The Divine Comedy

A Classical Quest through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise

Dante’s Structure:The Quest

For Salvation

Purgatorio

Paradiso

Inferno

POINTS TO REMEMBER

• THE INFERNO IS PART OF A WORK CALLED THE DIVINE COMEDY.

• IN THE MIDDLE AGES COMEDY MEANT SOME HUMAN EXPERIENCE THAT BEGAN IN TRAGEDY AND ENDED IN HAPPINESS.

• IT IS ALSO AN ALLEGORY.

Allegory• In an allegory the characters, setting and plot have a hidden or symbolic meaning beyond their literal meaning. •An Allegory teaches a moral lesson • TO POINT OUT TO THOSE STILL LIVING

THE ERROR OF THEIR WAYS AND TO PUT THEM ON THE PATH OF SALVATION.

DANTE ALIGHIERI

• Born in Florence, May, 1265.

• His family was old and of noble origin, but no longer wealthy.

Excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.

Exiled from his home, Florence, Italy.

• As customary, Dante had an arranged marriage in his youth to Gemma Donati, daughter of Manetto Donati.

• But Dante’s greatest love, and the greatest single influence on his work, was a woman named Beatrice.

• Dante met Beatrice when he was nine and she eight, at his father’s home, most likely for a May Day festival.

• Beatrice married another man about 1287, and died in 1290 at the age of 25.

• After her death in 1290, he dedicated a memorial “The New Life” (La Vita Nuova) to her.

BEATRICE

BEATRICE

•Beatrice was Dante’s angel. He could not touch her, because this was the age of Courtly love.

•Dante’s life and work were dedicated to her.

•Dante’s muse and inspiration— the female aspect behind thegenius.

•She is the divine light of love.

Virgil• Roman author of The Aeneid, the national epic of

Rome. • Virgil is Dante’s guide through Hell. • “forbids me to come there…” Virgil lived and died

before the establishment of Christ’s teachings in Rome and cannot therefore enter Heaven.

VIRGIL 70 B.C.E. 19 B.C.E

• He was the greatest of the Roman poets.

• His Aeneid provided the pattern for the structure of Dante’s Hell.

• Virgil was chosen as Dante’s guide through Hell, because Dante saw him as his master and inspiration for his poetic style.

• Virgil is also revered as the poet of the Roman Empire.

• The Aeneid tells of the Empire’s founding.

• Virgil also wrote in his fourth ecologue of the coming of a Wonder Child who will bring the Golden Age.

• This was interpreted in the Middle Ages as the coming of Christ.

THREE SECTIONS OF THE DIVINE COMEDYINFERNO, PURGATORIO, AND PARADISO

3 was a holy number to Dante— suggesting the Holy Trinity.

STRUCTURE OF THE DIVINE COMEDY

DANTE’S WORLD WAS ONE

THAT BELIEVED IN

MYSTICAL

CORRESPONDENCES AND

THE POWER OF NUMBERS,

STARS, AND STONES

EVENTS OF HISTORY—

CONTAINED A MYSTICAL

SIGNIFICANCE.

DANTE’S NUMERICAL

SYMBOLISM:

3 A SYMBOL OF THE HOLY

TRINITY

9 THREE TIMES THREE.

33 A MULTIPLE OF 3

THE 7 DAYS OF CREATION

10 CONSIDERED IN THE

MEDIEVAL PERIOD A

PERFECT NUMBER

100, THE MULTIPLE OF 10.

STRUCTURE OF THE DIVINE COMEDY

Each section has 33 cantos

(small division of poetry; canto

means “song.”)

The Inferno includes an

introductory canto, which

makes 100 cantos total (1oo

representing the idea of

perfection or spiritual

enlightenment achieved after

the journey).

• Three major divisions

of sin:

Incontinence

Violence

Fraudulence

Three-line poetric

structure:

Terza Rima

The Form of the Poem•Epic poem in the tradition of Homer (The Odyssey, The Iliad) and Virgil (The Aeneid)•Employs terza rima:

- three-line stanzas(tercet)- chain rhyme: A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, D-E-D- no limit to the number of lines

•No set rhythm for terza rima

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vitami ritrovai per una selva oscura,ché la diritta via era smarrita.

Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa duraesta selva selvaggia e aspra e forteche nel pensier rinova la paura!

Tant’ è amara che poco è più morte;ma per trattar del ben ch’i’ vi trovai,dirò de l’altre cose ch’i’ v’ho scorte.

Io non so ben ridir com’ i’ v’intrai,10

tant’ era pien di sonno a quel puntoche la verace via abbandonai.

Ma poi ch’i’ fui al piè d’un colle giunto,là dove terminava quella valleche m’avea di paura il cor compunto,

guardai in alto e vidi le sue spallevestite già de’ raggi del pianetache mena dritto altrui per ogne calle.

Midway upon the journey of our lifeI found myself within a forest dark,For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Ah me! how hard a thing it is to sayWhat was this forest savage, rough, and stern,Which in the very thought renews the fear.

So bitter is it, death is little more;But of the good to treat, which there I found,Speak will I of the other things I saw there.

I cannot well repeat how there I entered,10

So full was I of slumber at the momentIn which I had abandoned the true way.

But after I had reached a mountain's foot,At that point where the valley terminated,Which had with consternation pierced my heart,

Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders,Vested already with that planet's raysWhich leadeth others right by every road.

Dante’s Use of Terza Rima

The Inferno• Dante is the main character in The Divine

Comedy. • The Inferno is a telling of Dante’s journey

through the nine circles of Hell. • Dante begins his journey through Hell on

Good Friday and ends on Easter Sunday. • This symbolizes the journey of Jesus,

crucified on Good Friday, descended into Hell and was resurrected to live again on Easter Sunday.

THE SPIRALING INFERNO

• DANTE’S HELL IS A HUGE FUNNEL SHAPED PIT.

• THE CENTER IS LOCATED BENEATH JERUSALEM.

• THE NINE REGIONS ARE DESIGNATED FOR A PARTICULAR SIN.

• ITS REGIONS ARE ARRANGED IN A SERIES OF DESCENDING CIRCULAR STAIRCASES THAT DIMINISH IN CIRCUMFERENCE THE DEEPER THAT VIRGIL AND DANTE TRAVEL.

• THE HIGHER UP A SINNER, THE LIGHTER THE SIN, THE DEEPER THE SINNER, THE DARKER AND MORE TERRIBLE THE SIN.

The Nine Circles of Hell• Circle 1- LIMBO • Circle 2- The Lustful• Circle 3- The Gluttonous• Circle 4- Misers and Spendthrifts• Circle 5- Wrathful and Sullen• Circle 6- Heretics• Circle 7- The Violent (Murder & Suicide) • Circle 8- The Fraudulent• Circle 9- Traitors

Circles 2-5 are Sins without

Malice. They do not hurt

others.

Cantos 1-2The Dark Wood

Three Beasts:Leopard

LionShe-wolf

Virgil as Guide

Three Blessed Women:Virgin Mary

St. LuciaBeatrice

The Three Beasts by Priamo della Quercia (1444-1452)

Symbols: The three beasts (leopard, lion, and she-wolf) are symbols that represent the three divisions of sin (fraud, violence, and incontinence). These are the sins that were believed to have caused the downfall of humankind, and since Dante is at a crossroads in his life, this journey is intended to make him question his life and what punishment might await him for the sins he has committed.

Symbolism and Allusion: The three beasts might also symbolize the politics of the day. Because of the conflict between the Pope and the Emperor, leadership was continually in question. The Greyhound was believed to be an allusion to the hope for a future leader who would come to save Italy.

She-Wolf by Gustave

Dore

Lion by Gustave

Dore

Canto 3

Gates of HellVestibule

“Abandon all hope ye who enter here.”

Cowards The Indecisive Angels

Punishment: They are stung by insects

and endlessly chase banners.

Acheron RiverCharon

Canto 5

Circle 2

Lust

Punishment: The lustful souls are

blown about in a violent storm, without

hope of rest.

MinosFrancesca da Rimini and her lover Paolo

Cantos 31-34Circle 9Betrayal

Caïna—Traitors to kindred: They are immersed in ice up to their faces.Antenora—Traitors to country/political entities: They are immersed in ice and forced to eat out the skull of another sinner or have their skulls eaten by another sinner.Ptolomaea—Traitors to their guests: They lie supine in the ice, which covers them, except for their faces. Their bodies on Earth are immediately possessed by a demon, so what seems to be a walking man has reached the stage of being incapable of repentance.Judecca—Traitors to their lords and benefactors: They are completely encapsulated in ice, distorted in all conceivable positions. Satan appears upside down with three faces, and in each mouth eternally being eaten are Brutus, Cassius, and Judas Iscariot.