Brief Notes on The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri
http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/ and http://www.divinecomedy.org/divine_comedy.html
The Life of Dante Alighieri:
Dante was born in 1265 in Florence and died in 1321 in Ravenna. During his lifetime, there was much
political turmoil in Florence. The papacy had gained and lost power, and was exiled in 1309 to Avignon. The
popes were agonizingly corrupt. This returned imperial power to the city-states of Italy, but Florence was caught
in a bitter civil struggle between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. The Guelphs were basically for rule by the
Papacy, whereas the Ghibellines were imperialists. Later, the Guelphs themselves split into two factions. The
White Guelphs, one of the factions, was for a blend of religious and secular rule. This was the party that Dane
aligned himself with. 1302: Dante, very involved in politics, is exiled. La Divina Comedia, begun in 1300, will
incorporate this event before it is completed.
During his life, he had fallen in love (at age 9) with Beatrice Portinari, who died in 1290, at the age of 25,
Dante was also 25. The poem is dedicated to her. She is his guide, and provides the allegorical figure for divine
love, which in the poem, leads Dante to divinity from despair. The medieval thought of pure, blinding beauty and
divine love as a kind of purging force to lead one out of darkness and weight of worldly traumas into the divine is
of course evident in this poem, but Dante arrives at divinity though human reason, represented by Virgil. By using
our own powers, humans can touch the powers of God: charity, wisdom, and power that can provide the salvation
of humans – on earth.
Dante’s ideal love does have a human analogy, without which we could not begin to imagine the divine.
The best of human love is transfiguring and itself leads to a kind of transcendence of the body, of toil, of despair.
This love is not to be maligned by human passion; it should always bear ills with grace, and to quote Shakespeare,
be the “ever-fixed mark / That looks on tempests and is never shaken.” Of course, of all the wrong paths to go
down, the one of false love is perhaps the easiest way to falter. The Inferno, at its best, tracks all the ways we
deceive ourselves, so that Hell is a very real place, here on earth.
In fact, all the sinners in Dante’s Hell are there unrepentant, believing that somehow they were justified in
what they did—sometimes Dante the tourist, sympathizes with them, but Virgil (Reason) leads him on the true
path, and makes him realize the folly of their ways. The Inferno characters are all victims of tragedy in its purest
sense: they pursue knowledge without wisdom. (Divine guidance) They all thought they were doing what they
needed to do, or what they couldn’t help but doing: Tragic heroes like Romeo, Brutus, Othello, and Oedipus
always try to justify sin. Had Machiavelli been born, he surely would find his own comfortable Malebolge in
which to reside in the deepest and coldest part of Dante’s inferno.
Dante traverses Hell, a pit with no escape – circles – guided by love and reason and the power of God
(fate). He journeys through Purgatory and Heaven—to what end? Virgil explains the intent of his journey for him
in Canto I (101) and he hears the same lesson from Beatrice, at the end of Purgatorio. In Paradiso, Mary allows
him to experience sanctifying grace (without first dying) and to return home. He is a mere mortal human, but with
humility, faith, and human thought, he can know the cosmos, can know divinity and can discover redemption for
the corrupt. If humans caused the downfall of the Church and the State, only humans could redeem it. With its
expression of the power of human endeavor to correct as well as corrupt, Dante’s poem blasts open a big door in
philosophy and literature. It is the portal to the Renaissance itself. Dante wanted to return from exile to help
redeem Florence, but this wasn’t to be.
The Divine Comedy contains a total of 100 cantos, all knit together in terza rima. There is a 34th canto for
The Inferno (34). To contrive the landscape of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, Dante references Greco-Roman
religion, St. Augustine’s City of God and the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas. Translations made by
scholars in the more open, Islamic Spain during the early Middle Ages (800-1300) certainly provided inspiration.
Due to this golden age, Dante had access to both the Qur’an and Hadith stories of Mohammed’s night voyage to
Heaven, taking place at the site of the Dome of the Rock (the Temple of Solomon) in Jerusalem, and to the
influences of philosophers such as the Jewish physician Maimomides, and the Muslim writer Averroes—both of
whom argued the necessity of intellect in faith.
NOTE: The heavenly joy that Dante seeks is within this world, not in Heaven. Quite literally in the text,
he returns to Earth to experience the life-peace that he seeks. Hell and Heaven, and Purgatory are places that
occupy our psychological reality in the here and now. Without this real connection to the here and now of our
lives, the concepts themselves would never be so captivating.
The Landscape of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven
See Maps. Hell is a cone descending. The circles spiral down to the left in Hell and spiral up to the right in
Purgatory. While there are nothing but steep drops and gullies in Hell, Purgatory has an occasional ladder.
Heaven is made of spheres of aether, and one floats effortlessly from place to place, unhindered by earthly gravity.
This is the only place Dante doubts his own corporality.
Dante, at thirty-five years of age, in the year 1300, is chased away from his ascent up the Mount of Joy,
into a dark wood of despair, or error (worldliness) by three beasts of sin: A she-wolf, a lion, and a leopard,
representing incontinence, violence, and fraud. Only by recognition of sin, renunciation of sin and acceptance of
Divine Love, will he be able to save himself.
Cantos 1-3
Cantos 3-9
Cantos 10-17
Cantos 18-30
Cantos 31-34
Dante in the Dark Wood
Upper Hell: Sins of the She Wolf/Incontinence
Lower Hell: Sins of the Lion /Violence
The City of Dis and The Great Barrier
Sins of the Leopard / Simple Fraud: The 10 Malabolgia
Sins of the Leopard / Fraud Complex: Cocytus, The Well
Circles 1-5
Circles 6 and 7
Circle 8
Circle 9
Hell is for those who take the initiative to sin. In hell, the sinners get—not so much what they deserve, but
what they want. Their punishment is a transmogrification of their sin. They are still pursuing the thing they did,
and they still don’t get it, even when it causes them grave and endless suffering.
In Hell, the circles descend, weighing down the sinners; the pursuit of earthly goals weighs down the body,
and traps the soul, and excessive pride will not allow light in. Guilt builds thick walls, and the sinners continue to
flee truth. The trap narrows; they are caught in their own justifications. To climb up is extremely difficult. Gravity
weighs heavily on Dante and Virgil. Even in Purgatory, it is hard work to gain salvation, and natural gravity is the
weight that souls there struggle against, as in life they struggled against the tug of worldliness. Eventually, the
souls there will unburden themselves enough to be purged, and those souls will transcend to Heaven without effort.
This is how humility feels, while guilt feels weighted. In Hell, the souls are truly lost; they don’t see that they have
the power to end their own suffering.
The descent from the dark wood has been interpreted as a descent into oneself, to discover the chaos
within and purge it. Dante’s journey begins on Good Friday. By the morning of Holy Saturday, he enters
Purgatory, and finds himself in Paradise on the morning of Easter Sunday. Although he cannot see the sky, Virgil
is counting hours by the signs of the zodiac as they travel, and hurrying Dante along as a good tour guide would,
keeping to schedule.
As they travel through the landscape of Hell, Dante notes how similar it is to Earth. There are rivers and
valleys and sand, cities, trees, swamps, wind—but there are no references to the sun. The lost souls are
recognizable shades, who suffer bodily torment, although they themselves are non-corporal entities. They have the
odd capacity to see the future, and know all about their own past, but don’t know the present as it exists on Earth.
This could be considered a metaphor for their lack of moral probity, for in life they were constantly considering
what had happened to them and what would become of them, but not the state their soul was currently in. They
are, metaphorically, incapable of “being in the moment” but rather are locked within a dark cell of self-deception,
which makes their present inconceivable, as well as unbearable and inescapable; they, in fact live completely void
of the present, with no hope of light, blinded, unable to comprehend their place in the universe, and with no exit
possible from themselves.
The Bus Tour of Hell: Readings
*Read Canto III, the entranceway to Hell
*Read Canto IV (Circle 1) about who resides in Limbo
*Canto V (Circle 2: The Lustful) Paolo and Francesca (Her husband was a hunchback. Paolo is her brother-inlaw.) What good arguments does she make in justifying the illicit love they shared? How does Dante react to their
story?
Note in your travels how many encounters Dante had with creatures and landscape drawn from Greco-Roman
mythology. Even the Heavenly spheres, named for the planets, are the names of Roman gods and goddesses.
Purgatory, too, has rivers from Hades, Lethe, in particular, where souls bathe and forget their earthly lives.
Canto VI (Circle 3) Read about Cerberus, tormenting the Gluttons.
Canto VIII (Circle 5 Crossing the River Styx) Note that Dante tips the boat when he enters, and alerts all the souls
of his state of being alive. This is homage to Virgil, who had the same thing happen with Aeneas.
*Canto X (Circle 6) Dante encounters Farinata, (a member of the Uberti clan) who is in hell for being an
Epicurean, but who actually saved the city of Florence from destruction. Read Dante’s encounter with him, and
his explanation of the odd vision of the dead souls in Hell. How does he try to justify himself?
Cantos XII-XIII: Circle 7 is divided into three rings of those who do violence against others, against themselves
and against God. These are still, however, lesser sins than those committed willfully, in cold-blood. Dante and
Virgil meet up with the Centaurs, one of whom offers to transport them as they cross Phlegethon, the boiling river
of blood in which is immersed murderers. One of the Centaurs notices Dante’s corporality when he moves things
that brush against him.
*Canto XIII: The Wood of the Suicides. How is this punishment fitting? Why does Virgil ask the questions for
Dante?
*Canto XVII: How do the travelers get down to Circle 8, past the Great Barrier? How is this human scorpion, the
Geryon, an apt symbol for the circle of the fraudulent?
*Cantos XX-XXIII (Journey from the fifth malebolge in Circle 8, to the sixth) Burning pitch for the barrators.
Read how Virgil saves Dante from pursuing demons, and they find their way through the circle of hypocrites.
Note also that they are thinking with one mind: Virgil is in possession of Dante’s thoughts. Note the many epic
similes, endemic of epic poetry. Note, also Michael the Scot, famous medieval translator of Arabic, (d. 1232) for
Frederick II, in Canto XX.
*Cantos XXIV-XXV (Sixth malebolge, the Hypocrites) How are they tormented? What did Vanno Fucci do?
*Cantos XXVI-XXVII: See notes.
*Canto XXXIII-XXXIV: Count Ugolino Circle 9: Who resides there and why? (Note Branca Doria’s soulless self
still survives!) How do Dante and Virgil travel beyond Lucifer, and find their way?
Ulysses
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vest the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breath were life. Life piled on life
Were all to little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isleWell-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with meThat ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads- you and I are old;
Old age had yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield
(1842)
Four Translations of Dante (Note too, John Sinclair’s prose translation!)
Looking at Dante’s La Divina Comedia, let's compare the original with three different translations: John
Ciardi, Dorothoy Sayers, and Robert Pinsky. This is the very famous "Entrance to Hell" passage at the
beginning of Canto III.
Dante Alighieri:
Per me si va ne la città dolente.
per me si va ne l'etterno dolore,
per me si va tra la perduta gente.
Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore;
fecemi la divina podestate,
la somma sapienza e 'l primo amore.
Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create
se non etterne, e io etterna duro.
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate."
Queste parole di colore oscuro
vid'io scritte al sommo d'ura porta;
per ch'io: "Maestro, il senso lor m'e duro."
Ed elli a me, come persone accorta:
“Qui si convien lasciare ogne sospetto;
ogne viltà convien che qui sia morta.
Noi siam venuti al loco ov’i’t’ho detto
che tu vedrai le genti dolorose
c’hanno perduto il ben de l’intelletto.
a
b
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b
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b
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d
c
d
e
d
e
f
e
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g
f
Note the pattern of terza rima: The first and third lines rhyme. The middle line rhymes with the first and
third lines of the next tercet (three lines of poetry). There is always a trio of rhyming words. The middle
line of that tercet is a new rhyme that corresponds to the first and third lines of the next tercet. In Italian,
where there are many words that rhyme, this evidently, poses a nice little challenge in finding words that
suit meaning. However, in English, that’s no LITTLE challenge! Of the four translators, only Dorothy
Sayers has chosen to sacrifice meaning and fluidity of language to achieve terza rima, and it shows in a
rather clunky verse: (Diuturnal? Supernal? Eterne? Unsearchably? Hmmm....) Mark Musa recently did
another translation for Penguin Classics, which is more contemporary and readable:
Dorothy Sayers:
Mark Musa:
Through me the road to the city of desolation,
Through me the road to sorrows diuturnal,
Through me the road among the lost creation.
Justice moved my great maker; God eternal
Wrought me: The power, and the unsearchably
High wisdom, and the primal love supernal.
Nothing ere I was made was made to be
Save things eterne, and I eterne abide;
Lay down all hope, you that go in by me."
These words, of sombre colour, I descried
Writ on the lintel of a gateway; "Sir,
This sentence is right hard for me," I cried.
I am the way into the doleful city,
I am the way into eternal grief,
I am the way to a forsaken race.
Justice it was that moved my great creator;
Divine omnipotence created me,
And highest wisdom joined with primal love.
Before me nothing but eternal things
Were made, and I shall last eternally.
Abandon all hope, all you who enter.
I saw these words spelled out in somber colors
Inscribed along the ledge above a gate;
“Master,” I said, “these words I see are cruel.”
Here's Robert Pinsky's new translation, very fluid and poetic, but he will wander considerably from the text throughout
the translation. He has chosen, as has also Allen Mandelbaum (your translation) and Seamus Heaney in his recent
translation of Beowulf, to provide the poem in its original language, aside the translation. This way, you can see the
original, and possibly forgive the poet for creating something new.
Robert Pinsky:
Through me you enter into the city of woes,
Through me you enter into eternal pain,
Through me you enter the population of loss.
Justice moved my high maker, in power divine,
Wisdom supreme, love primal. No things were
Before me not eternal; eternal I remain.
Abandon all hope, you who enter here."
These words I saw inscribed in some dark color
Over a portal. "Master," I said, "make clear
Their meaning, which I find to hard to gather.
John Ciardi pays homage to terza rima in rhyming at least the first and third lines of the tercets. He is also a bit more
reliable than Pinsky in keeping to a line by line rendition of Dante's verse, but chooses a middle ground from Sayers in
achieving meaning. It's another reason I like him, aside from his terrific notes.
John Ciardi:
I am the way into the city of woe,
I am the way to a forsaken people.
I am the way into eternal sorrow.
Sacred Justice moved my architect.
I was raised here by divine omnipotence,
Primordial love and ultimate intellect.
Only those elements time cannot wear
Were made before me, and beyond time I stand.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
These mysteries I read cut into stone
above a gate. And turning, I said: "Master
what is the meaning of this harsh inscription?
Wow, huh? It's pretty staggering, which is why it's worth it to read poetry in the original. You can likely puzzle out many
cognates, or get an dual language dictionary. It makes me think it must be discombobulating to translate poetry—or to
write anything in terza rima? Take a shot at it!
Prufrock and Ulysses: Allusion to Dante’s Inferno
One of Virgil’s poems, the Fourth Ecologue, seems to predict the birth of Christ. He is seen as one endowed both
with Divine Love and tremendous Human Reason, and, of course, extreme eloquence. For these reasons, and for his
Italian birth, Dante’s guide in the Inferno is Virgil. Virgil, who represents Human Reason, cannot, however, guide him
into Paradise: Only Divine Love can achieve that.
In the political wars between GUELPHS AND GHIBELLINES (the pro-Papal and Imperial parties, respectively)
Dante was originally a Guelph. The Guelphs later split into Black and White factions, Dante favored the Whites, who,
suspicious of Pope BONIFACE VIII’s designs on Florence, gradually took on the political coloration of the Ghibellines,
whose ideal was a unified, peaceful Italy under the temporal authority of the Holy Roman emperor.
Circle Eight (Located in the Malebolge. Bolgia means abyss): The Evil Counselors
See map. Notice how close this pit is to the very center of Hell. Dante was forced out of Florence from his
position as Chief Magistrate into exile by those whom he considered evil counselors. These evil counselors steal and
abuse the holy gift of persuasion, which was given to the disciples to spread the teachings of Jesus. The abuse of this
particular virtue is why the sinners in this pit appear to be consumed by tongues of flame, alluding to the appearance of
tongues of flame above the heads of the apostles at Pentecost, which signified the arrival of the Holy Spirit, and endowed
the apostles with the ability to speak eloquently in many languages. (This is a contrast to the Tower of Babel story.
Pentecost is 50 days after Easter, 10 days after the Ascension of Christ to Heaven until the Parousia.) Because the evil or
false counselors abused this gift from God, they are stolen from sight and hidden in the great flames that are their own
guilty consciences. (Since they sinned by the glibness of their tongues, in their punishment the flames that consume them
resemble the tongues of flame from the Pentecost.) Among these sinners are, in Canto XXVI, Ulysses and Diomedes,
who “tricked” the Trojans into accepting the horse… and Guido da Montefeltro, in Canto XXVII. (Three offenses
committed by Ulysses and Diomedes: the wooden horse; luring Achilles into the war effort –he abandoned Deidamia and their son;
and stealing the Palladium.)
Ulysses, as portrayed by Dante:
Naturally, as an Italian who closely associates himself with Virgil, considered by Dante to be the greatest poet
ever, ever, Dante is no great fan of Odysseus, whose Latin name, is Ulysses. In the Aeneid, Ulysses is much maligned.
He is portrayed as a treacherous thief, who steals a statue of Athena from the Palladium (the temple to her in Troy) and a
perfidious schemer, who purposely puts his men in danger, betraying them for his own selfish ends. In the Odyssey, these
traits are more or less considered heroic hamartia. He pays for his crimes, but the audience of the Odyssey, through the
genius of Homer, is also beguiled – as is Athena herself – by his wit, strategy, and wily tactics.
Dante, of course sees Ulysses as Virgil did. After all, he convinced Achilles to go and fight the war, and to kill
Hector. Aeneas, a Trojan and the founder of Rome, leaves his ravaged city to travel on his own Odyssey to become the
father of the Roman Empire, as Virgil heroically paints him in the Aeneid. Dante provides here a story that was probably
lost from classical literature: what happens to Ulysses in the end. Read and learn. What is his sin? What happens to
Homer’s depiction of Odysseus as a loyal husband, son, and father? Is it evident that he is not repentant? (Note: Dante
creates much sympathy for many of the sinners in Hell – even the most despicable, for he brilliantly allows them to argue
their innocence with the kind of false logic the readers could easily imagine themselves believing! Some of the most
sympathetic characters in Hell are referred to as magnanimi.) What lesson does Dante himself, as a poet, learn in this
malebolgia? What contemporary warning could Dante be giving to his contemporaries?
(Note the reference to Circe. In his notes to the Inferno, John Ciardi writes that Circe was the sorceress who
“changed Ulysses’ men to swine and kept him a prisoner, though with rather exceptional accommodations.”) But
knowledge does not equal virtue. Those with the gift of tongues should use it wisely and to noble purposes. Read
Tennyson’s Ulysses. What benefit does the poet gain from using Ulysses himself as speaker?
In Book XI of The Odyssey, Tireseus foretells a peaceful death for Odysseus, but translations vary: Richard
Lattimore says: “Death will come from the sea…” in an ebbing, peaceful way. Allen Mandelbaum says “not at sea,” and
Robert Fagles translates the same passage as “far from the sea it comes.” Robert Fitzgerald talks of the death as “a
seaborne death soft as this hand of mist.” Samuel Butler’s prose translation also speaks of a “death from the sea.” He
does meet Achilles, in Book XI of The Odyssey, who famously tells him, “Odysseus, don’t embellish death for me. I’d
rather be another’s hired hand, working for some poor man who owns no land…than to rule over all whom death has
crushed.” (Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Allen Mandelbaum. New York: Bantam Books, 1990. Print.) This is another
example of how Tennyson's subtle use of allusion shades the meaning of the poem. However, the point is made by
Ulysses himself: Even tedious death in Elysium, even burning in Dante's malbolge -- is worth the final rush. By placing
the words in Ulysses' mouth rather than in his own, Tennyson really leaves us the option of making our own choice as
well. It might be that Old Man Tennyson himself would have agreed with Ulysses.... Although, perhaps wisely, wouldn't
himself advise it to others! ;)
All ancient sources seem to say that Odysseus will be old, wealthy, at peace, and surrounded by family. The sea
seems to deliver the death, something like a plague or miasma, although he himself will not be far away on the ocean.
Prior to death, he is instructed to go to a country where people are not seafarers, who will mistake his oar for a winnowing
fan, and pay homage to Poseidon. But note his position in The Inferno, the source that Tennyson likely draws his
reference. And then, of course the prologue to Star Trek: Space... the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the
starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life forms and new civilizations,
to boldly go where no one has gone before.
Guido da Montefeltro
T.S. Eliot, who said, “Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them, there is no third,” alludes to both
Dante and Shakespeare in his famous poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. In the following decidedly direct and
prosy translation, the opening quotation is spoken by Guido, in Hell:
If I thought my answer were given
to anyone who would ever return to the world,
this flame would stand still without moving further.
But since never from this abyss
has anyone ever returned alive, if what I hear is true,
without fear of infamy, I answer you.
Actually, when you learn of him, Guido probably wants fame, but fears infamy. The speech is poignant for its
dramatic irony. Dante, of course, will return – and he is no friend of Guido! He reacts to Dante’s cool silence with
nervous passion. Guido’s passionate telling of his story, like so many of the other sinners in Hell, evokes sympathy. The
readers, however, cannot absolve the sinners any more than can God, for their own lack of repentance and sense of
responsibility. Recall that the sinners in Hell have the ability to see the past and the future, but as the present approaches,
their ability to see it dims. The real sympathy comes from this: no matter how eloquent or intelligent, or mystified they
are by what they don’t understand, the sinners are guilty. Calculation is no substitute for morality. Often tyrants claim
that their “end” is peace, though their “means” is brutality.
Note: About two centuries after Dante’s death, another Florentine, Machiavelli would write, Il principe. But if
anything Dante’s Comedia is a lesson in humanism, a journey to meet its most noble and most repugnant representatives.
Had he prescience, Dante the author, I’m sure, would have placed his paisan Niccolo, right there next to Guido. Had
Dante, the voyager, known to look, I’m sure he would have seen him there.
Guido was head of the Ghibelline faction in Romagna, and was reputed to be the most wise and cunning man in
Italy. In his earlier life, he was a ruthless military man, opposed the Pope, as a Ghibelline, and later made peace with the
Church and became a Franciscan monk.
He was called by Pope Boniface VIII to help him settle a personal feud. (Boniface supposedly convinced the
previous pope, Celestine V, to abdicate.) Boniface was a member of the Caetani family, long at odds with the Colonna
family, who had a stronghold in Palestrina (Penestrino). The Colonnas were questioning the validity of his office, and
Boniface wanted to crush them. He promised Guido absolution – and other rewards – no matter what the outcome of his
“advice” would be. Guido told him to declare a false amnesty to the Colonnas to gain access to the castle at Palestrina,
and then raze it to the ground, sparing no one, which Boniface did. The logic of forgiveness doesn’t hold: you cannot be
absolved for a sin in advance, especially one for which you have pride in committing! (Aristotle’s principal of noncontradiction.) The Pope possesses two keys: absolution and discernment – Boniface misuses both. Guido blames him,
but really! He claims he was innocent because he was obeying the Pope, but he doesn’t fool either St. Francis or the
angels after his death. (Friar’s Tale)
Both Ulysses and Guido sin in their old age. Instead of sailing restfully into port, making amends for past sins,
they are moved by pride to sin again. Simple love and simple service is not satisfying, and they have little humility. In
the end, Guido cannot figure out where he’s gone wrong, and seems to blame others for the fact he isn’t tremendously
famous and revered – let alone damned. How is he a good spokesperson for Prufrock?
J. Alfred Prufrock
For J. Alfred Prufrock, Where has the pursuit of a sophisticated, but barren life brought him? Does he
understand how his life has become so meaningless – or even that it is meaningless? The goal is not to avoid Hell, per se,
but to avoid Hell on Earth, and is there a difference? Has he any humility? He has woken in darkness, and doesn’t know
how he got there. Is he still in the nightmare, dissolute, dissatisfied, bitter, sad, and depressed? How to exit? He is
seeking connection through idle pursuits, not even knowing what it is exactly he’s trying to achieve, and blaming others
for the failure of the act to yield meaning. “How did I get here? Why me? Didn’t I do everything right?” wonders
Guido. Well, who doesn’t bend rules to achieve something?
Intellectualism has its dark side: the polished artists or critics of music and art, the condoned, civilized pursuers
of market success, bohemian outsiders, and trend setters – all living in vapid worlds eloquently masked as intense and
passionate modes of life. But one’s failure to give, to have real human life beyond the mask of it, will yield only
darkness. Success of this nature is a miasma, a pestilent wind, beautiful and intoxicating and promising power, but not
intensely real. (Human Reason cannot achieve Paradise – That can only be achieved through Divine Love. Do I mean
Paradise, or Paradise on Earth? Does it matter?) How many vastly successful failures will join Prufrock in Hell? Or – is
there a sign of hope for him? Does he know how to begin?
Dante Alighieri called Dante, b. Florence, Italy, June 5, 1265, d. Sept. 14, 1321, wrote the poetic masterpiece La Divina
Comedia, or The DIVINE COMEDY, which helped establish his native Tuscan dialect as the literary language of Italy.
He is not only Italy’s preeminent poet but, along with Shakespeare, one of the towering figures of Western literature. This
primacy is accorded him because of his profound understanding of medieval thought, his mastery of complex technical
skills, and the dramatic range and originality of his imagination. Dante’s life spanned the troubled years of the late
Middle Ages, in which the long struggle between pope and emperor for supremacy in Italy reached its most acute phase,
and in which the concept of nationalism, exemplified by the growing power of the French monarchy, was displacing the
medieval vision of a united Christendom. Deeply involved in the issues and events of his day, Dante reflected in his
writings the aspirations and anxieties of his contemporaries, while projecting into them a universal and timeless
dimension.
Of a middle-class Florentine family with some pretensions to ancient nobility, Dante received a good education
both in the classics and in scholastic Christian literature. At a very early age he began to write poetry, largely love lyrics
(canzoni) in the style of Guido Guinizelli and Guido CAVALCANTI. According to Giovanni BOCCACCIO, Dante also
studied painting and music. The most memorable events of his youth were his two encounters (1274 and 1283) with
BEATRICE Portinari, to whom he remained spiritually devoted for the rest of his life—in a metaphysical transformation
of the tradition of COURTLY LOVE popularized by the Provencal troubadours—despite his own marriage (c.1285) to
Gemma Donati (which produced several children) and Beatrice’s to Simon de’Bardi. The progression of his love for her
was embodied in the love poetry of his first book, La vita nuova (The New Life, c.1293), written a few years after
Beatrice’s death in 1290. In the much later Divine Comedy, she assumes the role of the poet’s savior and guide and bears
the allegorical significance of Faith or Theology.
In the political wars between GUELPHS
AND GHIBELLINES (the pro-Papal and Imperial parties, respectively), Dante was originally a Guelph and in 1289
fought with his fellow citizens against the Ghibellines at the Battle of Campaldino. When the Guelphs later split into
Black and White factions, Dante favored the Whites, who, suspicious of Pope BONIFACE VIII’s designs on Florence,
gradually took on the political coloration of the Ghibellines, whose ideal was a unified, peaceful Italy under the temporal
authority of the Holy Roman emperor.
At the turn of
the century, Dante held high public office, having risen from city councilman to prior and occasional ambassador of
Florence. This career ended in 1301 when the Black Guelphs and their French allies seized control of the city. In 1302
they confiscated Dante’s possessions and sentenced the poet to permanent banishment from Florence, and to the death
penalty should he ever return. Thereafter Dante lived in various centers sympathetic to the Ghibelline cause, most notably
at the courts of Can Grande della Scala in Verona and Guido da Polenta in Ravenna after the death (1313) of the Holy
Roman emperor HENRY VII finally ended his hopes for an imperial victory. This long exile marked the beginning of a
steady literary output. De vulgari eloquentia (On the Vulgar Speech, c.1304-06), in Latin, is a pioneering study of
linguistics and style in which Dante argues for the use of the vernacular in serious works of literature and for combining a
number of Italian dialects to create a new national language. De Monarchia (On Monarchy, c.1313), also in Latin,
presents Dante’s case for a world order united by one ruler who would be supreme in secular affairs, while the church, no
longer a rival for worldly power, would remain sovereign in spiritual matters. Dante also experimented further with style
and content in individual poems and wrote Latin epistles and eclogues.
Dante’s reputation rests on his last work, the Comedia, begun between 1307 and 1314 and finished only a short
time before his death (1321). Composed in a three line-stanza form, called TERZA RIMA (Dante’s invention) and
divided into three parts, the Comedy follows the poet’s journey from the “dark wood” in which he finds himself in middle
age; through the nine circles of the damned in the Inferno and the mountainous wasteland of the Purgatorio, with the poet
VERGIL as his guide; to his final comprehension of the divine plan of justice in the Paradiso, aided by his beloved
Beatrice. An allegorical compendium of the medieval moral and scientific world view in its subtlest form, The Divine
Comedy simultaneously reached out to the past and the future. Vergil’s poetic influence on the work constituted a tribute
to Italy’s classical past, and the vigorous adoption of popular speech and the realization of a large cast of very human,
often contemporary, characters helped free Italian literature from its ancient confines. With this work, Dante became
Italy’s first national, and thus modern, poet, even as he gave voice to religious and political ideals that defied any
temporal category.
Thomas G. Bergin
Bibliography: Auerbach, Erich, Dante, Poet of the Secular World, trans. by Ralph Manheim (1961; repr. 1988); Bergin,
Thomas G., Dante (1965; repr. 1976), A Diversity of Dante (1969), and Perspectives on the Divine Comedy (1967);
Brandeis, Irma, Ladder of Vision (1960); Caesar, Michael, Dante (1989); Chubb, T. C., Dante and His World (1966);
Cosmo, Umberto, Handbook to Dante Studies, trans. by David Moore (1950); Croce, Benedetto, The Poetry of Dante
(1922); Fergusson, F., Dante (1966); Foster, Kenelm, The Two Dantes and Other Studies (1978); Fowlie, Wallace, A
Reading of Dante’s Inferno (1981); Freccero, John, ed., Dante (1965) and Dante, The Poetics of Conversion (1986);
Gilbert, Allan H., Dante and His Comedy (1963); Gilson, Etienne, Dante the Philosopher, trans. by David Moore (1949);
Grandgent, C., Companion to the Divine Comedy, ed. by Charles S. Singleton (1975); Hollander, Robert, Allegory in
Dante’s Comedia (1969); Holmes, George, Dante (1980); Kirkpatrick, R., Dante: The Divine Comedy (1987);
Mazzotta, Giuseppe, Dante, Poet of the Desert (1987); Musa, Mark, Advent at the Gates (1974); Singleton, Charles, S.,
Dante Studies I a
Limbo
in Roman Catholic theology, the border place between heaven and hell where dwell those souls who, though not
condemned to punishment, are deprived of the joy of eternal existence with God in heaven. The word is of Teutonic
origin, meaning “border,” or “anything joined on.” The concept of limbo probably developed in the European Middle
Ages. Two distinct kinds of limbo have been supposed to exist: (1) the limbus patrum (“fathers' limbo”), which is the
place where the Old Testament saints were thought to be confined until they were liberated by Christ in his “descent into
hell”; and (2) the limbus infantum, or puerorum (“children's limbo”), which is the abode of those who have died without
actual sin but whose original sin has not been washed away by Baptism. This “children's limbo” included not only dead
unbaptized infants but also the mentally defective.
The question of the destiny of infants dying unbaptized presented itself to Christian theologians at a relatively early
period. Generally speaking, it may be said that the Greek Fathers of the Church inclined to a cheerful view and the Latin
Fathers to a gloomy view. Indeed, some of the Greek Fathers expressed opinions that are almost indistinguishable from
the Pelagian view that children dying unbaptized might be admitted to eternal life, though not to the Kingdom of God. St.
Augustine recoiled from such Pelagian heresies and drew a sharp antithesis between the state of the saved and that of the
damned. Later theologians followed Augustine in rejecting the notion of any final place intermediate between heaven and
hell, but they otherwise were inclined to take the mildest possible view of the destiny of the irresponsible and unbaptized.
The Roman Catholic church in the 13th and 15th centuries made several authoritative declarations on the subject of limbo,
stating that the souls of those who die in original sin only (i.e., unbaptized infants) descend into hell but are given lighter
punishments than those souls guilty of actual sin. The damnation of infants and also the comparative lightness of their
punishment thus became articles of faith, but the details of the place such souls occupied in hell or the nature of their
actual punishment remained undetermined. From the Council of Trent (1545–63) onward, there were considerable
differences of opinion as to the extent of the infant souls' deprivation, with some theologians maintaining that the infants
in limbo are affected with some degree of sadness because of a felt privation, and other theologians holding that the
infants enjoy every kind of natural felicity, as regards their souls now and their bodies after the Resurrection. The concept
of limbo has remained similarly undefined and problematical in modern Roman Catholic doctrine.
Catechism: All unbaptised receive the grace of God. All who stove to do good in their lives have a chance for salvation.
There is no mention of “limbo” anymore. I believe Vatican II did away with the word.