Housman, Dehmel and DanteAuthor(s): Chandler B. BeallSource: Modern Language Notes, Vol. 57, No. 3 (Mar., 1942), p. 211Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2910412 .

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HOUSMAN, DEHMEL AND DANTE 211

HOUSMAN, DEIIMEL AND DANTE

In a recent note on " Housman's More Poems, II and Dehmel's Trost" (MLN, LVI, 215-217), Mr. E. B. Gladding points out an interesting parallel between the two poems. Both express the idea that a falling star leaves no gap in heaven:

No star is lost at all From all that star-sown sky.

Sich, kein Stern verschwand: alle leuchten noch allen.

There seems to be no likelihood of connection between the two poems. In considering the possibility of a common source, Mr. Gladding mentions meteors in Heine, Claudius and Brentano, and concludes: " The idea that although a star fell, 'no star is lost,' however, is peculiar to Housman and Dehmel."

A possible common source may be found in Dante, with whom both poets were familiar. This particular idea is expressed in a celebrated passage of the Paradiso (xv, 13-18):

Quale per li seren tranquilli e puri discorre ad ora ad or subito foco, movendo li occhi che stavan sicuri,

e pare stella che tramuti loco, se non che dalla parte ond' el s'accende nulla sen perde, ed esso dura poco.

Hlousman, at least, was certainly familiar with a passage in Ovid (Met., ii, 319-322) which Vernon cites as a possible source for Dante: 1

At Phaeton, rutilos flammae populante capillos, Volvitur in pracceps, longoque per aera tactu Fertur, ut interdum de coelo stella sereno Etsi non cecidit, potuit cecidisse videri.

CHANDLER B. BEALL University of Oregon

1 W. W. Vernon, Readings on the Paradiso, London, Methuen, 1909, r. 491.

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