Highway to Hell

1
Highway to Hell

• Dante Alighieris Commedia
• AP Literature
• Wade Hampton High School

2
The Souls Journey

• In the middle of the journey of our life Dante
  incorporates in medias rae with a twist.
• Canto I introduces the entire Commedia
  thereafter each book has 33 cantos.

3
Sacred Geography

• Wood, mountain, desert the Exodus where the
  Israelites left Egypt.
• To Dante, Jerusalem was the center of the known
  world. The entrance to hell was near Jerusalem as
  the site of the Crucifixion.

• http//web.eku.edu/flash/inferno/

4
The Dark Wood of Error

• Dante realizes that he has been paying too much
  attention to worldly affairs and to material
  philosophy, and too little attention to God. He
  is guilty of Acedia, or Sloth. Acedia is central
  to the seven deadly sins.

5
Dantes Vernacular

• As Chaucer gave English to the inhabitants of
  Great Britain, so Dante gave Italian to Italy. He
  wrote in Italianas well as in terza rima. There
  are three cantica, 100 cantos, with the first
  canto serving as introduction.

6
Recognition of Sin

• As the soul sinned, so it is punishedexactly.
• It is the law of symbolic retribution.
• In Hell no one can care for another or receive
  comfort from another.

7
An Epic Poem

• Dante uses epic conventions in his poem.
• Some of them are Homeric simile
• Catalogue
• Invocation
• In medias rae
• Journey (to hell)

8
The Gates of Hell

• Hell is a triumph for the powers of evil. If you
  go to hell, you are passed under the triumphal
  arch where you abandon hope. People in hell
  wanted to be there. They chose their destiny.

9
Limbo

• When Virgil and Dante cross the River Acheron,
  they are in Upper Hell which includes Limbo. Here
  they meet the great classical poets, and Dante
  counts himself as 6th in their company.

10
The Cathonic Fart

• the tear-soaked ground gave out a sigh of wind
  III.130
• All of creation reacts physically to the entrance
  of a living being into Inferno.
• Dantes swoons are transitional devices.

11
Allegory in Dante

• Allegory is first used by St. Paul when referring
  to Abraham, Hagar and Sara. Four levels of
  Scripture include 1) Literal, 2) Allegorical, 3)
  Tropological, and 4) Anagogical.

12
How Allegory Works

• 1. Jerusalem is a city in Palestine.
• 2. Jerusalem is the Christian Church.
• 3. Jerusalem is the individual Christian in a
  state of grace.
• 4. Jerusalem is Heaven.

13
Rhetorical Devices

• Dantes second swoon happens here probably
  because he recognizes his own sin here.
• Paolo and Francesca are the O.J. Simpson case of
  his time.

14
The Power of Print

• If you believe in the power of literature, you
  have to believe in censorship because literature
  can move people to do things society doesnt want
  them to do.

15
Lady Fortune

• The wheel, because it can turn, has often been
  associated with chance and fortune. In this
  picture, Fortuna is shown turning the crank on
  the wheel of fortune. Such depictions sometimes
  contained the legend RegnaboRegnoRegnaviSum
  sine regno
• I shall reignI reignI reigned I don't reign

16
Three-fold method of reading

• Littera (Literal)
• Sensus (Sense)
• Sententia (Moral)
• Dante understood this and thought the Aeneid
  could be read as a moral piece. Obviously he
  wanted his own piece to raise moral questions.

17
More about reading

• In order to read Scripture correctly, one must be
  inspired by the Holy Spirit. Hollanders
  argumentIs allegory a mode of writing or a mode
  of reading?
• Typology understanding NT events in terms of OT
  stories.

18
Who decides?

• One of the great strengths of Commedia is Dantes
  references to real people and places in his work.

19
The White Rose

• The white rose is the heavenly vision of
  Paradisio. To get to that vision, one must
  understand God. The three-fold way of doing so
  includes 1) creatures, 2) Bible, and 3) mysticism.

20
Greatest Poet Who Ever Lived

• Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between
  them there is no third.
• T.S. Eliot

21
Dantes Contemporaries

• Boccaccio
• Lydgate
• Chaucer
• Petrarch
• Boethius

22
More information

• http//www.greatdante.net/time.html
• http//www.newadvent.org/cathen/04628a.htm
• http//ise.uvic.ca/Library/SLTnoframes/drama/medie
  valtragedy.html
• http//web.eku.edu/flash/inferno/

23
Great Books of the Western World

• Dantes work has been immortalized in art,
  criticism, and film. Lets look at a documentary
  about Commedia.