Dante Alighieri and his greatest work Divine Comedy

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Dante Alighieri and his greatest work Divine
Comedy
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Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

• Born in Florence
• Held progressively more powerful positions in
  Florence
• Banished in 1302
• Worked on Commedia during banishment

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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

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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

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Divine Comedy

• Literal level
• Journey through the lands of the dead
• Symbolic
• Spiritual pilgrimage of Christian soul from sin
  (Hell), purification (Purgatory), salvation
  (Paradise).

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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 mans spiritual journey.

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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

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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

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Canto XXII Violent against people and property
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Canto XVIII Panderers and seducers
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Canto XXVI Fraudulent advisors (Odysseus)
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Canto XXXIII Traitors
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Canto Region Sin People Punishment
Canto 12 Circle 7 Violent Against neighbors fellow men murderers, war makers Alexander the Great Attila the Hun Submerged in hot blood, Guarded by centaurs, who shoot any soul which attempts to rise
Canto 26-27 subcircle 8  Fraudulent advisers Ulysses/ Odysseus Concealed in flames
Canto 34 Round 3 Traitors to lords and benefactors those who set out to destroy the rightful God Judas, Brutus, Cassius 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.
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The Corrupt Salvador Dali Watercolor 1961
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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

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Homework

• Read reading 2.20 From Dantes Divine Comedy
• Dont skip the intro
• Take Cornell Notes on reading see handout, but
  take notes in notebook.
• Possible quiz, definite discussion tomorrow.