There is a close connection between the metaphysical love of Dante and Goethe’s confession in the last scene of Faust, which reveals the poet’s deepest conviction, his final judgment of life.  The confessions of both poets are identical to the smallest detail.  The Divine Comedy represents the journey of humanity through the kingdoms of the world in a manner unique and representative, applicable alike to all men, in the sense of the Catholic Middle Ages.  The fundamental idea of Faust is again the desire of man to find the right way through the world.  Here also the journey through life is intended to be typical; it is undertaken five hundred years later; the scene is laid for the most part on the surface of the earth, but the ultimate goal of the wayfarer is Heaven.  Hell, instead of being a subterraneous region, is embodied in a presence, accompanying and tempting man; modern man has no faithful guide; he must himself seek the way which to the man of the Middle Ages was clearly indicated in the Bible.  The love of his youth (which in the case of Dante fills a book in itself) is merely an episode at the beginning of the tragedy—­the lover wanders through all the kingdoms of the world, finally to return home to the beloved.

The last scene of Faust is an unfolding of metaphysical love into its inherent multiplicity; its summit is the metaphysical love of woman.  All human striving is determined and crowned by the saving grace of love.  Faust has no longer a specific name; he has dropped everything subjective, and is briefly styled a lover; like Dante, he has become representative of humanity.  The hour of death revives the memory of the love of his youth, apparently forgotten in the storm and stress of a crowded life, yet never quite extinguished in the heart of his heart.  Margaret is present and guides him (as Beatrice guided Dante) upward, to the Eternal-Feminine, that is to say, to the metaphysical consummation of all male yearning for love.  “The love from on high” saves Faust as it has saved Dante. The blessed boys (who, as well as the angels, are present in both poems) singing: 

     Whom ye adore shall ye
     See face to face.[2]

are again referring to the transcendently loving lover.  Like Beatrice, Margaret intercedes for him (intercession for her lover has always been woman’s profoundest prayer) with the Queen of Heaven: 

     Incline, oh incline,
     All others excelling,
     In glory aye dwelling,
     Unto my bliss thy glance benign;
     The loved one ascending,
     His long trouble ending,
     Comes back, he is mine!

These words are more intimate and human than the words of Beatrice, but fundamentally they mean the same thing.  Dante, meeting Beatrice again, says: 

     And o’er my spirit that so long a time
     Had from her presence felt no shuddering dread,
     Albeit my eyes discovered her not, there moved
     A hidden virtue from her, at whose touch
     The power of ancient love was strong within me.[3]