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 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.

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.