The Commedia by Dante Alighieri

1. The Commediaby Dante Alighieri

2. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) • Family was prominent in Florence (Italian city-state) • Little is known about his education. • Successful politician as well as poet. • Political life is hostile; Italian city-states compete for power with each other and Holy Roman Empire • Politics led to his exile from Florence during which he wrote Commedia.

3. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) • Minor work Vitto Nuovo provides some information about Dante’s life. • At age 9, fell in love “at first sight” with Beatrice Portinari; met her again at age 18; she died when Dante was 25 • Love for Beatrice was a reason for living and writing • She is often depicted as semi-divine in his writing

4. Commedia (1308-1321) • Narrative poem in three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso. • Allegory: journey from sin to redemption. • Concerns: • Politics • Nature of justice • Spiritual transformation • Purpose of reading/writing poetry

5. Setting… • Opens on Good Friday, the year 1300; poem spans the time of Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection (3 days). • Dante, the Pilgrim is mid-way through his own life (around 35 years old).

6. Setting… • Dante finds himself lost in a Dark Wood and encounters 3 wild beasts: a leopard, lion, and she-wolf (symbols of the sins fraud, violence, and incontinence). • The poet Virgil (Aeneid) appears and explains that he will guide Dante through Hell.

7. Style & Language • Commedia or Comedy: poems were classified as High (“Tragedy”) or Low (“Comedy”). Low poems had happy endings and were of everyday or vulgar subjects; High poems were for more serious subjects. • Dante was the first to write about a high topic (the Redemption of Man) in the low style of comedy. • Dante wrote in Italian, not in Latin (usually used for serious literature); accessible to more people.

8. Textual Influences • Bible: central to people of Middle Ages; guide to knowing God and human conduct • Stories of exile (Hebrews exiled from Egypt) • Scholars (Scholastics) attempt to reconcile Old and New Testaments. • Dante attempts to reconcile secular and religious texts.

9. Textual Influences • Aeneid: Virgil’s epic poem about founding of Rome by Aeneas (son of Venus and Anchises) after fall of Troy • Aeneas travels to underworld and is given vision of his destiny to found Rome and lead it to empire • Dante extends to Holy Roman Empire and Church

10. Structure • Christian theology influences structure: Trinity (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) • Number 3 recurs throughout The Divine Comedy. • Poem has 3 parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, andParadiso.

11. Structure • Each part has 33 Cantos (Inferno has 34). • Each stanza contains 3 lines written in terza rima (the 1st and 3rd lines in each tercet rhyme; 2nd line indicates sound of next tercet: a,b,a…b,c,b…c,d,c). • Inferno: 9 (3x3) levels of Hell; 3 beasts (lion, leopard, she-wolf) obstruct Dante’s passage to the Hill of Joy; 3 rivers run through Dante’s Hell (Acheron, Phlegethon, Styx).

12. Categories of Sin • Three categories of sin punished in Inferno: sins of incontinence, violence, and fraud • Sins of incontinence (Upper Hell) • Lack of self-restraint; weakness • Harmful things we do to ourselves

13. Categories of Sin • Sins of violence (Lower Hell) • Malice; intent to do evil; ill will • Premeditated (full knowledge) and harmful to others • Sins of fraud (Lower Hell) • Also, malicious, premeditated, and harmful to others • Involve betrayal and pride

14. Contrapasso • Saint Thomas Aquinas (1224- 1274): Summa Theoligica: Contrapasso is “punishment that fits the crime” • The soul’s suffering in Hell extends or reflects the sin that predominated it; sin is a negation or absence. • Cold is the absence of heat energy, darkness is the absence of light, evil is the absence of moral energy • The Opportunists: didn’t stand for anything in life; move (chase banner) eternally.

15. Dante on Love… • Love is the movement of the spirit and energy of the universe; poetry is the medium to express the movement of love. • Energy of love manifested in three actions: • Romantic love: moves toward the object of love • Philosophical love: contemplates the world of nature through the exercise of reason • Mystical love: desires union with God

16. Five Attributes of Courtly Love: • Aristocratic: practiced by noble lords and ladies in royal palace or at court. • Ritualistic: gifts (songs, poems, bouquets, and ceremonial gestures) exchanged for approval. • Secret: lovers “lived in their own world” (the secret rendezvous); rules, codes, and commandments.

17. Five Attributes of Courtly Love: • Adulterous: escape from a political or economic marriage to produce royal offspring; not sexual, but sublime and sensual intimacy. • Literary: courtly love first gained attention as a subject and theme in imaginative literature.

18. Cantos V-VIII: • Mythological figures: Minos, Cerberus, Plutus, Phlegyas; perversions of classical figures. • Canto V: parody of confession: Minos, Francesca; Dido, love not suicide; Arthur legend, romantic love and love of country cannot both survive

19. Cantos VI: • Souls want to be remembered • Ciaocco: political prophecy: Dante set poem ten years before time of writing; dramatic irony • Aristotle: “As the soul becomes more perfect, so it is more perfect in its several operations”; souls will feel more pain after Last Judgment

20. Canto VII: • Souls cannot be recognized; didn’t recognize what was important in life • Fortune: appointed by God; changes in fortune fair because we shouldn’t care about what is fleeting, unimportant

21. Canto VII: • Aristotle: 3 types of anger: • Choleric (comes and goes quickly) • Bitter (lasts long in the heart of the afflicted, not released easily) • Difficult (hostile, directed toward those it should not be; only released if injury inflicted on an enemy) • Wrathful (Choleric) • Sullen (Bitter)

22. Canto VIII: • Virgil praises Dante for feeling anger toward FilippoArgenti • Time for feeling mercy is in life;in death, only feel justice • Dante will continue to learn this throughout journey

23. Canto VIII: • City of Dis: Phlegyas(continues wrathfulness) • Rebellious Angels refuse to let Dante and Virgil enter Lower Hell

24. Cantos IX-XI: Heresy • Heresy: lack of belief in Eternal life. • Farinata: Dante respects because tried to save Florence; predicts Dante’s exile.

25. Cantos IX-XI: Heresy • Calvalcanti: Dante’s guilt about Guido? Guido rejects what? • Architecture of Hell based on two works of Aristotle: Ethics and Physics, in which Aristotle identifies types of sin.

26. Cantos XII-XIV: Violent • Mythological beasts are half-human, half-animal: Minotaur, Centaurs, Harpies; heresy is distortion or perversion of what is natural. • Old Man of Crete: represents downfall or corruption of man since the Golden Age (gold head down to clay feet).

27. Cantos XV-XVII: Violent • Sodomites: ambiguous; both Dante and Virgil seem respectful of them; BrunettoLatinivernacular language; wrong vernacular? • Usurers: can only see purses around necks; do not want to be known. • Geryon: man, dragon, scorpion; symbol of fraud.

28. Cantos XVIII-XIX: Simple Fraud • Style of low comedy: physical action, farcical situations, bawdy (indecent) or rude jokes. • Vulgar language. • Souls do not want to be known. • Inverted castle.

29. Cantos XVIII-XIX: Simple Fraud • Apostrophe: “O”; Address to a character not present or dead, an abstract idea; communicates strong emotion; Dante’s strong disapproval of simony. • Virgil proud of Dante’s scorn for Nicholas III; lifts him up and carries him to next circle.

30. Cantos XX-XXIII: Simple Fraud • Canto XX: long story of founding of Mantua; civic background of Florence as important to Dante. • Continuation of distortion/perversion of God’s order: backward heads of Fortunetellers. • Virgil scolds Dante for pitying souls.

31. Cantos XX-XXIII: Simple Fraud • Cantos XXI & XXII: Demons; distortion of military procedures; obscenity. • Obscene language not the problem; blasphemy is. • No one trustworthy here. • Hypocrites: contrapasso?

32. Cantos XXIV-XXV: Simple Fraud • Vanni Fucci: prediction • Transformations: substance stolen as they stole others’ substance. • Cites Ovid and Lucan; transformation is a literary tradition. • Cacus: thievery trumps violence

33. Cantos XXVI-XXVII: Simple Fraud • Pilgrim in dangerous place • XXXVI: Ulysses; power and danger of language/rhetoric; Strait of Gibraltar; don’t go past your place • Dante implicates himself?; recognizes words are good and bad • Makes up Ulysses’ speech; poem is not fiction

34. Cantos XXVI-XXVII: Simple Fraud • XXXVII: In Middle Ages Virgil thought of as magician; Dante recasts • Guido da Montefeltro falsely councils Colonna family for Boniface VIII, who had Dante exiled. • Ciacco (glutton) predicts Boniface will exile Dante; Pope Nicholas (simonist) says waiting for Boniface. • Boniface still alive when Dante is writing

35. Cantos XXVIII-XXXI: Simple Fraud • Giants: Nimrod built Tower of Babel to challenge God; language divided into many tongues; we cannot understand each other • Dante recognizes sinners or sinners recognize him through dialects. • Language degrades as move through Hell

36. Cantos XXXII-XXIV: Cocytus • Caina: Cain killed brother Abel; betrayers of family • Antennora: Antenor, Trojan who sympathized with Greeks; betrayers of country • Ptolomea: Ptolemy, governor of Jericho who betrayed his guest the Macabees; betrayers of guests • Judecca: Judas Iscariot, gives up Jesus to authorities; betrayers of benefactors or leaders

37. Cantos XXXII-XXIV: Cocytus • XXXIII: Ugolino (Francesca?); tells story even though pains (?) him because will cause Ruggiero suffering; “I did not weep” (49); Francesca tells to be gracious (?) to Dante. • Where souls are from is important: Genoa, Pisa; Dante is critiquing the corruption in these places as well as Florence.

38. Cantos XXXII-XXIV: Cocytus • Distortion of Trinity: Satan’s three faces, wings • XXXIV: Satan absurd figure; no power.

39. Division, Free Will, & Unity • Division is a tool for deeper understanding; good or bad depending on how we use it. • Hell/Purgatory: divisions that make understanding of God’s love possible. • Why is free will necessary? Choice is necessary in salvation: if not chosen, acts are meaningless/love is meaningless. • Our unity with God will be better than Adam & Eve’s because choice is involved. • St. Thomas Aquinas: our job as humans is to use reason to decide to act correctly.

40. Artwork inspired by The Divine Comedy • In your notebook, record which character, scene, sin/punishment is being depicted in each of the following slides.

41. William Blake (1757-1827) • English poet, painter, and printmaker. • The Divine Comedy commissioned in 1826; series of engravings; he died before completed. • Seven engravings; watercolors. • Works reveal distrust materialism and corruptive nature of power. • Doesn’t share Dante’s admiration for ancient poets and Dante’s seeming pleasure at assigning punishments in Hell.

50. Paul Gustave Dore (1832-1883) • French artist, engraver, illustrator, sculptor. • Wood and steel engravings. • The Divine Comedy. • Other works: Bible, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Poe’s“The Raven.”