SOURCE: “Beatrice as a Figure for Mary,” Traditio, Vol. XXXIII, 1977, pp. 402-14.

In the following essay, Wimsatt furnishes evidence found in Purgatorio that demonstrates that Dante depicted Beatrice as an analogue for, or surrogate of, the Virgin Mary.

The identification of ‘Christ figures’ in medieval literature has no doubt been overdone. Yet it can hardly be denied that we do find there characters who present meaningful analogues to Christ, for along with a good number of probable analogues, the parallels in some cases are explicit; for example, Galahad in the Queste del Saint Graal and Thomas Malory's Grail story.¹ So too in Dante's Vita Nuova the parallel of Beatrice with Christ is not left to surmise. In Chapter 24 Joan, Guido Cavalcanti's donna, is presented as preceding Beatrice; to Dante she is like her namesake John, the one who comes before the True Light. Beatrice who follows, then, is...