Dante Alighieri
and his
greatest work
Divine
Comedy
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
• Born in Florence
• Held progressively
more powerful
positions in Florence
• Banished in 1302
• Worked on
Commedia during
banishment
Dante During Banishment
• Floated all over Europe
• Influenced by:
– French poetry
– Italian vernacular
• One of the most learned
– Especially in art of classical
Greek
• Finished Comedy in
Ravenna; died 1321
Divine Comedy
• Originally Commedia
(Comedy)
– Divine added in 16th
Century
• Not funny by any
means
– Traveler begins low
(Hell) and ends in
Paradise.
• A literal journey but
incredibly symbolic
Divine Comedy
• Literal level:
– Journey through the
lands of the dead
• Symbolic
– Spiritual pilgrimage of
Christian soul from sin
(Hell), purification
(Purgatory), salvation
(Paradise).
Divine Comedy
•
3 parts
– Inferno (Hell, guided by Virgil)
– Purgatorio
– Paradiso (Heaven, guided by Beatrice)
•
•
Inferno
Inferno the most widely read section
– A journey through Hell
• Entrance least harsh – Center most
– Constructed as a huge funnel with nine
descending circular ledges
– Sinners classified according to the nature of
their sins.
• “They got what they wanted”
– Those who recognize and repudiate their sins
are given a change to purify themselves in
Purgatorio, the second of three segments in
the poem.
•
Dante feels Hell is a necessary, painful first
step of any man’s spiritual journey.
Inferno
• The sinners in the nine
rings of hell are guilty of
one of three types of sin:
– Incontinence: losing control
of natural appetites and
desires (sex)
– Brutishness: attraction to
things which repulse the
healthy soul (violence)
– Malice / Vice: abuse of
reason, a human's most
god-like quality
Inferno
• Punishments:
– Adulterous lovers united forever
– Suicides body separated from soul
– Violent immersed in boiling blood
– Gluttons wallow in own excrement
– Dane Cook forced to hear his own “jokes”
– Innermost layer
• Judas, Brutus, Cassius
Canto XXII – Violent against
people and property
Canto XVIII – Panderers and
seducers
Canto XXVI – Fraudulent advisors
(Odysseus)
Canto XXXIII – Traitors
Canto
Region Sin
People
Canto
12
Circle 7 Violent
Against
neighbors &
fellow men;
murderers,
war makers
Alexander the Submerged in hot blood,
Great
Guarded by centaurs,
Attila the Hun who shoot any soul which
attempts to rise
Canto
26-27
subcircl Fraudulent
e8
advisers
Ulysses/
Odysseus
Canto
34
Round
3
Traitors to
Judas, Brutus,
lords and
Cassius
benefactors;
those who set
out to destroy
the rightful
God
Punishment
Concealed in flames
At the center of the Earth,
completely submerged in
ice. The three ultimate
traitors are held in
Lucifer's three mouths.
Lucifer's three wings
send forth freezing blasts
of impotence, ignorance
and hatred.
The Corrupt
Salvador Dali
Watercolor 1961
Set-up of Comedy
• Sacred numerology
– 3, 9, 10
•
•
•
•
•
100 cantos (square of perfect 10)
Each division has 33 cantos
9 (3x3) circles or spheres in each realm
Written in tercets (3 line stanzas)
Italian rhyme scheme terze rima (third rhyme)
– Aba, bcb, cdc…
Homework
• Read reading 2.20 From Dante’s Divine
Comedy
– Don’t skip the intro
• Take Cornell Notes on reading – see
handout, but take notes in notebook.
• Possible quiz, definite discussion
tomorrow.