Eternity DAVID CURRELL THE END Contents Beginnings Middles Christianity theology and Antiquity poetry The Divine Comedy Structure and Narrative Medieval reading practices Dante and Florence politics and exile ID: 776802
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Slide1
CVSP 205: DANTE
PoetryandEternityDAVID CURRELL
Slide2THE END
Slide3Contents
Beginnings, MiddlesChristianity (theology) and Antiquity (poetry)The Divine Comedy: Structure and NarrativeMedieval reading practices Dante and Florence: politics and exile
Slide4Beginnings, Middles
“Midway along the journey of our life…”
Slide5Beginnings, Middles
“Midway along the journey of our life…”Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
Slide6Beginnings, Middles
“Midway along the journey of our life…”Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)Commencement of the poem’s narrative 1300 (precisely on eve of Good Friday)
Slide7Beginnings, Middles
“Midway along the journey of our life…”Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)Commencement of the poem’s narrative 1300 (precisely on eve of Good Friday) “Middle Ages”
Slide8CLASSICAL
CHRISTIAN
Slide9CLASSICAL
CHRISTIANReason (philosophy)
Aristotle
Virgil,
Aeneid
(poetry)
“Greater honor still they deigned to grant me:
they welcomed me as one of their own group,
so that I numbered sixth among such minds”
(
Inferno
IV.100-2)
City-state (Florence)
VIRGIL as guide
Slide10CLASSICAL
CHRISTIANReason (philosophy)
Aristotle
Virgil,
Aeneid
(poetry)
“Greater honor still they deigned to grant me:
they welcomed me as one of their own group,
so that I numbered sixth among such minds”
(
Inferno
IV.100-2)
City-state (Florence)
VIRGIL as guide
Faith (theology)
St. Augustine (
Confessions
,
City of God
)
St. Thomas Aquinas
City of God (as King)
(“Men, therefore, needed the restraint of laws,
needed a ruler able to at least
discern the towers of the True city.”
(
Purgatorio
XVI.94-6)
BEATRICE as guide
Slide11Slide12CLASSICAL
CHRISTIAN“Io non Enëa, io non Paulo sono
”
“
I
am not Aeneas, I am not Paul” (
Inferno
II.32)
Slide13Familiar Faces (?)
Slide14Familiar Faces (?)
Slide15Familiar Faces (?)
‘Brothers,’ I said, ‘who through a hundred thousandperils have made your way to reach the West,during this so brief vigil of our sensesthat is still reserved for us, do not denyyourself experience of what there is beyond,behind the sun, in the world they call unpeopled.Consider where you came from: you are Greeks!You were not born to live like mindless brutesbut to follow paths of excellence and knowledge.’
(
Inf.
XXVI.
112
-20)
Slide16Dante’s Translators
Slide17STRUCTURE
NARRATIVE
Slide18STRUCTURE
NARRATIVE3 spaces (hell, purgatory, heaven)
further subdivisions:
circles (hell)
terraces (purgatory)
spheres (heaven)
united by: divine love
Dante the Poet
Slide19STRUCTURE
NARRATIVE3 spaces (hell, purgatory, heaven)
further subdivisions:
circles (hell)
terraces (purgatory)
spheres (heaven)
united by: divine love
Dante the Poet
3
canticles
(
Inferno
,
Purgatorio
,
Paradiso
)
further subdivisions:
cantos (33 per canticle)
tercets
terza
rima
united by: journey
Dante the Pilgrim
Slide20Cosmos
InfernoPurgatorio
Paradiso
CIRCLES
TERRACES
SPHERES
Slide21Purgatory
Terraces: 7 “Capital Vices” purged
Shoreline (Arrival)
Entry: Dante receives 7 “P”s
First valley (Waiting)
LUST
GLUTTONY
GREED
SLOTH
WRATH
ENVY
PRIDE
Slide22Purgatory
Neither Creator nor his creatures ever,my son, lacked love. There are, as you well know,two kinds: the natural love, the rational.Natural love may never be at fault;the other may: by choosing the wrong goal,by insufficient or excessive zeal.While it is fixed on the Eternal Good,and observes temperance loving worldly goods,it cannot be the cause of sinful joys;
but when it turns toward evil or pursues
some good with not enough or too much zeal—
the creature turns on his Creator then.
(
Purgatorio
XVII.91-102)
LUST
GLUTTONY
GREED
SLOTH
WRATH
ENVY
PRIDE
TOO MUCH
NOT ENOUGH
TURNED
TOWARD
EVIL
Slide23Inferno
I.1-9 (Musa trans.)Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vitami ritrovai per una selva oscuraché
la
diritta
via era
smarrita
.
Ahi
quanto
a
dir
qual
era
è
cosa
dura
esta
selva selvaggia e
aspra
e forte
che
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
.
Midway along the journey of our life
I woke to find myself in a dark wood
f
or I had wandered off from the straight path.
How hard it is to tell what it was like,
this wood of wilderness, savage and stubborn
(the thought of it brings back all my old fears),
a bitter place! Death could scarce be bitterer.
But if I would show the good that came of it
I must talk about things other than the good.
Slide24Inferno
I.1-9 (Palma trans.)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
dura
esta
selva
selvaggia
e
aspra
e forte
che
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
.
Midway through the journey of our life, I found
myself in a dark wood, for I had strayed
from the straight pathway to this tangled ground.
How hard it is to tell of, overlaid
with harsh and savage growth, so wild and raw
the thought of it still makes me feel afraid.
Death scarce could be more bitter. But to draw
the lessons of the good that came my way,
I will describe the other things I saw.
Slide25Inferno
I.1-9 (Palma trans.)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
dura
esta
selva
selvaggia
e
aspra
e
forte
che
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
.
Midway through the journey of our life, I
found
myself in a dark wood, for I had
strayed
from the straight pathway to this tangled
ground
.
How hard it is to tell of,
overlaid
with harsh and savage growth, so wild and
raw
the thought of it still makes me feel
afraid
.
Death scarce could be more bitter. But to
draw
the lessons of the good that came my
way
,
I will describe the other things I
saw
.
Slide26Florence
Modern Italy
Medieval Tuscany
Slide27Florence
To me, however, the whole world is a homeland, like the sea to fish—though I drank from the Arno before cutting my teeth, and love Florence so much that, because I loved her, I suffer exile unjustly—and I will weight the balance of my judgement more with reason than with sentiment. (De vulgari eloquentia I.vi)
Was it not enough to correct you that, banished from the light for your first transgression, you should live in exile from the delights of your homeland (
I.vii
)
Slide28Florence
Be joyful, Florence, since you are so greatthat your outstretched wings beat over land and sea,and your name is spread throughout the realm of Hell!I was ashamed to find among the thievesfive of your most eminent citizens,a fact which does you very little honorBut if early morning dreams have any truth,you will have the fate, in not too long a time,that Prato and the others crave for you.
And were this the day, it would not be too soon!
Would it had come to pass, since pass it must!
The longer the delay, the more my grief. (
Inferno
XXVI.1-12)
Slide29Letter to Can Grande
“For the first sense is that which is contained in the letter, while there is another which is contained in what is signified by the letter. The first is called literal, while the second is called allegorical, or moral or anagogic. And in order to make this manner of treatment clear, it can be applied to the following verses: ‘When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous people, Judea was made his sanctuary, Israel his
dominion’
[Psalm 114:1-2]
. Now if we look at the
letter
alone, what is signified to us is the departure of the sons of Israel from Egypt during the time of Moses; if at the
allegory
, what is signified to us is our redemption through Christ
[typology]
; if at the
moral
sense, what is signified to us is the conversion of the soul from the sorrow and misery of sin to the state of grace; if at the
anagogic
, what is signified to us is the departure of the sanctified soul from bondage to the corruption of this world into the freedom of eternal glory
.”
Slide30Exodus in
PurgatorioWilliam Blake
Salvadore
Dali
Slide31Exodus in
Purgatorioand the celestial pilot stood asternwith blessedness inscribed upon his face,More than a hundred souls were in his ship:In exitu Israël de Aegypto
,
they all were singing with a single voice,
chanting it verse by verse until the end.
(
Purgatorio
II.43-48)
(Virgil and Dante on the shore at the foot of Mt. Purgatory)
Slide32Purgatorio
II: quizThree times I clasped my hands around his form,as many times they came back to my breast (Purgatorio II.80-1)
(The musician Casella recognizes Dante after disembarking)
Slide33Purgatorio
II: quizThree times I clasped my hands around his form,as many times they came back to my breast (Purgatorio II.80-1)‘So she spoke, but I, pondering it in my heart, yet wished
to take the soul of my dead mother in my arms. Three times
I started toward her, and my heart was urgent to hold her,
and three times she fluttered out of my hands like a shadow
or a dream, and the sorrow sharpened at the heart within me
(
Odyssey
11.204-8)
(The musician Casella recognizes Dante after disembarking)
Slide34Exodus in
PurgatorioTwo at the end were shouting “All of thosefor whom the Red Sea’s waters opened widewere dead before the Jordan saw their heirs;and those who found the task too difficultto keep on striving with Anchises’ son,
give themselves up to an inglorious life.”
(
Purgatorio
XVIII.133-38)
(Souls on terrace of the slothful call out to Dante and Virgil)
Slide35Purgatorio
XVI: Marco on free will
Slide36The spheres initiate your
tendenceies:not all of them—but even if they did,you have the light that shows you right from wrong,and your Free Will, which, though it may grow faintin its first struggles with the heavens, can stillsurmount all obstacles if nurtured well.You are free subjects of a greater power,a nobler nature that creates your mind,and over this the spheres have no control. (73-81)
Purgatorio
XVI: Marco on free will
Slide37Purgatorio
XVI: allegoryOn Rome, that brought the world to know the good,once shone two suns that lighted up two ways:the road of this world and the road of God.The one sun has put out the other’s light;the sword is now one with the crook—and fusedtogether thus, must bring about misrule,since joined, now neither fears the other one. (106-112)
Slide38Slide39THE END