Dante’s inferno

Reading ppt

Opens on the evening of Good Friday in the

year 1300. Traveling through a dark wood, Dante has lost

his path and now wanders fearfully through the forest; he has “strayed from the True Way into the Dark Wood of Error.” Dark Wood of Error= worldliness Allegorical journey- reference to a life’s journey,

veering from the straight road, being alone, losing hope, etc… all suggest an allegorical, NOT a literal journey

Canto I

We learn:

Dante the pilgrim is 35 years old; he is “midway along the journey of our life.” Biblical 3 score and 10 years of an average lifespan is 70 years, so half is 35.

Dante the pilgrim is “in a dark wood,” that he has “wandered off from the straight path,” and that he has strayed from “the path of truth.”

Dante the pilgrim is like a sinner in trouble We are not told how he gets into the dark wood, but

many people get there little by little. Most people take time to ask themselves, “how did I get here? Why am I this kind of person?”

Canto I: First 12 lines Close Read

He wants out and attempts to climb to the sun ( a symbol of god/salvation)

The sun shines down on a mountain above him, and he attempts to climb up it but his way is blocked by three beasts (these three beats all represent different aspects of world sin, and the three major classifications of the Inferno): Leopard= malice and fraud Lion = violence and ambition She-Wolf = incontinence (lack of self-

restraint)

Canto I

Taken from Jeremiah 5:6

“Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goeth out thence shall be torn to pieces: because their transgressors are many, and their backslidings are increased”

Dante's symbols, the leopard, the lion, and the she-wolf, symbolize carnal sins which are divided into three categories of severity: the sins of malice and fraud, the sins of violence and ambition, and the sins of incontinence, respectively.

Leopard tricks people with his spots (fraud); lions are sneaking and violent as they hunt (violence); and wolves are mysterious and usually work in packs.

Animal symbolism

Dante tries to reach the light by himself, but he fails. He

needs a guide. Just as Dante faces these three beats, a human figure

appears. It is Virgil (great Roman poet). Virgil = Human reason

Virgil has come to guide Dante from error, sent from God and Beatrice. They must first pass through Hell (the recognition of sin), Purgatory (the renunciation of sin), and only then can he come to the Paradise (the light of God).

Another guide, Beatrice will take over later Beatrice= divine love

Canto I

Look at lines 1-4: what tense is this written in? Why this tense? Lines 116-18: personification Lines 21-24: epic simile Lines 31-33: foreshadowing

Predictions include ideas of danger, deceit and fraud

The leopard is a real threat but it also represents an abstract idea (there is old story where a leopard changes his spots to fool the other animals)

Canto I

Aries= god of creation

“new creation” (line 39)= Easter (symbolic new awakening)

He is MOST fearful of the She-Wolf Temptation to sin “many souls she has brought to endless grief” He has an EMOTIONAL response to the She-Wolf

(not just physical fear); he is convinced she will destroy his hopes for reaching the “high summit.” “she has struck a mortal tremor in me” (line 87)

Canto I

(pg. 662)- Virgil’s life

Story of Anchises’ son, Aeneas: In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite.

Virgil is his true master and mentor (lines 81-83) She-Wolf

“but feeding, she grows hungrier than she was” (line 93)- gluttony; never satisfied

The She-Wolf kills all who approach her but someday a magnificent hound will come and chase her back to hell

Canto I

“set upon a burning mountain” (referring to

the mountain of Purgatory)- line 111 Possible purification in this place (between

heaven and hell) Suffering is borne in hope because it is a part of

purification that will result in the rise to Paradise.

Ends with Virgil offering to guide Dante to Paradise where Beatrice will take over (because of the She-Wolf, he cannot pass…)

Canto I

Canto III

Pages 665-671

Gates of Hell (portrayal of Hell as an actual

city) “sacred justice moved by architect” (line 4)-

God created Hell out of justice; a desire to see sin punished and virtues rewarded. (ultimate JUSTICE)

“Abandon all Hope, You Who Enter Here”

Canto III

Law of symbolic retribution

Punishment that symbolizes the crime “as they sinned, so are they punished” All about ULTIMATE JUSTICE

Canto III

Opportunists

Those souls who were neither good nor bad but only for themselves. They lived their lives without making conscious moral choices; therefore both Heaven and Hell have denied them. (reside in the Ante-Inferno)

They must constantly chase after a blank banner. Flies and wasps continually bite them and consume the blood and tears that flow from them. Dante recognizes Pope Celestine V

here (renounced his title)

Canto III

Symbolic retribution of the opportunists:

Took no sides- so they are given no place Ever-shifting illusion- so they pursue an ever-

shifting banner Their sin was a darkness- so they move in

darkness Guilty conscious pursued them- wasps pursue

them Actions were a moral filth- they run eternally

through the filth of worms and maggots

Canto III

Acheron (river) = the first of the rivers of Hell

Newly arrived damned souls wait to be ferried along

Charon= boatman of the river Refuses to take Dante because is a living soul (lines

85-90) Virgil forces Charon- God ordained it (lines 91-93)

Dante faints and does not awaken until they get to the other side “sleep comes over in a swoon” (line 133)

Canto III

“Divine (Godly) justice transforms and spurs

them so their dread turns wish: they yearn for what they fear” (lines 121-123). Hell= sin (allegorically) so…. Hell is their CHOICE, for divine grace is denied

to none who wish for it in their hearts.

Canto III

Canto V

Pages 674-682

Virgil and Dante are now in the

SECOND circle of Hell (size does not change, just “size” of crimes)

Minos: monster who stands in front of the endless line of sinners, assigning them to their torments. Wraps his tail around them;

number of times around = number of hell they are assigned

From classical Greek mythology; son of Europa and Zeus, descended in the form of a bull

Canto V

Sins of Lust: those who betrayed reason to

their appetites; their sin was to abandon themselves to the tempest of their passions: so they are swept forever in the tempest (storm) of Hell, forever denied the light of reason and of God.

List of famous “sinners” of lust Francesca tells her own story (as Paolo weeps) Dante immediately feels sympathy for these

souls and once again faints

Canto V

Semiramis: legendary queen of King Nimus; tricked her husband’s army and

had him killed. Dido: Queen of Carthage; falls in love, only to be left by the Trojan hero Aeneas Cleopatra: last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt; had affair with Caesar and bore a son

as co-ruler Helen- of Troy Achilles- Greek hero of Trojan War; died in an ambush after falling in love with

the Trojan princess Polyxena; overall, lustful character Paris- story of Troy Tristan- a Cornish hero and one of the Knights of the Round Table; he and Iseult

accidentally consume a love potion and fall in love, having a secret affair. Francesca and Paolo (tells their story…)

Allusions All are women who followed their passions

Canto V

The story of Francesca and Paolo

Bound in marriage to an old and deformed man, she fell in love with Paolo, her husband’s younger brother. One day, as she and Paolo sat reading an Arthurian Legend about the love of Lancelot and Guenivere, each began to feel that the story spoke to their own secret love,

When they came to a particular romantic moment in the story, they could not resist kissing. Francesca’s husband quickly discovered them and had Paolo killed.

Francesca and Paolo are doomed to spend eternity in the second level of Hell.

Canto V

Symbolic Retribution “stripped bare of ever light” (in darkness)- where

inappropriate sins/acts would have occurred Naked In a “hellish flight of storm” sweeping their souls and

whirling and battering them on- just as their sin is of the flesh, the storm racks their nerves and hurts their skin.

Out of control storm- they demonstrated lack of control as well

**Central theme- those who abandon reason for passion will be punished**

Canto V

Canto XXXIV

Pages 683-690

Ninth Circle : Cocytus

Compound fraud round 4: Judeca, the Treacherous to their Masters, and The Center: Satan

Betrayal- Dante considered this the worst sin They betrayed their masters; now they are

tortured by their “master” Satan (holds all three in his mouth) Judas Brutus Cassius

Canto XXXIV

Story of the three men in Satan’s mouth

Judas: Brutus: Cassius:

Canto XXXIV

Satan

“his great wings beating like a windmill. It is their beating that is the source of the icy wind of Cocytus” (LITERAL meaning of the frozen environement)

Titans only come up to his armpits (line 30) “bat like wings” (line 48-50) “Grotesque parody of the Trinity”- 3 faces with 3

sinners in his mouth (page 685) No longer beautiful as he was in heaven

Canto XXXIV

Canto XXXIV

Canto XXXIV