Angel Concepcion

Professor Porcelli

Italian

6 May 2019

Inferno Reverberations in Popular Culture

Dante Alighieri’s famous Divine Comedy ranks high amongst the most famous epic poems to be ever written. In fact, Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy is so appreciated that it has been adapted throughout visual arts since its creation and continues to do so. There are numerous famous cinematic works that implement certain elements of Inferno into different characters with similar circumstances. The Harry Potter series of fantasy novels/films

serves as a prime example of implementing ideas from Inferno into their fantasy empire. Pirates of the Caribbean is also another high-grossing adventurous fantasy film series to implement ideas from Inferno. The list extends to many other appreciated visual and literary arts; some reverberations being more subtle than others, but the most obvious film to simultaneously implement exact elements from the Inferno and not be directly based in its entirety to it is the film As Above So Below. Furthermore, we can conclude that although Dante was guilty of pridefulness, his high regard for his poetic talent was not misplaced.

Above all, the most compellingly symmetrical theme to Inferno is the setting of the film. The setting of the movie takes place in the underground Parisian Catacombs of Paris, France. Similar to the idea of Hell, the Parisian Catacombs hold over six million corpses. This epic cemetery’s structure is solely made up of bones and skulls, which makes for a very eerie and unstable setting. Aside from the setting of the film, the characters also make for a compelling emulation for the sinners of Inferno. Perdita Weeks (Scarlett), the protagonist of the film is a tomb raider in search for Nicholas Flamel’s philosophers stone. Dante (1265-1321) predated Flamel (1340-1418) which is why we do not see Flamel’s guest appearance in his comedy. Ben Feldman (George) is a supporting character to Scarlett much like Virgil is to Dante. George knows multiple dead languages that Scarlett does not and plays a well-versed historian when Scarlett fails to do so. Edwin Hodge (Benji) plays the role of the claustrophobic camera-man of this film. The film makes for an intimately empathetic setting due to its documentary style capture. Francois Civil (Papillon) embodies the role of Virgil more literally since he plays the guide that leads them throughout the catacombs. Papillon has ventured throughout the catacombs multiple times in the past and knows which paths are evil and those that are safe. He only agrees to lead them in this venture because there is promised treasure. Along with Papillon is his team Marion Lambert (Souxie) and Ali Marhyar (Zed). Their roles are superficial throughout the film are largely meant to reflect certain contrapassos that occur in Inferno.

In the beginning of Inferno, Dante finds himself in the bitter dark woods. As he journeys on and attempts to turn back, his path is impeded by a she-wolf and a jaguar at the foot of the hill. Similarly when setting off towards the entrance of the catacombs, George is weary and hesitant to journey on with them. However, venturing into restricted parts of the catacombs is illegal and as they are all entering the forbidden entrance Papillion is tackled to the ground. Everyone scurries into the cave fearing capture along with Papillion after he escapes the police officer’s grip. As they make their way through what I interpret to be limbo, a choir of naked women are gathered, singing in alto voices. Benji catches the provocative gaze of the lead conductor and moves on. Now, in retrospect this is the third time that Benji attentively films a woman. The prior two times where once inside of the night club where they find Papillon and the other was the lady that granted them access into the museum that held Flamel’s tombstone. His tombstone led to an important clue for their journey. As they descend from limbo into what I interpret to be the circle of lust, Benji injures his hands badly on his climbing rope because his latch broke off. This is the first hint to the attribution of Benji’s sin.

As they continue their journey they become lost and make a full circle not knowing the true structure of the catacombs. They make a full a circle because they are trying to evade the true path that they must take in order to find the philosophers stone. Scarlett points out that the most efficient way to the treasure area is through a forbidden hole in the wall. However, Papillon is strongly against it claiming that they had a friend named the Mole that went through there and was never heard of again. The mole senses their confusion and tells them that the only way out is further down into the catacombs. Shortly after, the wall collapses and leaves them with no other choice but to go through the forbidden hole. Needless to say, the journey takes a horrible turn after venturing through the hole. They encounter someone who seemed to be their old friend on the other side; he was changed, distorted. The mole aids them on their path to the treasure. However, once they find the treasure and set off the booby trap that comes with it, his body disappears under all of the rubble. Again, they are trapped with only one way out, down. They descend into a lower level with a mirror image to the last; everything the same but in a different order. This is the level that reflects the entrance to the city of Dis in Inferno. Above the entrance to Dis reads “abandon every hope you who enter.” (Canto III. 8). Similarly, in As Above So Below, the entrance reads “abandon all hope ye who enter here.” Furthermore, as they breach the next level, they encounter the Mole again; only this time he was only capable of screeching. Souxie approaches the Mole attemting to reassure him that he is safe, however, once Souxie touches him, he violently picks her up and smashes her head on the ground repeatedly. The Mole can be interpreted a number of ways. Much like Virgil, he often speaks in provocatively ambiguous tones, alluding to their hallucinations insightfully. However, a more compelling comparison would be that of a Malabranche demon. Just as the Malabranche demons guide Dante and Virgil because of the fallen bridge, the Mole guides their group after the ceiling collapses. Only, here the Mole plays another role as well. He plays the role of the sinners that inhabit the circle of violence. Also, he murders Souxie because she feels guilty for the Mole’s death; that they did not come back to look for the Mole after his disappearance and evidently does not repent for it.

They descend into the next level of fraudulence where another tomb raider meets their fate. Again, scaling down the rope last is Benji. However, as he is about to climb down he hears a wailing baby. He pauses, and as a cliché horror movie character, he asks if anyone is there. The camera catches the obscure shape of a woman pass by, and as he picks up the camera to turn around, the woman appears cradling a baby in her arms. This literally frightens him to death as he falls down the hole and dies on impact. I believe that Benji’s sins were that of simple fraud, flattery and seducery which lie in the first bolgia of the eighth circle. Benji was a womanizer guilty of being a neglectful father and abandoning his child in the real world.

Rewinding to an earlier part of the film where the team of tomb raiders had just met each other, Benji notices Papillon’s burned hands and asks Zed how he had gotten those scars. Zed replies, “we do not talk about that.” Further down into the third bolgia of the fraudulent circle, Papillon is confronted with his sin. They find a flaming car with a boy inside of it. It was the same boy that had told Scarlett where to find Papillon. As their eyes see this incredibly terrifying scene, Papillon says, “It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t do it.” Immediately after saying this, the flaming boy reaches out and pulls Papillon into the car which then sinks into the ground as if it were placed over super quicksand only leaving his legs sticking out of the ground. Throughout the entire film, this scene is the most apparent scene to reflect a contrapasso in Inferno. Dante the poet illustrates in Canto 19, “ I saw, from the mouth of every hole were sticking out a single sinner’s feet, and then the legs up to the calf-the rest was stuffed inside. The soles of every sinner’s feet were flaming; their naked legs were twitching frenziedly they would have broken any chain or rope.”(Canto 19.22-27). Papillon is guilty of simony. Although obscure, viewers can discern that he sold his intangible guidance into the catacombs for the treasure that was to be found.

Finally, they make their way down to the final circle of treachery amid many other obstacles not relevant to this paper. Until, they reach the last hole that leads to their exit and consequent rectification. George, Scarlett and Zedd confess their deepest sin and jump down the hole, but they do not die. With no apparent way out but a manhole at the center they start to scream and panic. Attempting to lift the pot hole, Scarlett mistakenly pushes it down. At this moment everything becomes clear. As they push further down into the man hole and push it aside, they see the illuminated night sky. Everything was as above so below.

https://wtfbabe.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/as-above-so-below-14-wtf-watch-the-film-saint-pauly.jpg?w=648&h=349

Image of the lady that scares Benji to death. https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwih38_QtLXiAhVBmeAKHZIsCXIQjhx6BAgBEAM&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt2870612%2Fmediaindex&psig=AOvVaw2R4DIwjXxAmK-14jFC1hQ5&ust=1558830044761342

In Dante’s Divine Comedy there is a recurring theme of faith, it plays an important role in Dante’s growth as he travels through the 3 realms. Another theme that pops up frequently is the association of faith and reason, whether it is a clash to figure out which is supreme or that they equally rely on each other to bring humans closer to the true path and God, they are always treated as equal. But this is not true, in the Divine Comedy Dante puts a great emphasis on faith and that completely overshadows reason. While reason is still needed it doesn’t come close to the sheer importance of faith as we can see in three comparisons. 

We have two people with incredible talents on a quest for knowledge and understanding of the world beyond man, it’s no question that Dante and Ulysses are similar. But as we know Ulysses’ journey ends in failure while Dante will succeed in his, if these two are quite similar why do their stories end so differently? That is because of faith,  Ulysses was created before the birth of Christ, so without Christ’s teachings Ulysses lacked faith in God. His journey is one of will power, he is a proud and talented person that believes in his abilities to get him through anything. As we know this voyage ends in failure resulting in the death of not only himself but as well as his loyal crew members that followed him to the edge of the world.

On the contrary Dante’s journey is not one of choice as it placed onto him by the three blessed women Mary, Lucia, and Beatrice when he became lost and strayed from the true path. So right of the bat we know that this is going to be a different story for Dante as Barolini said “By the end of Inferno 2, we know that Dante-protagonist will not be a Ulysses. He has been granted a way forward, graced to undertake a journey not permitted to those who adventure on their own, but only to those who are chosen.” there is already a path placed for Dante to take and not only that he is even assigned personal guides to help him through each realm. As we progress through the story, we can see that Dante has a generally smooth journey, besides a couple of hiccups he was able to get through hell without a problem. Quite a vast difference isn’t it, Ulysses on his voyage struggling with his crew to reach the edge of the world in the pursuit of knowledge and here we have Dante going through hell and back basically unscathed. It just goes to show how powerful faith and the heavens can be, a simple declaration that they were sent on a journey by heaven helped Virgil and Dante bypass most obstacles in hell.

Dante’s quest for knowledge not only succeeds but it is also accomplished on a much grander scale than Ulysses’ quest. Even if Ulysses succeeded in his goal, he would probably only travel as far as the shore of purgatory. As Cato, the one Dante and Virgil meet in the first canto of Purgatorio and acts as a guardian of purgatory, would have probably refused him entrance given that Ulysses is not a Christian that has faith in God. So that would’ve been the farthest that he could travel given his abilities, unlike Dante who not only goes through hell and purgatory but also ascends to heaven traveling past heavenly bodies to meet God himself, talk about an accomplishment. In the first canto of Paradiso we see just how high of a goal Dante has. “In the heave that receives most of his light have I been, and I have seen things that one who comes down from there cannot remember and cannot utter … Nevertheless, as much of the holy kingdom as I was able to treasure up in my mind will now become the matter of my song”(4-12) He wishes to document things that are beyond human comprehension, to create poetry to express the ineffable, such an impossible task that he prays to Apollo for help. And Dante succeeded, he was able to express, albeit extremely vague, the most ineffable thing in the universe, God himself. Such drastic differences of two people in their pursuit of knowledge just goes to show how powerful faith can really be.  

Virgil and Beatrice are some of the most prominent characters in the Divine Comedy right after our main character Dante. After all Virgil was present throughout Inferno and most of Purgatorio and Beatrice is Dante’s loved one and one of the blessed women who set everything in motion for Dante’s journey. Beatrice personally came down from heaven bathed in holy light to ask Virgil to guide Dante through hell, so already we can see the hierarchy and who is in charge. Virgil is a pagan, born before Christ thus damned to limbo as he is unable to believe in God. Though Dante highly respects Virgil and even sees him as a mentor, it does not stop him from placing Virgil there as he lacks the all-important faith in God.

Virgil is seen as the embodiment of reason and wisdom, as they progress through hell Virgil teaches Dante about the sinners that inhabit each circle and Dante slowly understands God’s will and why he acts the way he does. Throughout the inferno they slowly become closer to the point that they treat each other as family with Virgil becoming a father-like figure to Dante. Even though Virgil embodies reason it is shown that reason itself is not enough to get through hell, he requires the help of faith in the form of the will of heaven as a declaration, with it he is able reason with most of the inhabitants of hell for safe passage on this journey. His failure to reason with the fallen angels at the gate of Dis further amplifies the weakness of reason as we can see Virgil become visibly worried, they must sit there and wait for help as reason can’t do anything for them right now. An angel, a being of faith, descends from heaven and simply opens the gate with a single movement of his wand, showing the absolute power and authority that heaven and God has. In the earthly paradise at the top of purgatory they meet Beatrice, at that moment Virgil disappears as he is a being unable to enter paradise he can go no further, signifying the biggest difference between Virgil and Beatrice, the ability to ascend to heaven.

Beatrice embodies faith, she is the one that keeps Dante from straying from the true path “For a time I sustained him with my countenance: showing him my youthful eyes, I led him with me, turned in the right direction. When I was on the threshold of my second age and changed lives, he took himself from me and gave himself to another”(Purgatorio canto 30, 121-126). Once Beatrice died, he lost faith and that lead him to stray from the true path which caused him to be lost in the dark forest in the beginning of the story. It was only after Beatrice intervened in her second life, that Dante was slowly being guided back onto the right path. Virgil did play a crucial path in Dante’s understanding of God’s will, but Beatrice is the one that motivates Dante, she gave him the courage to continue when he was lacking confidence in the journey to hell. Beatrice or faith is Dante’s guiding light in this journey. 

Another place where faith plays an important role is the afterlife I.e. where you end up in. Those who obey God’s laws and are faithful to him like Beatrice can immediately ascend to heaven. Those who are faithful but misuse their love are given a second chance to repent in purgatory. Those who commit serious sins are damned to hell for eternity as punishment. And then we have limbo, a place where those who lived before Christ and the unbaptized live, so those who reside in limbo are punished based on things that were outside of their power. This is quite a cruel act for God to deny these people the joys of his love and paradise. Though we have seen pagans that have ascended to heaven they are few and far between leaving the majority just sitting in limbo. This just shows that even if you are a virtuous person who has lived a good life, without faith you are still less than a Christian who has faith in God and has committed minor sins. Purgatory gives Christians who have misplaced their love a second chance, but those who have done nothing wrong in limbo are not given a second chance. The only way it seems for them to leave limbo is when they are given an assignment from heaven like Virgil’s task to guide Dante or Cato’s to guard the entrance to purgatory. This is quite a terrifying punishment to give to a person who lacks faith. 

Faith is incredibly important for a human being as it allows us to be closer to God which as Beatrice stated in the first canto of Paradiso the goal of everything in the universe is to move towards God. Reason alone is unable to accomplish this; it can only help speed up the process as with it one can control their will to prevent them committing a sin that cause them to not be able to ascend to heaven. In the end faith is still the major of this 

Sources

Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Translated and Edited by Robert M. Durling. Notes by Ronald L. Martinez & Durling, vol. 1, Oxford University Press, 1996. 

Barolini, Teodolinda. “Inferno 2: Beatrix Loquax and Consolation.” Commento Baroliniano, Digital Dante. New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries, 2018. https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/inferno/inferno-2/ 

Barolini, Teodolinda. “Inferno26: The Epic Hero and the Quest.” Commento Baroliniano, Digital Dante. New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries, 2018. https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/inferno/inferno-26/ 

Hollander, Rober. “Dante’s Virgil: A Light That Failed”, Lectura Dantis, vol. 1, 1998 

http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/

Gustave Doré and William Blake both depict Beatrice’s arrival in Dante’s Purgatory, in vastly different ways. The scenes in cantos 29-30 are a turning point in the Commedia, with Dante finally reunited with his love, Beatrice. While Blake shows the scene drenched in colour and full of life, Doré depiction is more austere and classically.

Gustave Doré created the artwork Ascension of the procession in 1868. The engraving depicted Beatrice flying through the air lounged upon the arms of a group of angels. Dante’s Commedia had popular appeal in Doré’s homeland of France in the 1860s, with a number of translations of the poem into French being created (Audeh, World of Dante). Doré financed the project of illustrating Inferno himself as no publisher would accept the project, however it was such a success that a publisher commissioned his illustration of Purgatory and Paradise (Audeh, World of Dante). In 1824, William Blake was commissioned by his friend and fellow artist John Linnell to create a series of artworks based on the Divine Comedy (Audeh, World of Dante. One of these works Beatrice Addressing Dante From the Car, depicts Beatrice arrival in canto 29 of Purgatory. Blake chose the medium of ink and watercolour on paper for his work (Tate Museum, “William Blake’s Illustrations to Dante’s Divine Comedy”). Blake’s work depicts Beatrice and her procession standing in front of Dante in the Earthly Paradise.

Beatrice had long been a focus of Dante’s before writing the Commedia. Dante had already written his collection of poems, the Vita Nuova, of while Beatrice was the subject. She died when she was aged 25 years old, making it natural for the poet to also chose her as a feature of the afterlife in the Commedia. She is the character which puts into motion the entire poem. Kirkpatrick (1990) writes that “moves” the whole Commedia, just as how she moves Virgil to Dante’s assistance in Inferno, and on this view, not to understand Beatrice is not to understand the Commedia at all’ (p102).

“He fell so low that all means for his salvation had already fallen short, except to show him the lost people.” Beatrice, canto 30, lines 136-138

Beatrice’s arrival is recounted in canto 29 of Purgatory, although she does not interact with Dante until canto 30. She explains that she sent him on this adventure to set him on the “true path”. She explains that after her death he went astray. Knowing that Dante has turned astray from the path of truth since her death at 25 years old, she has sent him on his journey to find the right path again.

We have no way of confirming how accurate artists’ depictions of Dante’s muse are. Charles Williams, quoted in Henderson (p197, 2010), states about her “each image is but a trace.. we have only hints and fragments of her story”. Due to this uncertainty about who she really was, there is no way to confirm what she physically looked like. Henderson (2010) argues that the only common feature she has throughout depiction is her femininity. The same author also argues that all images of her are merely copies, reproductions, or new interpretations of her physical appearance, readjusted to fit the aesthetic preferences of that time. Henderson argues that the image of Beatrice changes over time, just as does our interpretation of the Commedia, and quotes Osip Mandelstam – “It is unthinkable to read the cantos of Dante without aiming them in the direction of the present day” (p203).

Doré’s artwork shows Beatrice being lifted by a group of angels. They are draped in delicate white robes. Beatrice has a crown resting on her head and has her eyes downturned. The most obvious way to tell that they are flying is by their wings. The shade and lines on the dresses of the women also show the way they are being blown and give away the direction they are flying – towards the right of the frame.  Again, we can see the direction and movement through the petals being dropped by the angels.

Despite her heavenly company, there is no mistaking that Beatrice is the most important figure in the work through the way it is arranged She is directly in the centre of the image and most of the angels have their gaze directed towards her. Following the lines created by the wings of the angels, they all lead to Beatrice. Similarly, the angel in the bottom right has her arm outreached, directly towards Beatrice.

The work is mostly symmetrical, with the exception of the angel in the lower right-hand side. There is almost the same amount of free space between the top of the angels and the top of the work, as there is from the bottom of the angels to the bottom of the work, and on either side. This, again, directs the viewers gaze towards Beatrice.

The lighting of the image appears to be emanating from Beatrice’s glance. The angel situated directly below her, as well as the angels to her left, who are away from her gaze to her right, are in shadows and darker than the rest. Additionally, the clouds below her are darker than above her, suggesting that they are traveling upwards, towards another light. Because Doré is confined to using monochrome, the artist uses darkness to show depth in the figures.

Blake’s artwork vastly contrasts against Doré’s. Blake’s work is a blast of colour and light pours into every section of the image. It shows Beatrice’s procession standing before Dante, who is shown in the bottom right corner. Beatrice is show standing upon her chariot, led by the griffin, on the left of her. On both sides of her are two figures, four in total, three with animal like faces. The figures have large blue wings which tower over the rest of the work, and are covered in eyes. Below Beatrice’s feet is a spiral shape, also covered in eyes, as well as faces. On the left are two women, and a third to the right.

The Tate Museum writes that “The rich and bright colours used here express Dante’s double delight. He is reunited with his lady-love, and at the same time is experiencing a revelation of the divine.” Every inch of the image is steeped in colour. Blake has stayed close to what Dante writes of this moment: “I saw the flames move on, leaving the air behind them painted, and they seemed like brushes drawn along, so that the air overhead was marked with seven stripes, all in those colours with which the Sun makes his bow and Delia her belt” (Purgatory, Canto 29, lines 73- 78). Indeed, in the background of Blake’s work, we can see the seven colours – the rainbow- which Dante speaks of. As an artist choice, it is clear why the scene is shown so brightly. Beatrice is the reason Dante has embarked on this whole journey, and seeing his love again, he is overcome with emotions. Another choice made in the use of colour by Blake is the pairing of Beatrice and Dante, making them both have red clothing.

The faces of the beings who surround Beatrice’s chariot are not displayed are vibrantly as other figures in the work. This gives a sense that they are watching over the scene, rather than really there. This may perhaps be a decision made by the author, because they do not feature in Dante’s poem. According to the Tate Museum’s description of the work, where Blake’s image is displayed, the four figures surrounding Beatrice resemble the Four Evangelists. They describe Mark as a lion, Luke as an ox and John as an eagle, and Matthew as having Christ-like features. Dante describes them as “four animals, each crowned with green leaves” in lines 92-93, and Blake depicts these animal like features. The figures wings are covered in eyes, and this matches with Dante’s description of what is surrounding the chariot: “each was feathered with six wings; the feathers were full of eyes..” (Canto 29, lines 94-95).  Dante however, makes no mention of these figures being the Four Evangelists. Dante makes a point not to describe the being at Beatrice’s feet in canto 29, saying “to describe their shapes I scatter no more rhymes, reader, for another outlay constrains me so that I cannot be liberal with this one; but read Ezekiel, who depicts them as he saw them coming..” (Purgatory, canto 29, page 97-101) Here, we can assume Dante is referring to the ophanim, supposedly eye covered wheels which sit below God’s throne, which Ezekiel saw in a vision.

The three women dressed in green, red and white are Hope, Charity, and Faith, respectively. Dante describes them in lines 121-126 of Purgatory: “Three ladies came dancing in a circle at the right wheel, one so red that she would hardly be noticed within fire, the next was as if her flesh and bones had been fashioned of emerald; the third appeared like newly fallen snow”. Blake again stays loyal to Dante’s description. While Hope and Charity are adorned with some of the darkest colours in the artwork, and are made to have skin tones, Faith is completely white. The complete whiteness of her body and dress make her resemble a Greek marble statue. Faith is glancing up at Beatrice, and with one hand gesturing to Dante. In the other hand is a book, possibly the bible given her stance as faith.

Beatrice is surrounded by light, which glows from behind her, almost like a halo. Her clothing appears virtually translucent and you can see her body underneath it. She is wearing a crown on what appears to be her long blonde hair and is wearing a blue cape. The light emitting from her give her a look of holiness, and her crown signifies her high status. Her position high above everyone else in the image is another way of displaying her superiority.

Doré’s and Blake’s depiction of Beatrice’s arrival are vastly different than each other. Doré does not have many of the features that both Dante and Blake have. The most prominent difference is their depiction of the angels. Whereas Blake’s angels have they eyes on their wings as Dante describes, Doré’s do not. Blake’s angels additionally are shown with animalistic traits, making them seem much more like mystical creatures, than something readers can recognize. The difference in Doré’s depiction makes the image much less startling to the modern viewer, who would be more familiar with Doré’s image of angels. Blake’s artwork, in general, is a much more surreal interpretation than Doré’s, who shows his figures as much more recognizable. Blake’s depiction has less figures than Doré’s, however the figures fill the space much more. The number of colours make Doré’s image appear much more full and busy. Blake’s work is also very much a contrast to Doré’s monochrome work, with the colours in Blake’s are various and vibrant.

Another difference is Blake’s work takes place later then Doré’s – the procession, and Beatrice, has already landed in front of Dante. This changes the focus from being on Beatrice, to on Dante’s reception of her. Neither show the “twenty-four elders, two by two, were coming, crowned with lilies” (Purgatory, canto 29, lines 82-84), or the seven men at the end of the procession. Additionally, Blake does not show the four women dressed in purple. However, even with less figures, Blake’s work is more identifiable as the scene in cantos 29 and 30 than Doré’s, because of all the recognizable figures.

Sources

“Beatrice Addressing Dante From The Car.” Tate Museum. Last Updated March 2011. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-beatrice-addressing-dante-from-the-car-n03369

“William Blake’s Illustrations to Dante’s Divine Comedy”. Tate Museum. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/william-blake-39/blake-illustrations-dante

Audeh, Aida. World of Dante. University of Viginia. http://www.worldofdante.org/gallery_dore.html

Henderson, G., 2010. The Many Faces of Bea. The Kenyon Review, 32(3), pp.197–210.

Kirkpatrick, Robin. “Dante’s Beatrice and the Politics of Singularity.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language, vol. 32, no. 1, 1990, pp. 101–119. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40754921.

Dante et le Donne: A Comparison of the Treatment of Women between Dante Alighieri and Christine de Pizan

            The representation of women by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri in his Divine Comedy can be said to be lacking substance. Dante has no trouble creating interesting and complex men throughout the three canticles, such as his nuanced portrayal of Ulysses or the ambiguity of which he has Ugolino tell his story. While the episode with Francesca da Rimini in Canto V of The Inferno has been the inspiration for artists and writers since it’s appearance in The Divine Comedy, there are few fully fleshed out women in the work afforded the opportunity to speak for themselves. Thomas Goddard Bergin claims that “the range of female characters in the Comedy is limited because the range of a woman’s activities in Dante’s time was limited” (Bergin 85). While Bergin is not incorrect about the limitations put upon women during Dante’s time, I disagree when he says that “we should give thanks rather for the few [fleshed out female characters] we do have” for which he lists five and then proceeds to posit that these five are “as varied a group as a medieval poet could have given us”. He finishes the chapter by claiming that Dante could include more fleshed out female characters if he wrote today [Bergin was writing in the late 1960s] but then ended on the rhetorical question “can a woman’s world produce a Divine Comedy?” (Bergin 86). I obviously take umbrage with this idea and how easily Bergin “lets Dante off the hook” for his lack of female representation in The Divine Comedy. Dante mentions a fair number of women, but he does not take the time he could have to write them as fully realized human beings in the same way he does with the men. Bergin’s excuse that women in Dante’s time did not lead lives that would not translate well into fictional representations does not hold water. Using The Book of the City of Ladies by Italian writer Christine de Pizan, I will give three examples of where Dante Alighieri had the opportunity to create fully realized female characters but chose to overlook them. I will also observe the similarities and differences between the way that the two authors write about these same women.

Christine de Pizan was born in Venice in 1365, exactly 100 years after the birth of Dante Alighieri, meaning that the two were obviously not contemporaries. They are connected through the poet Boccaccio who wrote De Mulieribus Claris which Pizan directly references throughout The Book of the City of Ladies. Christine de Pizan grew up in the French court of Charles V where her father was an astrologer. She was afforded access to an extraordinary education and became one of the first professional female writers in the western hemisphere after the deaths of her father and husband. We know for certain that Christin de Pizan knew about Dante and had read at least part of The Divine Comedy because she directly refers to Dante’s first meeting with Virgil in her poem Chemin de long estude (The Book of the City of Ladies xliii). The Book of the City of Ladies is her defense of women in reaction to the multitude of manuscripts that go out of their way to vilify all women. Pizan gives examples of many virtuous women within the book and also finds ways to acquit some of the most infamous women found in history and mythology history. Many of these women are also mentioned by Dante without that same depth afforded to them. While neither Pizan nor Dante creates a situation where these women are allowed to speak for themselves, the ways in which they write about their stories, or don’t write, about their stories are vastly different.

The first woman I would like to look at is Arachne, a weaver who according to myth challenged Minerva to a weaving contest and was turned into a spider for her hubris. Dante puts her at fault when he writes:

oh mad Arachne, so I saw you, already half a

spider, sitting wretched on the shreds of the work

you made to your own ruin! (Purgatorio 12.43-45)

Dante does not see any reason not to question Minerva’s punishment of Arachne nor does he afford her the opportunity to speak about the unjustness of her fate. Dante does allow other characters from mythology to speak, such as Ulysses, so the problem isn’t that her story involved a pagan religion. On the other hand, Christine de Pizan calls Arachne’s story a fable but also claims that she “was the first to invent the art of dyeing woolens in various colors and of weaving art works into cloth, like a painter, according to the ‘fine thread’ technique of weaving tapestry” (Pizan 81). Pizan then goes on to defend Arachne against authors such as Bocaccio who claimed that the world would have been better off without a knowledge of weaving by saying that Jesus Christ’s use of robes proved that weaving was a good and lawful occupation. Although I don’t know if the debate about the merits of weaving existed during Dante’s time, I still think that the comparison between the brief mention of Arachne where he blames her for her fate verses the praise and validation that Pizan grants her speaks volumes about the difference in their relationships with women.

The absence of Dido in The Divine Comedy is fairly conspicuous considering how large a role she plays in The Aeneid.  How interesting would it have been to have Virgil come face to face with Dido, whose story he immortalized? Instead, Dido is relegated to a passing mention in Canto V of The Inferno where she is oddly placed in the circle of Lust even though she committed suicide. Bergin also raises this question, since the general logic in The Divine Comedy is that people are put in the circle that corresponds with their worst sins. Bergin asserts that

Dante saw the three Oriental queens [Dido, Cleopatra, and Semiramis] as lustful creatures first and foremost because it in was the love relationship, and that alone, that he thought of women. … we find the souls of women only in the circles of lust, flattery, and soothsaying. (Bergin 70-71)

On this point I don’t disagree with Bergin. I think that he is right to say that Dante only sees women in their context with men and the ways that they can manipulate them. It seems almost irrational that Dante would put Dido in the circle of lust instead of the forest of suicides since doing so could create a dramatic situation like no other. In comparison, Christine de Pizan speaks for a considerable amount of time about how wise and clever Dido was, giving the readers a few examples including her trick of acquiring the land for Carthage by cutting a cow hide into a very thin strip. Christine de Pizan claims that “because of her prudent government, they changed her name and called her Dido, which is the equivalent of saying virago in Latin, which means ‘the woman who has the strength and force of a man’ (Pizan 95). It is only later that Christine de Pizan mentions Dido’s time with Aeneas and subsequent suicide. She does not reduce this strong and wise Queen to a lovesick woman who was driven only by her carnal desire. How powerful could it have been to have another tree alongside Pier della Vigne to show the fate of those who commit violence against themselves?

The oddest mention of a woman I am going to discuss today is the way that talks about, or rather doesn’t talk about, Medea. Her name is mentioned once in the eighteenth canto of The Inferno when it is said that Jason is being punished in part for his crimes against her. Medea is mostly known for killing the children that she had with Jason, but she is not found in the deepest circles of hell alongside those who murder family members. I haven’t been able to discern why she would be absent from that group of people. It is possible that the version of her story that Dante knew did not include her murder of her children since not all of them did. I wish I had more time to investigate this glaring omission since it raises so many questions. Christine de Pizan also handles Medea in an interesting way. She praises Medea for her wisdom and knowledge of herbs and medicine, along with mentioning the assistance she renders Jason during his quest for the Golden Fleece but also omits the small fact that she killed her children. Like with Dante, it is possible that the version of Medea’s story that Christine de Pizan knew did not include that detail. With Christine however, I am more inclined to believe that this is a lie of omission rather than a difference in story version. There are a few points within The Book of the City of Ladies where Christine will not mention the more unsavory details of the lives of the women that she is defending. Regardless, thinking over this question has made me curious about the other ways Medea has been represented in literature throughout human history.

After comparing the ways Dante Alighieri and Christine de Pizan discuss the same women in their works, I find myself almost mourning The Divine Comedy we could have had. In omitting women as much as he did, Dante did himself and his life work a disservice. Including women in the full compacity of which he included men would have made The Divine Comedy an even better work. I wish that I had a strong point to make as a solid conclusion to this paper, but it was almost impossible for me to find something to argue. Instead, I decided to question how Dante addressed women compared with another medieval writer I was interested in. I think that there is more work to be done in this area that was just outside of the scope of my paper and hope that I may end up being the one to continue the investigation.

Works Cited

Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Edited by Robert M. Durling et al., Oxford University, 1996.

Bergin, Thomas Goddard. A Diversity of Dante. Rutgers University Press, 1969.

Pizan, Christine de. The Book of City of Ladies. Edited by Earl Jeffrey Richards and Marina Warner, Persea Books, 1982.

The Inferno of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy depicts pairings of sin and punishment according to Dante’s perception of God’s divine plan. Sinners in the Inferno are punished by their severity of their sin, with punishments which are poetically contrasted against the sin itself. Specific sins are paired with specific punishments. The more grievous the sin, the more intense the punishment, and the further down in the circles of hell. In the cosmology of Dante, the sinners who strayed further from God’s light find themselves literally further from God’s light the deeper they are in hell, in it of itself a poetic example of contrapasso. One of the most evident figures but simultaneously the most silent in Inferno is also one of the best examples of the idea of contrapasso: Lucifer, or Satan. The king of hell, Lucifer wallows in the lowest circle of hell, farthest from God’s light, punished forever as a castaway of God’s divine plan. Dante illustrates the contrapasso of Lucifer as a poetic doom to Lucifer’s betrayal of God. His interpretation of Lucifer’s punishment has been complimented by many artists, whose interpretations of the Inferno illustrate different ideas and concepts of Lucifer’s punishment. Two very good examples are Henry John Stock’s Dante and Virgil Encounter Lucifer in Hell 1923 Giclee Print, and more recently, Michael Mazur’s The Inferno of Dante: Canto XXXIV (The Guidecca—Lucifer) 1996-2000 etching. Both pieces touch upon aspects of Lucifer’s contrapasso, and represent the king of hell in very different ways. Ultimately, as pieces based on the same source material, both works represent the same idea behind Lucifer’s contrapasso, but their differences highlight important aspects of his punishment.

Through cruel and melancholy examples in Inferno and Purgatorio, Dante expresses the construction of God’s divine plan, and the idea that the punishment must fit the crime through contrapasso. Dante takes many creative and poetic liberties to express the punishments in hell as mechanisms in God’s will. In Justin Steinberg’s essay “Dante’s Justice? A Reappraisal of the Contrapasso,” Steinberg illustrates many examples of contrapasso throughout inferno. He describes how the manner in which the damned are punished for their sins is a symbolic relationship which depicts the one central rule and theme of Inferno. While Steinberg’s essay makes a case against the use of the term “contrapasso” to simply summate Dante’s justice, his paper nonetheless illustrates effectively the theme of contrapasso, and the many examples of it throughout Inferno. The idea of contrapasso is a main focal point of the Inferno, and Steinberg’s examples reinforce this idea.

As Steinberg puts it, “the damned are tormented by manifestations of their own externalized psychological states.” (Steinberg pg. 59) And goes on to cite the example of Francesca and Paolo. Sinners of the second circle of hell, Lust, Francesca and Paolo are described by Dante in Canto 5 to be caught in “the infernal whirlwind, which never rests, driv[ing] spirits before its violence; turning and striking, it tortures them.” (Dante 5.31-33, pg. 89) On earth the two were blown about by their own desires for each other, and subsequently in hell are doomed to be blown about physically, a state of turmoil which matched their own psychological states on Earth. Other examples throughout Inferno similarly illustrate this concept. The clarification here is important, as the idea of matching psychological decision-making processes (will) and the state of the body in hell is an important idea to compare in the punishment of Lucifer.

Before analyzing the contrapasso of Lucifer, another important example needs to be made. In addition to the contrapasso described by Steinberg as a manifestation of internal psychological states portrayed through the circles of hell, the actual alignment with sin as a component of contrapasso needs to be considered. Steinberg’s description of contrapasso as a manifestation of psychological states is an accurate analysis of the punishments in Inferno, but the additional consideration of the sin itself as an act against God must also be taken into account. A perfect example is found later in the Inferno, Canto 13. In the seventh circle, second ring, those who were violent against themselves rot eternally in the poisoned wood, where their souls inhabit the trees in which harpies make their nests. The most prominent figure in Canto 13 is Pier della Vigna, a chancellor to Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor. Pier took his own life because of political accusations and his own imprisonment. His punishment in Inferno is as Steinberg describes it, a reflection of his own psychological state on Earth. After committing suicide, his spirit is doomed to inhabit a tree, a lower form of life even considered below animals. But more importantly, Pier illustrates the relationship between sin and God through his punishment. His contrapasso is an example of a soul who took a gift from god and rejected its quality, and for this act against God, he is punished poetically in Inferno.

These two concepts of contrapasso are important to consider in the final Canto of Inferno, and the actual contrapasso of Lucifer. Lucifer’s punishment reflects both an inner psychological state manifested physically in hell as well as an act against God which is punished in a manner which compliments the sin. Canto 34 introduces Lucifer, the fallen angel who rose against God’s will because of his own hubris. Throughout the Canto Dante refers to Lucifer’s fallen nature. He persistently describes him as having once been an actor of God, close to God’s light and love: “the creature who had once been beautiful,” (Dante 34.17-18 pg. 535) but contrasts this description against the haunting state of Lucifer in hell: “If he was as beautiful then as now he is ugly when he lifted his brow against his Maker.” (Dante 34.34-35 pg 536) These descriptions describe the fateful tale of Lucifer, important in understanding his contrapasso in Inferno.

Lucifer literally translates from Latin to “the morning star” or the planet Venus. Lucifer was the light bringer, the star of morning, and God’s heavenly servant. Lucifer’s story is described in the Book of Revelations:

”

Then war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back, but they did not prevail and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to earth, and its angels were thrown down with it. (Revelations 12:7-9)

”

Satan, a blessed servant of God, turned his back on God’s light in his heavenly rebellion. Attempting to usurp power from God, Satan rallied other servants of God to his cause, sowing discord and ultimately dooming himself and his fallen angels to eternal punishment in Hell.

The story of Lucifer directly corresponds with the first aspect of contrapasso, as his sin was a direct act against God. We can see this demonstrated through his suffering in Inferno. Dante describes him as enormous, and submerged in the frozen ice of Cocytus. His form is mutilated, with three heads, four bat’s wings, and a covering of fur. Dante describes him “with six eyes he was weeping, and down three chins dripped the tears and the bloody slobber.” (Dante 34.52-54 pg. 537) His fate is directly linked to his actions, which we can see through his physical changes. His disfigurations poetically contrast his acts against god. Similar to the sowers of discord in Canto 28 within the 8th circle, 9th boglia, Satan is split. Unlike the sowers of discord, his body is not divided into pieces or separated, but rather divided within himself. Three heads sit upon his submerged body, a literal division of the self. Just as Satan divided the heavens in his rebellion, now too his physical state is split. Through his rebellion, Satan split the heavens in three. Those who fought with Satan, those who fought with God, and those who abstained, namely the inhabitants of the Anti-Inferno in Canto 3 of Inferno. Accordingly, Satan’s form is divided into three, represented by each head and each sinner. The mouths of Lucifer are covered in the blood of Judas, Brutus, and Cassius, all notable betrayers. Subsequently, Lucifer is unable to speak and also forced to chew in silence for all of eternity. This is where the contrapasso becomes more evident, as Lucifer’s voice and his call to abandon God for his cause is what placed him in the depths of hell. Now, frozen in ice, the lord of hell can’t take a respite from his task. He’s doomed to sit for all eternity without any possibility of speaking, or even utilizing the enormous and powerful form he possesses in hell. He’s consigned as a mere mechanism of the Inferno, a lower form of life not unlike Cerberus in Canto 6. This is further illustrated by his form, that of a three headed beast with fur like an animal, and four black bats wings, as Dante hauntingly that their “mode was like a bat’s; and he was fanning them, so that three winds went out from him: by them Cocytus was frozen.” (Dante 34.49-52 pg. 537)

Lucifer’s representation is also a perfect example of Steinberg’s description of contrapasso, as an embodiment of a personal psychological state manifested physically. Lucifer’s betrayal took extreme will. He needed to deliberately turn from God’s light and attempt to seize the heavens for himself, the highest form of aggression against God. In heaven, Satan was so focused on his own beauty and perfection that he moved to take power against his Maker. In hell, Satan is deformed. His power remains in his enormous and powerful form, but he’s unable to use it or even demonstrate it. Because he acted against God to such a degree, he’s now condemned to eternally serve as a mechanism in God’s divine plan. He freezes over Cocytus with his wings and chews sinners, all while eternally sitting in the darkness as the farthest being from God’s light.

In Henry John Stock’s 1923 Giclee Print Dante and Virgil Encounter Lucifer in Hell, Stock takes much of Dante’s descriptions and makes his own interpretations of Lucifer in hell to best illustrate the contrapasso evident in his punishment. An English painter in the late 19th and early 18th century, Stock had a very distinct style in his paintings. His works have very evident brushstrokes, similar to the impressionist style of the 19th century. His pieces often have very clear color choices, sometimes juxtaposed in a colorful assortment which makes his subjects stand out, and convey emotions. His style is apparent in Dante and Virgil Encounter Lucifer in Hell, where his impressionist strokes meet vibrant color choices. The composition of the work is straightforward. In the foreground stand Dante, characterized by his red nightgown and cap, and Virgil in his flowing robe and laurel wreath. Both figures stand juxtaposed against the harsh black ice of Cocytus, penetrated only by the subtle reflections of Lucifer’s figure. Lucifer himself broods in the background, the central figure of the piece. Depicted similarly to Dante’s descriptions in Inferno, he stands submerged in the ice, four wings outstretched behind his dark figure, shrouded in black and dark but vibrant blues. Unlike Dante, Stock chose to depict the lord of hell as a more human figure. A single head chews upon two sinners, one in each arm. He takes turns chewing each, and it’s clear that the focus here isn’t so much on the sinners he chews, but on Lucifer himself. The sinner in his mouth flails his legs behind him as Lucifer chews, a figure we can assume to be Judas from Dante’s descriptions of his position in Inferno: “”That soul up there who has the greatest punishment,” said my master, “is Judas Iscariot, with his head inside, waving his legs outside.” (Dante 34.61-63 pg. 537) An additional contrast to Inferno is Stock’s depiction of Lucifer without fur, and a dark, but human complexion. He freezes in the ice, and his expression in the work expresses an angry, brooding mood from his furrowed brows and clenched arms. He props an elbow against Cocytus, and presses Judas into his mouth just as a thinker would, contemplating or pondering, all while his muscles tense around the bloodied sinners in his grasp.

Stock’s interpretation of Dante’s punishment of Lucifer illustrates some of the important ideas which go behind his punishment. Stock’s representation of Lucifer as a humanlike figure in his composition grounds him in the flaws of humanity. Through this depiction of Lucifer, he achieves a representation of his manifested external psychological state, and better illustrates Steinberg’s description of contrapasso. Lucifer is doomed to his fate in Inferno, and Stock’s piece beautifully captures the suffering Lucifer is forced to endure. Because of his actions against God, he’s forced to sit forever silent, angry, and brooding in the 9th circle of hell. Stock’s piece conveys the suffering of Lucifer better than Dante accomplished in Inferno, because rather than fixating on the sinners in the mouths of Lucifer, Stock personifies Lucifer in order to bring his suffering into center frame. Unlike Dante’s 34th Canto, where Dante highlights Lucifer’s role as a mechanism in hell as well as the path through which he must tread to get to Purgatorio, Stock highlights that Satan himself is being punished, and not just a punisher.

It’s easy to think of Lucifer as a demon, a regulator of hell. Like the demons Dante encounters in Canto 21, the fifth bolgia of the eighth circle, Lucifer can at first be mistaken for an authoritarian figure. Especially considering his role as the single perpetrator of evil in medieval thought. Dante and Stock both agree that his role in hell is much more minimal. Their depictions of the lord of hell illustrate him as no lord at all, in fact both describe quite the opposite. Through these interpretations, the power of God is juxtaposed against the inability of Satan to act, the ultimate showing of God’s light against the darkness of Lucifer. Even as a mechanism of hell, Lucifer acts under God’s will, and is punished through God’s divine plan. In both Stock’s and Dante’s descriptions of Lucifer, he is punished just like any other sinner in Inferno, through contrapasso.

Michael Mazur’s 1996-2000 etching The Inferno of Dante: Canto XXXIV (The Giudecca—Lucifer) is a very different interpretation of Dante’s Lucifer from Stock’s. Where Stock humanizes, Mazur dehumanizes. Lucifer through Mazur’s eyes is beyond the disfigured form Dante describes in Inferno. While Stock humanized Lucifer to illustrate his contrapasso as a punishment of his act against god, Mazur does the opposite to achieve a different end: the depiction of Satan’s internal psychological state exerting itself materially upon him in the form of his contrapasso.

Mazur’s piece is very different from Stock’s not only in his interpretation of Lucifer but his compositional choices. As an artist from a very different era, this isn’t surprising. Mazur’s work is utterly monochromatic, dark black against a background of gray. The figure of Lucifer is illustrated in center frame, but his body isn’t visible. He’s a monster, barely recognizable as human. His head stands in stark contrast to the gray background, totally dark. Three faces protrude from his single head, a subtle change from Inferno. All three faces chew Judas, Brutus, and Cassius just as Dante describes, with Judas “his head inside waving his legs outside,” (Dante 34.62-63 pg. 537) and Brutus and Cassius “whose heads are below.” (Dante 34.64 pg. 537) Mazur’s composition is confusing, as Lucifer’s head protrudes between his wings which look feathered, unlike Dante’s description of bat-like wings. Lucifer appears to be in the foreground of the piece, but despite this we can see vague figures in the bottom of the composition which look to be heads emerging from Cocytus.

Lucifer’s expressions in this piece are the most important facet of Mazur’s interpretation of Dante’s contrapasso. What we can see of Lucifer’s eyes suggest that they are closed like a shark’s as it bites. His white teeth are harshly juxtaposed against the darkness of his face, hinting at the contortion his facial muscles express as they desperately clasp onto the bodies of the three sinners. Contributing to the disfiguration of Lucifer are his hands, only vague shadows which grip onto each sinner. He doesn’t have two hands, but rather six, two per sinner. The hands are barely illuminated, but what can be seen is thin and eerily sharp and straight. Not humane by any means.

The abomination which is Lucifer in this piece illustrate Lucifer’s fall from grace. Once a beautiful and capable servant of God, Lucifer is now contained within the animalistic form Mazur so fantastically illustrates. Desperate to shove each sinner into his mouths, Mazur’s portrayal of the lord of hell reduces Lucifer to an animalistic state, fiercely punishing the sinners he chews as the mechanism of hell he’s been reduced to. This representation embodies the psychological state of Lucifer when he turned against God. As Lucifer’s intentions were twisted against the light of God, so too was is his form in Mazur’s piece. Lucifer is reduced to a personification of the evil which he became in his rebellion against God. This interpretation of Dante’s contrapasso in Canto 34 illustrates the psychological state of Lucifer as he sinned manifesting itself physically in his punishment, a poetic contrapasso in corroboration with Steinberg’s description of contrapasso.

These interpretations of Dante’s contrapasso in the example of Lucifer illustrate two different perspectives on Lucifer’s punishment. Both artistic perspectives depict the state of Lucifer, far from God’s light in the depths of hell. But the stylistic and compositional choices of these two artists illustrate both the physical manifestation of Lucifer’s internal psychological state through his contrapasso, and his actual act against the will of God. These two aspects are differently focused on by Mazur and Stock. As Dante describes in Inferno, the contrapasso of Lucifer is a poetic reflection of his acts against God, and this idea is differently but accurately reflected in these pieces.

Citations

Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Inferno. Edited and translated by

Robert M. Durling, intr., notes. Ronald L. Martinez Vol. 1, Oxford, 1996.

Book of Revelations. Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV) 2011 update. Original

translation led by Howard Long.

Durling, Robert, and Ronald Martinez. Notes. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Volume 1

Inferno. By Dante Alighieri. New York: Oxford UP, USA, 1997. Print.

Steinberg, Justin, and Justin Steinberg. “Dante’s Justice? A Reappraisal of the

Contrapasso.” Academia.com, Academia, 2014, www.academia.edu/10659378/Dantes_Justice_A_reappraisal_of_the_contrapasso.

The Divine Comedy and the Journey of Knowledge

As a first time reader of the Divine Comedy, comprehending and analyzing this work of epic poetry is certainly difficult. It is a monumental task that one needs to undergo to discover the complex and intricate systems of philosophy and Christian theology, and as well as to explore the massive Greco-Roman tradition of poetry from that of Homer, Horace, Virgil, Lucan, and Ovid.

The Divine Comedy is a narrative pilgrimage detailing Dante’s journey from Hell, Purgatory, to Paradise, and it does not only rely on the sophisticated imagery, metaphor, and allegory that Dante elaborated on. But rather, it has a pedagogical purpose of educating the reader through the medium of poetry. The poetic journey in Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso engenders the formation of Dante’s concept of knowledge. The pilgrimage of the Divine Comedy reflects that knowledge is a process, which entails the journey self-development to understand and rationalize the world across various discipline and to achieve the salvation of total knowledge as an end goal.

It is through the journey of knowledge, one can learn to act just and without errors, because in the Inferno: it is the human intellect that has an intended will to commit the most unjust act towards other. Virgil, who serves as a moral guide to Dante the Pilgrim, is also the one who guides the pilgrim through the journey from ignorance to knowledge. When Virgil and Dante enter the gates of hell, there are inscriptions on the gates signifying the never-ending realm of ignorance and suffering that they are about to enter (Inf. III. 2-3). This causes Virgil to characterizes the sinners as those “who have lost the good of the intellect” (Inf. III. 18). Without the proper guiding of knowledge, truth is nowhere to be found. As Dante in the Convivio says: “truth is the good of the intellect” (Convivio. II. 13). The sinners themselves are stuck in the profound misery of their confusions, and they are frustrated because as a result of their intellectual turmoil, resulting in the distorted expression of illiteracy. So they begin to cry with corrupted “strange languages, horrible tongues, words of pain, accents of anger” (Inf. III. 25-6).

The journey of knowledge is later exemplified in Ulysses’ oral portrayal of his voyage to Dante, educating him that “you [people] were not made to live like brute” (Inf. XXVI. 119-20) and showing him that human intellect has an innate agency to search for the path of “virtue and knowledge” (Inf. XXVI. 120). With relation to Ulysses’ voyage and the journey of knowledge, the ship symbolizes the agency of intellect. The intellect then goes through the difficulties of processing and comprehending knowledge that has never experienced for the purpose of understanding the truth; it is like that of a ship that sails through tumultuous waves and disorientated seas with the determination of reaching its proper destination, in which Ulysses mentions about the difficulties of his voyage:

“Five times renewed, and as many diminished, had

been the light beneath the moon, since we had

entered the deep pass,” (Inf. XXVI. 130-2)

Like the voyage of Ulysses, the journey of knowledge requires a great deal of active diverse experience and enduring hardship to come to a final purpose or truth. Our innate drive for knowledge allows us to withstand difficulties in the process of learning. In the Divine Comedy, humans have a passion for acquiring experiences, it is a “natural thirst that is never sated” (Purg. XXI. 1). Throughout the time when Dante makes his pilgrimage from Hell to Paradise, he acquires a tremendous amount of lived experiences from both wise and damned characters who shared accounts of their present and past experiences. It is these lived experiences that he learns that benefits him to engage in his journey (of learning) with a diverse perspective. When Ulysses says to Dante: “Of our senses that remains, do not deny the experience, following the sun, of the world [with people and] without people.” (Inf. XXVI. 116-17). The lesson derives from Ulysses’ speech teaches Dante about the receptive and humble attitude that one needs to carry to accept and open to diverse perspectives from other characters while he is in his journey of knowledge.

And throughout the journey of knowledge, it is Virgil who keeps Dante’s intellect in a proper manner. It is reason that gives intellect the legitimacy on how one should act. This is because that Virgil is the personification of reason. He is the guide that provides Dante a normative ethical approach on how to act just. When Dante meets Virgil in the dark forest right after the confrontation of three angry beasts, there is a sense of triumphant hope found in here. In Dante’s epistle to his patron Cangrande I della Scala, he wrote that the “[Divine Comedy] in the beginning, it is horrible and smelly because ‘Inferno’; in the end it is good, desirable and graceful, for it is ‘Paradiso’ (Epistle to Cangrande. X). Although the Divine Comedy opens with the introductory setting of the dark forest and Dante’s descension to Hell, it is Virgil who acts as a catalyst to guide Dante in the pilgrimage, helping him in his learning experience from Hell, Purgatory, to Paradise. Virgil is not just a celebrated Roman poet who wrote the Aeneid and Eclogues, but Dante describes Virgil that he is a “just son of Anchises” (Inf. I. 73) and Goddess of Venus with a highest noblest degree of ethical virtue (Martinez 37). Dante makes Virgil an embodiment of the diverse education that he learned from the philosophical and poetic works in classical antiquity. Dante then goes on praising his paganistic guide Virgil as his master and author, (Inf. 1. 85-7), and a “master of those who know” (Inf. IV. 131). Thus signifying the emphasis that one needs a proper guide or teacher for one to learn. A teacher like Virgil that “knows” and can guide the pupil on the right path to truth and knowledge. And as Dante said in Il Convivio: he is to be the “most worthy of faith and obedience may be proved as follows” (Convivio. IV. 6). The maestro in Dante’s perspective safeguards the learner from any digression into the habits of errors in a moral sense.

In the Divine Comedy, Virgil is characterized as a teacher that guides Dante and the reader the importance of acting in line with one’s reason. Not only that Dante describes and layout the journey of knowledge as a process, but he also encapsulates the process into a result, transforming the Divine Comedia into an encyclopedic poem (Mazzotta 15). This means that the Divine Comedy is a compendium that makes poetic references on important themes and definitions on cosmology, philosophy, theology, politics, poetry, astrology, astronomy, geometry and etc. We can see that there is an ambitious and prideful undertone to provide a totality of the universe with just language in Canto 32 of Inferno: “for it is no task to take in jest, that of describing the bottom of the universe, nor one for a tongue that calls mommy or daddy” (Inf. XXXII. 7-9). Though the environment that Dante when he says these lines is a bit ironic in its rhetorical treatment because Dante is at the innermost, dense part in the universe. Therefore this type of exordium is a serious literary attempt of Dante trying to give an encyclopedic account of the cosmology despite the perpetuation of ignorance and illiteracy in Hell. At the innermost part of the universe, he has the gravest responsibility to “remove those… from the state of misery and to lead them to the state of bliss.” (Epistle to Cangrande. XV). With respect in seeing the Divine Comedy as an encyclopedia, Dante the poet becomes a guide who has a universal responsibility of showing the readers the value of liberal education through cosmology, in which Dante makes a parallel connection between the seven liberal arts to the celestial sphere in the Paradiso:

“To the first seven correspond the seven sciences of the Trivium and the Quadrivium, namely Grammar, Dialectics, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, and Astrology. To the eighth sphere, namely the Starry Heaven, corresponds natural science, which is called Physics, and the first science, which is called Metaphysics; to the ninth sphere corresponds Moral Science; and to the still heaven corresponds Divine Science, which is called Theology.”

(Il Convivio. II. 13)

And this very quality of containing the cosmology in the universal encyclopedia entails that the journey of knowledge becomes a transcendental one, through the celestial sphere of Paradiso, and it is one that acts upon the spiritual destination of absolute or total knowledge.

The journey of knowledge in Paradiso deserves a greater significance, and it is that of a divine purpose. Dante learns about the different facets of experience from many characters throughout his journey. It is in the climatic ending of Paradiso that celebrates the realm of the celestial sphere as a totality of knowledge. It comprises the celestial sphere as an encyclopedia, that sums up all the diverse discipline in Dante’s journey of knowledge. The universal tome then acts as a final catharsis, leading the learner or Dante to the Divine. When Dante echoes these lines in the final canto of Purgatorio,

“In its depths I saw internalized, bound with

love in one volume, what through the universe

becomes unsewn quires:

substances and accidents and their modes as

it were conflated together, in such a way that

what I describe is a simple light.” (Par. XXXIII. 85-90)

the transcendental power of the intellect is dependent upon the act of conflating all knowledge into the totality of knowledge, an absolute collection of knowledge. The absolute knowledge is an ineffable concept, yet this is a concept that we often theorize of. Perhaps it is also the volume of absolute knowledge which symbolizes the universe, and it is a compendium of all events, history, and knowledge. The volume is cyclical because it contains everything there is need to know about the Divine (Durling 677). Yet the volume is also linear and logical because it embodies the final truth within our journey of knowledge. This truth could be interpreted as telos, which it is the final destination of humans in search of the essence of the Divine. The journey of knowledge “is caused by some intellect indirectly or directly. Since therefore a virtue follows the essence of which it is a virtue, if it is an intellective essence,” (Epistle to Cangrande. 21). Therefore it is us who embarks on an objective journey of the knowledge with our intellect to discover virtue (the guidance that shows how human should act and live) and in search for a spiritual final destination.

The Divine Comedy is a book that shows Dante’s journey of knowledge from Hell, Purgatory, to Paradise. Throughout the journey, Virgil acts as Dante’s teacher that guides him to the right path of his journey, instructing Dante on how to act just. Not only that Dante enters the journey of knowledge, but it is also the reader who partakes this experience with Dante. Therefore, Dante also becomes a guide that has a pedagogical intention of teaching his reader through his didactic poetry. The didactic form of poetry in the Divine Comedy is best characterized as Dante’s ambitious vision of treating the work as an encyclopedia. Dante highlights the seven liberal arts as an anchor for the merit of a diverse education by drawing a connection to the celestial sphere. Thus, transforming the knowledge of journey to a transcendental journey. And it is that knowledge is a fundamental aspect of spiritual salvation and understanding the essence and final cause of the universe.  

Bibliography

Alighieri, Dante, and Robert M. Durling. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Volume 1:

Inferno: Volume 1: Inferno. Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2005.

—. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Volume 2: Purgatorio Oxford University Press,

Incorporated, 2003.

—. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Volume 3: Paradiso. Oxford University Press,

Incorporated, 2005.

—. Dante to Cangrande: English Version. Edited by James Marchand,

faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/cangrande.english.html.

Lansing, Richard H. Dante’s Il Convivio = (The Banquet). New York: Garland, 1990. Print.

Garland Library of Medieval Literature ; v. 65.

Mazzotta, Giuseppe. Dante’s Vision and the Circle of Knowledge. Princeton, New Jersey:

Princeton UP, 1993. Print. Princeton Legacy Library.

Dante Alighieri’s Inferno has a wide variety of violence which is displayed throughout his journey in many forms. The journey appears to be a never-ending learning experience for Dante as he progresses onward to darker depths. As Dante and his master Virgil travel through inferno, the harshness and level of pain that sinners endure also increases. Here I plan to discuss the theme of the 9 circles and how it relates to scenes from inferno and multiple scenes from the Harry potter versions. The main theme that I will be discussing is the theme of justice throughout the divine comedy.

In order to discuss a comparison between the two works, I’ll briefly summarize the canto in which Cerberus was first introduced. We are now in Canto 6 of Inferno and in this canto Dante and Virgil are surrounded by sinners who are there for gluttony. The scene of this canto is described to always be raining. The first description of Cerberus is also introduced in this canto “Cerberus, cruel, monstrous beast, with three throats barks doglike…his eyes are red, his beard greasy and black, his belly large”(Inferno, canto 6) however, one thing to take note is that Cerberus himself is considered a glutton. It is safe to assume that Cerberus is a glutton because Virgil picked up earth and threw it at Cerberus. One depiction of violence in this canto is that Cerberus mauls and chews upon the souls in this part of hell. This creature helps fulfill and deliver the punishment upon the sinners.

In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, there is also a Cerberus-like creature that has an uncanny resemblance to the image in Dante’s Inferno. In her book, Cerberus is also known as “Fluffy” who guards a chamber that protects a stone. As soon as I read Dante’s description of Cerberus, I immediately thought about Fluffy. Canto 6 is very closely depicted in this book; Firstly because the gluttons are the Dursleys (those who adopted harry potter). An example of them being a glutton is when Dudley(Mr.Dursley’s son) eats Harry’s birthday cake without any permission. I believe that Albus Dumbledore is similar to that of Virgil because he is always guiding Harry throughout his life.

To help you better understand what I mean to explain, here is an example:

Click here for an image of fluffy from harry potter

The way that Cerberus or “Fluffy” is depicted in the film of Harry Potter and the Philosophers stone is almost exactly the same as the description from Inferno. The only difference is that the eyes aren’t red, however the gnarling teeth is a dead giveaway. Also in this example, we can interpret Harry, Hermione, and Ron to be the sinners because Hogwarts follows a house points rule:

“Points are given or taken away to reward or punish the behavior of students. Points are accumulated over the course of the school year, at the end of which a House Cup is awarded to the house with the most. Giant hourglasses set in niches along one wall in a corner of the entrance hall record the points for all to see; Gryffindor’s is filled with rubies, Ravenclaw’s with sapphires, Hufflepuff’s with diamonds, and Slytherin’s with emeralds. As a teacher or other authorized party speaks the words awarding or deducting points, the appropriate hourglass or hourglasses are automatically updated (Harry Potter Lexicon, 1”

With that being said, the house point rule is another reason why I believe that J.K Rowling took inspiration from Dante in order to create the harry potter series. The way I interpreted this is that the teachers and faculty at Hogwarts are given the same role that Dante and Virgil have, which is judging those sinners and punishing them based on what they’ve done. The sinners being the students and the punishment being the amount of points that have been deducted.

Here I will discuss a few brief similarities between Inferno and Harry Potter. The first is that the character Argus Filch seems to be stuck in limbo. I believe this is true because he is seen as a character that is neither good nor bad, he simply exists. Argus in some ways is similar to Virgil because he has the role of caretaker in Hogwarts which in relation to the Divine comedy, Virgil is like a caretaker to Dante. The theme of justice can be seen in the movies because Argus is seen trying to ensure that everything that happens in the school is running smoothly. He is the authority that justifies whether or not people deserve to be punished.

One doesn’t have to wonder very much to realize that the divine comedy is filled with metaphors. Something that has come to my attention while studying the divine comedy is the realism that is within Dante’s works such as inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Dante’s imagination is self-evident where he expresses themes of corrections and punishments towards individuals who he has encountered sometime throughout his life. Some people that he has mentioned as part of the “sinners” group as I like to call include; Pope Boniface VIII, Farinata.

To compare, the character’s from the Divine comedy and Harry potter in my opinion is something that was obvious in the sense that they are the same. I’ll start by firstly discussing how Harry himself is the same as Dante. All of the comparisons that I’ll talk about are from the Harry potter films rather than the books because I believe that they have a higher interpretation than the print version. As I read inferno throughout the semester, I couldn’t help but notice that Dante is always in some kind of journey just like harry. The subject of mortality also came to my mind when Dante mentions in canto 1 lines 58-59 “I did not endure it long, yet not so little that I did not see it emitting sparks all around”, here he is telling us (the reader) that he is a mortal however he does claim that he knows more than the average mortal. Dante reveals his desire to transcend his own mortality and this is similar to Harry’s character because he also seeks to become a greater wizard and is also on a journey with his friends. Despite this similarity, there is also another thing that is significantly different about Harry’s journey that separates it from the journey of Dante. Dante was initially prevented from crossing a river by his distinguishable attribute, only to be rescued by divine will. Contrarily, Harry’s attribute is exactly what allowed him to cross the river in the film.

Another main character that I’d like to compare to Dante’s Divine comedy is professor Snape. If I were to place him in Dante’s comedy, I would place him in the second circle along with a couple of notable characters from history such as Tristan, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra. In this second circle of inferno, Dante and his master Virgil find some people who were overcome by the sin of lust as Dante thinks:

“Here Dante explores the relationship–as notoriously challenging in his time and place as in ours–between love and lust, between the ennobling power of attraction toward the beauty of a whole person and the destructive force of possessive sexual desire. The lustful in hell, whose actions often led them and their lovers to death, are “carnal sinners who subordinate reason to desire” (Inf. 5.38-9). From the examples presented, it appears that for Dante the line separating lust from love is crossed when one acts on this misguided desire.”(Danteworlds).

In one of the harry potter films, it is revealed to the audience that Snape loved Lilly who was harry potters mother. Although harry, Hermione, and Ron all looked at professor Snape as something of a villain, he actually had a bit of love towards harry but for the wrong reason. It is because he had both love and lust for his mother that he felt the need to somewhat care for him since he lost the relationship between himself and Lilly when he called her a “mudblood”. To conclude this character, he belongs in Dante’s inferno because his actions led Lilly to die back when Harry was a baby and led to his own death in the end of the Deathly Hallows.

Click here for image of Snape holding Lilly

Here in this image we can see Snape’s self-proclaimed love for Lilly which made him somewhat of a secret guardian to harry.

Another character that I’d like to place in Dante’s inferno is Lucius Malfoy. I wouldn’t simply place him because he was obviously evil and followed the “dark lord” as most would refer him to. But more specifically, I would place him in the 4^th circle which pertains to avarice and greed. In this circle, you can picture the souls of people who jousted over their earthly possessions. In this circle, Dante says to see many clergymen which include the popes and cardinals such as Lucius Malfoy who is a cardinal for lord Voldemort. I think that Lucius belongs in this specific circle of hell because his hunger for desire, wealth and power turn him to the dark side. This backfires back to him because when he saw that the dark lord was being defeated and saw that his son may have perished, you can see the fear in his face which is strange since he always seemed like a strong and confident character.

In the next circle of hell which would be the 5^th, I would place the character Bartemius Crouch JR. the following is a brief definition from the danteworlds website:

“Like the fourth circle of hell, the fifth circle–presented in Inferno 7 and 8–contains two related groups of sinners. But whereas avarice and prodigality are two distinct sins based on the same principle (an immoderate attitude toward material wealth), wrath and sullenness are basically two forms of a single sin: anger that is expressed (wrath) and anger that is repressed (sullenness).”

Bartemius was sent to Azkaban by his own father Barty SR. He was sent to Azkaban would could be the contrapasso for him in this scenario for torturing the Longbottoms. Barty jr’s hatred for his father and the world is what drove him to release his anger with evil with the help of the dark lord. The repressed hate that he has for his father is the reason why he becomes wrathful and eventually place him in the 5^th circle in my opinion.

Finally, the last character that I’d like to discuss is Belatrix Lestrange. This character is probably by far the most cruel and violent character throughout the whole series of harry potter. She is the cousin of Sirius Black who ironically is Harry’s godfather. I would easily place her in the 7^th circle of hell.  I say that she belongs there because the 7^th circle is indeed where the violent sinners go. She is the kind of character who enjoys, loves, and craves to torture her poor victims and pain is her pastime. Another way we can view her is by being the dark lords most loyal, evil, violent, and destructive supporter.

I think it’s amazing that I was the first one in the class that noticed the relationship between the harry potter movies and Dante’s divine comedy. There were plenty more relationships that I could’ve paired up such as linking peter Pettigrew with betrayal and ending with lord Voldemort himself with treachery. To conclude, knowing Harry potter films and to have read the books is in my opinion very helpful for understanding Dante and his inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso because I now can link some of the images to a few scenes.

sources

Dante’s Inferno – Circle 2 – Canto 5, danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/circle2.html.

Gibbons, David. “Alimentary Metaphors in Dante’s ‘Paradiso.’” The Modern Language Review,

vol. 96, no. 3, 2001, pp. 693–706. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3736739.

Z., Amy, et al. “House Points – The Harry Potter Lexicon.” The Harry Potter Lexicon, www.hp-lexicon.org/thing/house-points/.