The structure of Dante’s HellHistory 100, April 19, 2006

Reminder: paper due next Monday.Prof. Ogilvie’s cell phone: (413) 687-0780

The medieval cosmos

The medieval cosmos

Sublunary Superlunary

Four elements (earth, air, fire, water) Quintessence

Generation and corruption Unchanging

Imperfect motion (straight) Perfect motion (circular)

Space is moralized. Up is good, down is bad; movement up and down has a moral implication

Dante’s journey from Hell to Heaven

• The “dark wood” of sin

• Pilgrimage in the hereafter

• Dante: the pilgrim and the poet

The moral geography

of Hell

• The hierarchy of sin

• Crime and punishment

Punishment of soothsayers (Canto 20)

Pen and ink drawing by Franz Stassen, 1906

Fortune’s lesson

Wheel of fortune. Woodcut, probably by Albrecht Dürer, from

Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff, 1494

Dante and the pagan heritage

• Virgil, Dante’s poetic guide

• The virtuous pagans in Limbo

• The anomalous pagans in Purgatory and Paradise

Dante’s epic and medieval culture

• Criticism of his age

• The Church

• Dante’s political enemies (e.g. Farinata, Canto 10)

• Accepted yet immoral behavior

• The moral clarity of Hell

• Canto 14, lines 13-15