Daily Archives: May 1, 2019

Last class

I really enjoyed your presentations today. You had such brilliant ideas. I look forward to reading your papers!

Here are the last things we have to take care of:

If you haven’t presented today you will do it next time. Besides giving the space to the last few presentations, I would like to discuss the cantos we didn’t have time to discuss, namely Purgatorio 32-33 and Paradiso 1-2, plus the only canto you have to read for next class, that is Canto 33 of Paradiso.

I decided to cut the readings to give you the time to start working on your final papers. In class, we will also spend 30 minutes workshopping your papers. You will be at different stages of your writing process, but make sure you have at least your thesis, an outline and possible sources. If you already have these elements, you can write your introduction or parts of the paper. You don’t have to write a post this week (please work on the paper, instead).   

Please check our schedule for important deadlines and send me the lines that you would like to see on the final exams by may 10.  The final exam will have the same format of the midterm exam.

Finally, at this point you should be submitting your teachers’ evaluations. Please!

While some of you were presenting today I kept thinking about this painting, which I was going to include in your assignment at the Met, but unfortunately is not currently on display.

Style of Hieronymus Bosch (Netherlandish, ca. 1550-60). Christ's Descent into Hell.

Style of Hieronymus Bosch (Netherlandish, ca. 1550–60). Christ’s Descent into Hell. Oil on wood. The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Reflection 2

Reading and understanding the Divine Comedy has been a long difficult process for me! At first I was complaining about it and it was frustrating for me to have so many sources to help me understand a text that seemed so difficult from far away to read. Virgil and Dante’s journal through hell and through Purgatorio is filled with many characters that are easy to mix up, especially being that it was my first time reading it.

Dante and Virgil’s journey through Purgatorio is separated into terraces on this mountain. At the very top of the mountain, is the entrance to Heaven, at the bottom is where they just came from Hell. I found it very interesting of the shapes of each part of the Comedies. Inferno was shaped like a spiral, as they descent down through hell, they are understanding sinners and grief, whereas in Purgatorio, they are ascending upward towards the entrance to Heaven. There is a very helpful video on youtube that explains this and the entire Comedy in separate parts.

I like this symbolism throughout the Cantos, it is simple when looking at it like a mountain that you leave your sins behind at the bottom as you recapture innocence of humanity before the fall of man. At the very top of Purgatory, Dante and Virgil find Matilda, who also is near Beatrice whom is Dante’s (dead) girlfriend. Beatrice’s explanation is very confusing as well and I will need to work more to understand that.

The video I watched mentioned that the theme of threes comes up a lot in the trilogy, which is something I will likely mention and look more into in my final paper.