The
Divine Comedy , written by
Dante AlighieriDurante degli Alighieri , commonly known as Dante, was an Italian poet of the Middle Ages. His central work, the Divina Commedia , is often considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature.In...
between 1308 and his death in 1321, is widely considered the central epic poem of
Italian literatureItalian literature is literature written in the Italian language, particularly within Italy. It may also refer to literature written by Italians or in Italy in other languages spoken in Italy, often languages that are closely related to modern Italian....
, and is seen as one of the greatest works of
world literatureWorld literature refers to literature from all over the world, including African literature, Arabic literature, American literature, Latin-American literature, Caribbean Literature, Asian literature, European literature and Australasian literature.-History:...
. The poem's imaginative and
allegoricalAllegory in the Middle Ages was a vital element in the synthesis of Biblical and Classical traditions into what would become recognizable as Medieval culture...
vision of the
ChristianChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
afterlifeThe afterlife is the idea that the consciousness or mind of a being continues after physical death occurs. In many popular views, this continued existence often takes place in a spiritual or immaterial realm. Major views on the afterlife derive from religion, esotericism and metaphysics...
is a culmination of the
medieval world-viewMedieval philosophy is the philosophy of Europe and the Middle East in the era now known as medieval or the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century A.D. to the Renaissance in the sixteenth century...
as it had developed in the
Western ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and...
. It helped establish the
Tuscan dialectThe Tuscan dialect or the Tuscan language is an Italian dialect spoken in Tuscany, Italy. In many respects it wandered less than other Romance dialects from the Latin language and evolved linearly and homogeneously, without major influences from other foreign languages.Italian is in practice a...
in which it is written as the
ItalianItalian is a Romance language spoken by about 60 million people in Italy, and by a total of around 70 million in the world. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City...
standard. It is divided into three parts, the
InfernoInferno is the first part of Dante's Divine Comedy. The poem was written in the early 14th century. It is an allegory telling of the journey of Dante through what is largely the medieval concept of Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine Circles of suffering...
,
PurgatorioPurgatorio is the second part of Dante's Divine Comedy. It is an allegory telling of the climb of Dante up the Mount of Purgatory, guided by the Roman poet Virgil...
, and
ParadisoParadiso is the third and final part of Dante's Divine Comedy. It is an allegory telling of Dante's vision of heaven, guided by Beatrice, Dante's ideal woman...
.
Originally the work was simply titled
Commedia and was later christened
Divina by
Giovanni BoccaccioGiovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...
.
The
Divine Comedy , written by
Dante AlighieriDurante degli Alighieri , commonly known as Dante, was an Italian poet of the Middle Ages. His central work, the Divina Commedia , is often considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature.In...
between 1308 and his death in 1321, is widely considered the central epic poem of
Italian literatureItalian literature is literature written in the Italian language, particularly within Italy. It may also refer to literature written by Italians or in Italy in other languages spoken in Italy, often languages that are closely related to modern Italian....
, and is seen as one of the greatest works of
world literatureWorld literature refers to literature from all over the world, including African literature, Arabic literature, American literature, Latin-American literature, Caribbean Literature, Asian literature, European literature and Australasian literature.-History:...
. The poem's imaginative and
allegoricalAllegory in the Middle Ages was a vital element in the synthesis of Biblical and Classical traditions into what would become recognizable as Medieval culture...
vision of the
ChristianChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
afterlifeThe afterlife is the idea that the consciousness or mind of a being continues after physical death occurs. In many popular views, this continued existence often takes place in a spiritual or immaterial realm. Major views on the afterlife derive from religion, esotericism and metaphysics...
is a culmination of the
medieval world-viewMedieval philosophy is the philosophy of Europe and the Middle East in the era now known as medieval or the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century A.D. to the Renaissance in the sixteenth century...
as it had developed in the
Western ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and...
. It helped establish the
Tuscan dialectThe Tuscan dialect or the Tuscan language is an Italian dialect spoken in Tuscany, Italy. In many respects it wandered less than other Romance dialects from the Latin language and evolved linearly and homogeneously, without major influences from other foreign languages.Italian is in practice a...
in which it is written as the
ItalianItalian is a Romance language spoken by about 60 million people in Italy, and by a total of around 70 million in the world. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City...
standard. It is divided into three parts, the
InfernoInferno is the first part of Dante's Divine Comedy. The poem was written in the early 14th century. It is an allegory telling of the journey of Dante through what is largely the medieval concept of Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine Circles of suffering...
,
PurgatorioPurgatorio is the second part of Dante's Divine Comedy. It is an allegory telling of the climb of Dante up the Mount of Purgatory, guided by the Roman poet Virgil...
, and
ParadisoParadiso is the third and final part of Dante's Divine Comedy. It is an allegory telling of Dante's vision of heaven, guided by Beatrice, Dante's ideal woman...
.
Originally the work was simply titled
Commedia and was later christened
Divina by
Giovanni BoccaccioGiovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...
. The first published edition to add the word
divine to the title was that of the Venetian
HumanistRenaissance Humanism was a European intellectual movement that was a crucial component of the Renaissance, beginning in Florence in the latter half of the 14th century. The humanist movement developed from the rediscovery by European scholars of Latin literary and Greek literary texts. Initially,...
Lodovico DolceLodovico Dolce was an Italian theorist of painting. He was a broadly-based Venetian humanist and prolific author, translator and editor; he is now remembered for his Dialogue on Painting.-Biography:...
in 1555.
Structure and story
The
Divine Comedy is composed of over 14,000 lines that are divided into three canticas (Ital. pl.
cantiche) —
Inferno (
HellIn many religious traditions, Hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife, often in the underworld. Religions with a linear divine history often depict Hell as endless...
),
Purgatorio (
PurgatoryPurgatory is the condition or process of purification in which the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for Heaven. This is an idea that has ancient roots and is well-attested in early Christian literature, while the conception of purgatory as a geographically situated place is...
), and
Paradiso (
ParadiseHeaven may refer to the physical heavens, the sky or the seemingly endless expanse of the universe beyond. This is the traditional literal meaning of the term in English...
) — each consisting of 33
cantoThe canto is a principal form of division in a long poem, especially the epic. The word comes from Italian, from the Latin canto, meaning "I sing," and has a corollary in the Sanskrit , or "chapter." Famous examples of epic poetry which employ the canto division are Valmiki's The Ramayana ,...
s (Ital. pl.
canti). An initial canto serves as an introduction to the poem and is generally considered to be part of the first cantica, bringing the total number of cantos to 100. The number 3 is prominent in the work, represented here by the length of each cantica. The verse scheme used,
terza rimaTerza rima is a rhyming verse stanza form that consists of an interlocking three line rhyme scheme. It was first used by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri.-Form:Terza rima is a three-line stanza using chain rhyme in the pattern A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, D-E-D...
, is hendecasyllabic (lines of eleven syllables), with the lines composing
tercetA tercet is composed of three lines of poetry, forming a stanza or a complete poem. English-language haiku is an example of an unrhymed tercet poem...
s according to the
rhyme schemequote this will not help you at all with home work language practice week 7 msl students in 6th gradedo not use wiki for msl language practice week seven it will not help with unless we are doing stanza's and things...
aba, bcb, cdc, ded, ....
The poem is written in the first person, and tells of Dante's journey through the three realms of the dead, lasting from the night before
Good FridayGood Friday, also called Holy Friday, Black Friday, or Great Friday, is a holiday observed primarily by adherents to Christianity commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus and his death at Calvary...
to the Wednesday after
EasterEaster is the most important annual religious feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to Christian scripture, Jesus was resurrected from the dead on the third day from his crucifixion...
in the spring of 1300. The Roman poet
VirgilPublius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works—the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the Aeneid—although several minor poems are also attributed to him.The son of a farmer, Virgil came to be...
guides him through Hell and Purgatory;
BeatriceBeatrice "Bice" di Folco Portinari was a Florentine woman and the principal inspiration for Dante Alighieri's Vita Nuova. Beatrice also appears as his guide in Divine Comedy in the last book, Paradise, and in the last four canti of Purgatory...
, Dante's ideal woman, guides him through Heaven. Beatrice was a Florentine woman whom he had met in childhood and admired from afar in the mode of the then-fashionable
courtly loveCourtly love was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility. It was also generally not practiced between husband and wife....
tradition which is highlighted in Dante's earlier work
La Vita NuovaLa Vita Nuova is a medieval text written by Dante Alighieri in 1295. It is an expression of the medieval genre of courtly love in a prosimetrum style, a combination of both prose and verse...
.
In Northern Italy's political struggle between
Guelphs and GhibellinesThe Guelphs and Ghibellines were factions supporting, respectively, the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor in central and northern Italy during the 12th and 13th centuries...
, Dante was part of the Guelphs, who in general favored the Papacy over the
Holy Roman EmperorThe Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a Middle Ages ruler, who as German King had in addition received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope of the Holy Roman Church, and after the 16th century, the elected monarch governing the Holy Roman Empire, a Central...
. Florence's Guelphs split into factions around 1300, the White Guelphs, and the Black Guelphs. Dante was among the White Guelphs who were exiled in 1302 by the Lord-Mayor Cante de'
Gabrielli220px|right|The Gabrielli Madonna, by Mello da Gubbio. Gubbio, Pinacoteca Civica.
Giovanni Gabrielli, lord of Gubbio, is introduced to the Blessed Virgin Mary by a group of Saints...
di
GubbioGubbio is a town and comune in the far northeastern part of the Italian province of Perugia It is located on the lowest slope of Mt...
, after troops under
Charles of ValoisCharles of Valois was the fourth son of Philip III of France and Isabella of Aragon. His mother was a daughter of James I of Aragon and Yolande of Hungary. He was a member of the House of Capet and founded the House of Valois...
entered the city, at the request of
Pope Boniface VIIIPope Boniface VIII , born Benedetto Caetani, was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1294 to 1303. Today, Boniface VIII is probably best remembered for his feuds with Dante, who placed him in a circle of Hell in his Commedia, and King Philip IV of France.- Biography :Caetani was born in 1235 in...
, who supported the Black Guelphs. This exile, which lasted the rest of Dante's life, shows its influence in many parts of the Comedy, from prophecies of Dante's exile to Dante's views of politics to the eternal damnation of some of his opponents.
In Hell and Purgatory, Dante shares in the
sinSin is a term used mainly in a religious context to describe an act that violates a moral rule, or the state of having committed such a violation. Commonly, the moral code of conduct is decreed by a divine entity, i.e...
and the penitence respectively. The last word in each of the three parts of the
Divine Comedy is
stelle, "stars."
Inferno
The poem begins on the night before Good Friday in the year 1300, "halfway along our life's path" (
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita). Dante is thirty-five years old, half of the biblical life expectancy of 70 (
PsalmsPsalms is a book of the Hebrew Bible , included in the collected works known as the "Writings" or Ketuvim.-Etymology:...
90:10), lost in a dark
woodA forest is an area with a high density of trees. There are many definitions of a forest, based on the various criteria. These plant communities presently cover approximately 9.4% of the Earth's surface in many different regions and function as habitats for organisms, hydrologic flow modulators,...
(perhaps, allegorically, contemplating
suicideSuicide is the intentional killing of one's self. Many dictionaries also note the metaphorical sense of "willful destruction of one's self-interest"...
—as "wood" is figured in Canto XIII, and the suggestion of suicide is made in Canto I of
Purgatorio with "This man has not yet seen his last evening; But, through his madness, was so close to it, That there was hardly time to turn about" implying that when Virgil came to him he was on the verge of suicide or morally passing the point of no return), assailed by beasts (a lion, a leopard, and a she-wolf) he cannot evade, and unable to find the "straight way" (
diritta via) - also translatable as "right way" - to salvation (symbolized by the sun behind the mountain). Conscious that he is ruining himself and that he is falling into a "deep place" (
basso loco) where the sun is silent (l sol tace
), Dante is at last rescued by Virgil, and the two of them begin their journey to the underworld. Each sin's punishment in Inferno is a contrapasso, a symbolic instance of
poetic justicePoetic justice is a literary device in which virtue is ultimately rewarded or vice punished, often in modern literature by an ironic twist of fate intimately related to the character's own conduct.- Origin of the term :...
; for example, fortune-tellers have to walk with their heads on backwards, unable to see what is ahead, because that was what they had tried to do in life:
"they had their faces twisted toward their haunches
and found it necessary to walk backward,
because they could not see ahead of them.
…and since he wanted so to see ahead,
he looks behind and walks a backward path.
Allegorically, the Inferno represents the Christian soul seeing sin for what it really is, and the three beasts represent three types of sin: the self-indulgent, the violent, and the malicious. These three types of sin also provide the three main divisions of Dante's Hell: Upper Hell (the first 5 Circles) for the self-indulgent sins; Circles 6 and 7 for the violent sins; and Circles 8 and 9 for the malicious sins.
Purgatorio
Having survived the depths of Hell, Dante and Virgil ascend out of the undergloom, to the Mountain of Purgatory on the far side of the world. The Mountain is on an island, the only land in the Southern Hemisphere, created by the displacement of rock which resulted when Satan's fall created Hell (which Dante portrays as existing underneath
JerusalemJerusalem is the capital of Israel and its largest city in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if disputed East Jerusalem is included...
). At the shores of
PurgatoryPurgatory is the condition or process of purification in which the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for Heaven. This is an idea that has ancient roots and is well-attested in early Christian literature, while the conception of purgatory as a geographically situated place is...
, Dante and
VirgilPublius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works—the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the Aeneid—although several minor poems are also attributed to him.The son of a farmer, Virgil came to be...
are attracted by a musical performance by Casella, but are reprimanded by
CatoMarcus Porcius Cato Uticensis , known as Cato the Younger to distinguish him from his great-grandfather , was a politician and statesman in the late Roman Republic, and a follower of the Stoic philosophy...
, a pagan who has been placed by God as the general guardian of the approach to the mountain. The text gives no indication whether or not Cato's soul is destined for heaven: his symbolic significance has been much debated (Cantos I and II).
Allegorically, the Purgatorio
represents the Christian life. Christian souls arrive escorted by an angel, singing in exitu Israel de Aegypto
. In his Letter to
CangrandeCangrande della Scala was an Italian nobleman, the most celebrated of the della Scala family which ruled Verona from 1277 until 1387. Now perhaps best known as the leading patron of the poet Dante Alighieri, Cangrande was in his own day chiefly acclaimed as a successful warrior and autocrat...
, Dante explains that this reference to Israel leaving Egypt refers both to the redemption of ChristChrist is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed". It is a translation of the Hebrew . The term "Christ" was a title rather than a proper name. In the four gospels in the New Testament, the word "Christ" is nearly always preceded by the definite article...
and to "the conversion of the soul from the sorrow and misery of sin to the state of grace." Appropriately, therefore, it is Easter Sunday when Dante and Virgil arrive.
The Purgatorio
is notable for demonstrating the medieval knowledge of a spherical EarthThe concept of a spherical Earth dates back to around the 6th century BCE in ancient Greek philosophy. It remained a matter of philosophical speculation until the 3rd century BCE when Hellenistic astronomy established the spherical shape of the earth as a physical given.The concept of a spherical...
. During the poem, Dante discusses the different stars visible in the southern hemisphereThe Southern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is south of the equator—the word hemisphere literally means 'half ball'...
, the altered position of the sun, and the various timezones of the Earth. At this stage it is, Dante says, sunset at Jerusalem, midnight on the River Ganges, and sunrise in Purgatory.
Paradiso
After an initial ascension (Canto I), Beatrice guides Dante through the nine celestial spheresThe celestial spheres, or celestial orbs, were the fundamental celestial entities of the cosmological celestial mechanics first invented by Eudoxus, and developed by Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus and others...
of HeavenHeaven may refer to the physical heavens, the sky or the seemingly endless expanse of the universe beyond. This is the traditional literal meaning of the term in English...
. These are concentric and spherical, similar to AristotelianAristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
and PtolemaicClaudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Greek ancestry. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer and a poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under the Roman Empire, and is believed to have been born in the town of...
cosmology. Dante admits the vision of heaven he receives is the one that his human eyes permit him to see. Thus, the vision of heaven found in the Cantos is Dante's own personal vision, ambiguous in its true construction. The addition of a moral dimension means that a soul that has reached Paradise stops at the level applicable to it. Souls are allotted to the point of heaven that fits with their human ability to love God. Thus, there is a heavenly hierarchy. All parts of heaven are accessible to the heavenly soul. That is to say all experience God but there is a hierarchy in the sense that some souls are more spiritually developed than others. This is not determined by time or learning as such but by their proximity to God (how much they allow themselves to experience Him above other things). In Dante's schema all souls in Heaven are, on some level, always in contact with God.
While the structures of the Inferno and Purgatorio were based around different classifications of sin, the structure of the Paradiso is based on the four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues.
Earliest manuscripts
According to the Italian Dante Society, no original manuscript written by Dante has survived, though there are many manuscript copies from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries - more than 825 are listed on their site. The oldest belongs to the 1330s, almost a decade after Dante's death. The most precious ones are the three full copies made by Giovanni BoccaccioGiovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...
(1360s), who himself did not have the original manuscript as a source.
The first printed edition was published in FolignoFoligno is an ancient town of Italy in the province of Perugia in east central Umbria, on the Topino river where it leaves the Apennines and enters the wide plain of the Clitunno river system...
, Italy, by Johann Numeister and Evangelista Angelini on 11 April 1472. Of the 300 copies printed, fourteen still survive. The original printing press is on display in the Oratorio della Nunziatella in Foligno.
Thematic concerns
The Divine Comedy can be described simply as an allegoryAllegory in the Middle Ages was a vital element in the synthesis of Biblical and Classical traditions into what would become recognizable as Medieval culture...
: Each canto, and the episodes therein, can contain many alternative meanings. Dante's allegory, however, is more complex, and, in explaining how to read the poem - see the Letter to CangrandeCangrande della Scala was an Italian nobleman, the most celebrated of the della Scala family which ruled Verona from 1277 until 1387. Now perhaps best known as the leading patron of the poet Dante Alighieri, Cangrande was in his own day chiefly acclaimed as a successful warrior and autocrat...
- he outlines other levels of meaning besides the allegory: the historical, the moral, the literal, and the anagogicalAnagoge is a Greek word suggesting a "climb" or "ascent" upwards. The anagogical is a method of spiritual interpretation of literal statements or events, especially the Scriptures....
.
The structure of the poem, likewise, is quite complex, with mathematical and numerological patterns arching throughout the work, particularly threes and nines, which are related to the TrinityThe Christian doctrine of the Trinity teaches the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead. The doctrine states that God is the Triune God, existing as three persons, or in the Greek hypostases, but one being. Each of the persons is understood as having the one...
. The poem is often lauded for its particularly human qualities: Dante's skillful delineation of the characters he encounters in Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise; his bitter denunciations of FlorentineFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence...
and Italian politics; and his powerful poetic imagination. Dante's use of real characters, according to Dorothy Sayers in her introduction to her translation of the Inferno, allows Dante the freedom of not having to involve the reader in description, and allows him to "[make] room in his poem for the discussion of a great many subjects of the utmost importance, thus widening its range and increasing its variety."
Dante called the poem "Comedy" (the adjective "Divine" was added later in the 14th century) because poems in the ancient world were classified as High ("Tragedy") or Low ("Comedy"). Low poems had happy endings and were of everyday or vulgar"Vulgarism" derives from Latin vulgus, the "mean folk", and has carried into English its original connotations linking it with the low and coarse motivations that were supposed to be naturally endemic to the meaner classes, who were not moved by higher motives like fame for posterity and honor...
subjects, while High poems were for more serious matters. Dante was one of the first in the Middle Ages to write of a serious subject, the Redemption of Man, in the low and vulgar Italian language and not the Latin language as one might expect for such a serious topic. Boccaccio's account that an early version of the poem was begun by Dante in LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
is still controversial.
Dante's personal involvement
In his allegoricalAllegory in the Middle Ages was a vital element in the synthesis of Biblical and Classical traditions into what would become recognizable as Medieval culture...
description of sin (in the Inferno) and virtue (in the Purgatorio and Paradiso), Dante draws on real characters from ancient GreekAncient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic , Classical , and Hellenistic periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
and RomanAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
myths and history, and from his own times. However, his own actions often also illustrate the concepts he is discussing. For example, Dante shares the fleshly sins of the damned at several points in the upper circles of HellIn many religious traditions, Hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife, often in the underworld. Religions with a linear divine history often depict Hell as endless...
. At the first circle where the virtuous pagans who pursued honor above all else are punished by eternally knowing they have fallen short for their lack of faith, Dante shares with them their love of honor, as evidenced by the word “honor” being used repeatedly in the Canto. Similarly, at the third circle where CiaccoCiacco is one of the characters in the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri that were not yet well defined by historians. This is how he presents himself to Dante when he is in Hell:«Ye citizens were wont to call me Ciacco;
...
and other gluttons are punished for their appetites, Dante’s appetite for political information about his fellow Florentines appears equally gluttonous:
"And I to him: I wish thee still to teach me,
And make a gift to me of further speech.
Farinata and Tegghiaio, once so worthy,
Jacopo Rusticucci, Arrigo, and Mosca,
And others who on good deeds set their thoughts,
Say where they are, and cause that I may know them;
For great desire constraineth me to learn
If Heaven doth sweeten them, or Hell envenom."
Conversely, in the Purgatorio, after leaving the terrace of the proud, Dante has learned from the example set by Omberto and suppresses his own pride, declining to speak of his achievements:
"And I: Through midst of Tuscany there wanders
A streamlet that is born in Falterona,
And not a hundred miles of course suffice it;
From thereupon do I this body bring.
To tell you who I am were speech in vain,
Because my name as yet makes no great noise."
Scientific themes
Although the Divine Comedy is primarily a religious poem, discussing sin, virtue, and theology, Dante also discusses several elements of the science of his day (this mixture of science with poetry has received both praise and blame over the centuries). The Purgatorio repeatedly refers to the implications of a spherical EarthThe concept of a spherical Earth dates back to around the 6th century BCE in ancient Greek philosophy. It remained a matter of philosophical speculation until the 3rd century BCE when Hellenistic astronomy established the spherical shape of the earth as a physical given.The concept of a spherical...
, such as the different stars visible in the southern hemisphereThe Southern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is south of the equator—the word hemisphere literally means 'half ball'...
, the altered position of the sunThe Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other matter orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 99.86% of the Solar System's mass....
, and the various timezones of the Earth. For example, at sunset in Purgatory it is midnight at the EbroThe Ebro or Ebre is Spain's most voluminous river. Its source is in Fontibre . It flows through cities such as Miranda de Ebro, Logroño, Zaragoza, Flix, Tortosa, and Amposta before discharging in a delta on the Mediterranean Sea in the province of Tarragona.-Name:The Romans named this river Iber...
(a river in Spain), dawn in Jerusalem, and noon on the River Ganges:
Just as, there where its Maker shed His blood,
the sun shed its first rays, and Ebro lay
beneath high Libra, and the ninth hour's rays
were scorching Ganges' waves; so here, the sun
stood at the point of day's departure when
God's angel happy showed himself to us.
Dante travels through the centre of the Earth in the Inferno, and comments on the resulting change in the direction of gravity in Canto XXXIV (lines 76–120). A little earlier (XXXIII, 102–105), he queries the existence of wind in the frozen inner circle of hell, since it has no temperature differentials.
Inevitably, given its setting, the Paradiso discusses astronomyAstronomy is the scientific study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere...
extensively, but of course in the PtolemaicIn astronomy, the geocentric model or the Ptolemaic worldview of the universe is the theory, now superseded, that the Earth is the center of the universe and other objects go around it. Belief in this system was common in ancient Greece...
sense. The Paradiso also discusses the importance of the experimental methodIn scientific research, an experiment is a method of investigating causal relationships among variables, or to test a hypothesis. An experiment is a cornerstone of the empirical approach to acquiring data about the world and is used in both natural sciences and social sciences...
in science, with a detailed example in lines 94–105 of Canto II:
"Yet an experiment, were you to try it,
could free you from your cavil and the source
of your arts' course springs from experiment.
Taking three mirrors, place a pair of them
at equal distance from you; set the third
midway between those two, but farther back.
Then, turning toward them, at your back have placed
a light that kindles those three mirrors and
returns to you, reflected by them all.
Although the image in the farthest glass
will be of lesser size, there you will see
that it must match the brightness of the rest."
A briefer example occurs in Canto XV of the Purgatorio (lines 16-21), where Dante points out that both theory and experiment confirm that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflectionReflection is the change in direction of a wavefront at an interface between two differentmedia so that the wavefront returns into the medium from which it originated. Common examples include the reflection of light, sound and water waves...
. Other references to science in the Paradiso include descriptions of clockA clock is an instrument used to indicate, measure, keep, and co-ordinate time. The word clock is derived ultimately from the Celtic words clagan and clocca meaning "bell"...
work in Canto XXIV (lines 13–18), and Thales' theoremIn geometry, Thales' theorem states that if A, B and C are points on a circle where the line AC is a diameter of the circle, then the angle ABC is a right angle...
about triangles in Canto XIII (lines 101–102).
Galileo GalileiGalileo Galilei was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism...
is known to have lectured on the Inferno, and it has been suggested that the poem may have influenced some of Galileo's own ideas regarding mechanics.
Islamic philosophy
In 1919 Professor Miguel Asín PalaciosMiguel Asín Palacios was a Spanish scholar , and a Roman Catholic priest. He is primarily known for suggesting Islamic sources for ideas and motifs present in Dante's Divine Comedy, which he discusses in his book La Escatología musulmana en la Divina Comedia [Muslim Eschatology in the Divine...
, a Spanish scholar and a Catholic priest, published La Escatología musulmana en la Divina Comedia ("Islamic EschatologyEschatology is a part of theology and philosophy concerned with what are believed to be the final events in the history of the world, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world...
in the Divine Comedy"), an account of parallels between early Islamic philosophyEarly Islamic philosophy or classical Islamic philosophy is a period of intense philosophical development beginning in the 2nd century AH of the Islamic calendar and lasting until the 6th century AH...
and the Divine Comedy. Palacios argued that Dante derived many features of and episodes about the hereafter indirectly from the spiritual writings of Ibn ArabiIbn 'Arabī was an Andalusian Arab Sufi mystic and philosopher. His full name was Abū 'Abdullāh Muḥammad ibn 'Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn al-`Arabī al-Hāṭimī al-Ṭā'ī .-Biography:...
and from the Isra and Mi'rajIn Islamic tradition, the Night Journey, Isra and Mi'raj , are the two parts of a journey that the Islamic prophet Muhammad took in one night, around the year 621. Many Muslims consider it a physical journey but some scholars consider it a dream or vision...
or night journey of MuhammadMuhammad ibn ‘Abdullāh , is the founder of the religion of Islam [ إِسْلامْ ] and is regarded by Muslims as a messenger and prophet of , the last and the greatest law-bearer in a series of Islamic prophets as taught by the...
to heaven. The latter is described in the HadithHadith are oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Hadith are regarded by traditional schools of jurisprudence as important tools for determining the Muslim way of life, the sunnah. Hadith were originally oral traditions of Muhammad's actions and customs...
and the Kitab al MirajThe Kitab al Miraj is a Muslim book concerned with Muhammad's ascension into the Heavens , following his miraculous one-night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem...
(translated into Latin in 1264 or shortly before as Liber Scalae Machometi, "The Book of Muhammad's Ladder"), and has some slight similarities to the Paradiso, such as a sevenfold division of Paradise, although this is not unique to the Kitab al Miraj.
Dante lived in a Europe of substantial literary and philosophical contact with the Muslim world, encouraged by such factors as AverroismAverroism is the term applied to either of two philosophical trends among scholastics in the late 13th century, the first of which was based on the Arab philosopher Averroës or Ibn Rushd's interpretations of Aristotle and his reconciliation of Aristotelianism with the Islamic faith...
and the patronage of Alfonso X of CastileAlfonso X was a Castilian monarch who ruled as the King of Castile, León and Galicia from 1252 until his death...
. Of the twelve wise men Dante meets in Canto X of the Paradiso, Thomas AquinasSaint Thomas Aquinas, O.P. was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in the Dominican Order from Italy, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus and Doctor Communis...
and, even more so, Siger of BrabantSiger of Brabant was a 13th century philosopher from the southern Low Countries who was an important proponent of Averroism...
were strongly influenced by Arabic commentators on AristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
. Medieval Christian mysticismChristian mysticism refers to the practice and experiential knowledge of deep prayer involving the person of Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. This approach and lifestyle is distinguished from more "mainstream" forms of Christian practice by its aim and depth of devotion...
also shared the NeoplatonicNeoplatonism is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, founded by Plotinus and based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists...
influence of SufisSufi cosmology is a general term for cosmological doctrines associated with the mysticism of Sufism. These may differ from place to place, order to order and time to time, but overall show the influence of several different cosmographies:...
such as Ibn Arabi. Philosopher Frederick CoplestonFrederick Charles Copleston, SJ, CBE was a Jesuit priest and historian of philosophy.-Biography:...
argued in 1950 that Dante's respectful treatment of AverroesAbū 'l-Walīd Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Rushd , better known just as Ibn Rushd , and in European literature as Averroes , was an Andalusian Muslim polymath of Moroccan origins; a master of Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki law and jurisprudence, logic, psychology, politics, Arabic music...
, Avicenna, known as Abū Alī Sīnā or Ibn Sīnā , and commonly known in English by his Latinized name Avicenna , was a Persian polymath and the foremost physician and philosopher of his time...
, and Sigier of Brabant indicates his acknowledgement of a "considerable debt" to Islamic philosophy.
Although this philosophical influence is generally acknowledged, many scholars have not been satisfied that Dante was influenced by the Kitab al Miraj. The twentieth century Orientalist Francesco Gabrieli expressed skepticism regarding the claimed similarities, and the lack of evidence of a vehicle through which it could have been transmitted to Dante. Even so, while dismissing the probability of some influences posited in Palacios' work, Gabrieli recognized that it was "at least possible, if not probable, that Dante may have known the Liber scalae and have taken from it certain images and concepts of Muslim eschatology". Shortly before her death, the Italian philologist Maria Corti pointed out that, during his stay at the court of Alfonso X, Dante's mentor Brunetto LatiniBrunetto Latini was an Italian philosopher, scholar and statesman.-Life:...
met Bonaventura de Siena, a Tuscan who had translated the Kitab al Miraj from Arabic into Latin. According to Corti, Brunetto may have provided a copy of that work to Dante. However, no evidence exists to support this speculation.
Literary influence in the English-speaking world and beyond
The work was not always so well regarded. After being recognized as a masterpiece in the first centuries following its publication, the work was largely ignored during the Enlightenment, with some notable exceptions such as Vittorio AlfieriCount Vittorio Alfieri , was an Italian dramatist, considered the "founder of Italian tragedy."-Early life:Alfieri was born at Asti in Piedmont....
, Antoine de RivarolAntoine de Rivarol was a French writer and epigrammatist.Rivarol was born in Bagnols-sur-Cèze, Gard. It appears that his father, an innkeeper, was a cultivated man...
, who translated the Inferno into French, and Giambattista VicoGiovanni Battista ' Vico or Vigo was an Italian philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist....
, who in the Scienza nuova and in the Giudizio su Dante inaugurated what would later become the romantic reappraisal of Dante, juxtaposing him to Homer. The Comedy was "rediscovered" by William BlakeWilliam Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the...
- who illustrated several passages of the epic - and the romanticRomanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution...
writers of the 19th century. Later authors such as T. S. EliotThomas Stearns Eliot, OM , was a poet, playwright, and literary critic. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Among his most famous writings are The Love Song of J...
, Ezra PoundEzra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet, critic and intellectual who was a major figure of the Modernist movement in the first half of the 20th century. He is generally considered the poet most responsible for defining and promoting a modernist aesthetic in poetry...
, Samuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish writer, dramatist and poet. Beckett's work offers a bleak outlook on human culture and both formally and philosophically became increasingly minimalist....
, C.S. Lewis and James JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish expatriate author, playwright and poet of the 20th century. He is known for his landmark novel Ulysses and its controversial successor Finnegans Wake , as well as the short story collection Dubliners and the semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of...
have drawn on it for inspiration. The poet Henry Wadsworth LongfellowHenry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American educator and poet whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and "Evangeline"...
was its first American translator, and modern poets, including Seamus HeaneySeamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. He currently lives in Dublin.-Early life:...
, Robert PinskyRobert Pinsky is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most of which are collections of his own poetry...
, John CiardiJohn Anthony Ciardi was an American poet, translator, and etymologist.-Life and work:John Ciardi was primarily a poet, but he also translated Dante's Divine Comedy, wrote several volumes of children's poetry, pursued etymology, contributed to the Saturday Review as a columnist and long-time poetry...
, and W. S. MerwinWilliam Stanley Merwin is an American poet. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 80s and 90s, Merwin's writing influence derived from his interest in Buddhist philosophy and deep ecology...
, have also produced translations of all or parts of the book. In Russia, beyond Pushkin's memorable translation of a few triplets. Osip MandelstamOsip Emilyevich Mandelstam was a Russian poet and essayist, one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school of poets.-Life and work:...
's late poetry has been said to bear of the mark of a "tormented meditation" on the Comedy. In 1934 Mandelstam gave a modern reading of the poem in his labyrinthine "Conversation on Dante"
New English translations of the Divine Comedy continue to be published regularly. Notable English translations of the complete poem include:
| Year |
Translator |
Notes |
| 1805–1814 |
Henry Francis Cary Henry Francis Cary was a Gibraltarian author and translator, best known for his blank verse translation of The Divine Comedy of Dante.Henry Francis Cary was born in Gibraltar, on 6 December 1772...
|
An older translation, widely available online |
| 1882 |
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowHenry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American educator and poet whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and "Evangeline"...
|
The first American translation, and still widely read, including online |
| 1933-1943 |
Laurence Binyon Robert Laurence Binyon was an English poet, dramatist, and art scholar. His most famous work, For the Fallen, is well known for being used in Remembrance Sunday services....
|
In an English version of terza rima |
| 1949–1962 |
Dorothy L. Sayers Dorothy Leigh Sayers was a renowned English crime writer, poet, playwright, essayist, translator and Christian humanist...
|
Translated for Penguin Classics, intended for a wider audience, and completed by Barbara ReynoldsBarbara Reynolds is an English scholar, lexicographer and translator, wife of the philologist and translator Lewis Thorpe.-Early life:The daughter of Alfred Charles Reynolds, and the god-daughter of Dorothy L...
|
| 1954–1970 |
John Ciardi John Anthony Ciardi was an American poet, translator, and etymologist.-Life and work:John Ciardi was primarily a poet, but he also translated Dante's Divine Comedy, wrote several volumes of children's poetry, pursued etymology, contributed to the Saturday Review as a columnist and long-time poetry...
|
His Inferno was recorded and released by Folkways Records Folkways Records is a record label that documents folk and world music. It is now owned by the Smithsonian Institution.-History:The Folkways Records & Service Co. was founded by Moses Asch and Marian Distler in 1948 in New York City. Asch sought to record and document sound from the entire world....
in 1954 |
| 1981 |
C. H. Sisson Charles Hubert Sisson CH was a British writer, best known as a poet and translator. He was also a novelist and critic...
|
Available in Oxford World's Classics Oxford World's Classics is an imprint of Oxford University Press. First established in 1901 by Grant Richards and purchased by the Oxford University Press in 1906, this imprint publishes primarily dramatic and classic literature for students and the general public.- External links :* * * to the...
|
| 1982 |
Allen Mandelbaum Allen Mandelbaum is an American professor of Italian literature, poet, and translator. He is currently W. R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Humanities at Wake Forest University...
|
Available online |
| 1967–2002 |
Mark Musa Mark Musa is a graduate of Rutgers University , the University of Florence , and the Johns Hopkins University . He is a former Guggenheim fellow and the author of a number of books and articles...
|
An alternative Penguin Classics version |
| 2000-2007 |
Robert and Jean Hollander |
Online as part of the Princeton Dante Project |
| 2006–2007 |
Robin Kirkpatrick |
A third Penguin Classics version, replacing Musa's |
In the arts
The Divine Comedy
has been a source of inspiration for countless artists for almost seven centuries. There are many references to Dante's work in literature. In music, Franz LisztFranz Liszt was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist and teacher....
was one of many composers to write worksA Symphony to Dante's Divine Commedia, S.109, or simply the "Dante Symphony", is a program symphony composed by Franz Liszt. Written in the high romantic style, it is based on Dante Alighieri's journey through Hell and Purgatory, as depicted in The Divine Comedy...
based on the Divine Comedy
. In sculpture, the work of Auguste RodinAuguste Rodin[p] was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
is notable for themes from Dante, and many visual artists have illustrated Dante's work, as shown by the examples above. There have also been many references to the Divine Comedy
in cinema and computer games.
External links
Divine Comedy
(and Dante's other works) in Italian and English along with audio accompaniment in both languages. Includes historical and interpretive annotation.
The Comedy in English:
trans. Cary (with Doré's illustrations) (HTML),
trans. Cary (with Doré's illustrations) (zipped HTML downloadable from
Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg, abbreviated as PG, is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain...
),
Cary/Longfellow/Mandelbaum parallel edition
Dante Dartmouth Project: Full text of more than 70 Italian, Latin, and English commentaries on the Commedia, ranging in date from 1322 (Iacopo Alighieri) to the 2000s (Robert Hollander)
On-line Concordance to the Divine Comedy
A Dictionary of the Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante by Paget Toynbee, London, The Clarendon Press (1898).
Online manuscript codices: Phillips 9589
Audiobooks: Public domain recordings from LibriVox (in Italian, Longfellow translation); some additional recordings
Danteworlds, multimedia presentation of the Divine Comedy for students by Guy Raffa of the University of Texas
Dante's Places: a map (still a prototype) of the places named by Dante in the Commedia, created with GoogleMaps. An explanatory PDF is available for download at the same page
World of Dante Multimedia website that offers Italian text of Divine Comedy, Allen Mandelbaum's translation, gallery, interactive maps, timeline, musical recordings, and searchable database for students and teachers by Deborah Parker and IATH (Institute for Advanced Technologies in the Humanities) of the University of Virginia