is envisaged in an unusual aspect: darkness as the reverse side of excess light, as an image dominating at all levels of Dante’s text and underlying the narrative evolution of the poem. The analysis of all the poem’s metaphors with light semantics shows that the description of light phenomena intensification is a precondition for «interior enlightenment» of the hero, continuation of his way and consequently the existence of the poem itself. However, at all the investigated levels the intensification of light leads to the hero’s blinding: the light becomes an obstacle for him perceiving the highest reality. The light may even have the function of a cover that hides the genuine image of the world perceived by the hero. Besides, as the hero moves closer to the aim of his way and the narrator towards the end of the poem, we constantly see the motive of «infirmity» of the human language, which is unable to describe the more and more unusual experience of the hero which deserves a better portrayal. It becomes evident that silence and blindness are the permanent companions of the prime of poetic eloquence and light images of the third canticle. The author of this paper following the author of «Lux inaccessibilis» M.Ariani suggests explaining this apparent paradox in the context of mysticism of Dionysius the Areopagite, one of the most respected medieval theologians, a founder of apophatic, «dark» theology. Metaphors used by Dionysius in describing the Divine essence become one more clue to the role of light and darkness in Dante’s «Comedy».