Author Archives: Johnny Zhu

Dante’s Overpowering Faith

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/

Burden of a body

Illustrazioni sulla Divina commedia di Dante [in 4 portfolios] by Scaramuzza, Francesco

Makeup for blog post 3

This image depicts the second ring of the seventh circle in hell. This is where those who have committed violence against themselves reside. These souls are turned into trees and their bodies that have been discarded are hung from their branches. The picture captures the moment of the sinners dragging their bodies before they are transformed. The body motions in the picture really capture the feeling of dragging a limp body. Especially the woman whose body’s hair is tied around her neck, hanging from the neck the hair creates an image of a reverse noose giving a not so subtle hint to how she might have committed suicide. It gives an impression of how they were when they lived, struggling to move a body that just seems to have given up and refuses to cooperate, that must have been really taxing for their souls. This could have been one of the factors that have pushed them to suicide, to relieve them of their “dead” weight. For a human the body is an important piece that makes him whole and to just throw it away causes them to become less than human, and thus they are punished. Unable to re-enter their own bodies they must now accompany the sinners for eternity as truly dead weights.

Dante’s Voyage

In Purgatorio 30 Dante compares Beatrice to an Admiral that helps guide other people’s ships “Like an admiral who comes to stern and prow to see the people who serve on other ships, and heartens them to do well” (58-60). This line reminded me of Ulysses and his voyage to beyond the edge of the known world. We know that this journey failed and may be one of the reasons for Ulysses’ damnation. Ulysses is portrayed as a gifted individual with talents that can break past the established limits. This is quite similar to how Dante portrays himself as we have seen him place himself just one level below the greatest poets in the world. Dante seems to compare Ulysses’ voyage with his own journey as he makes references of ships throughout Purgatorio like the previous quote or the quote in the beginning of Purgatorio “To run through better waters the little ship of my wit now hoists its sails, leaving behind it a sea so cruel.”

We know that Ulysses’ journey failed and that Dante’s journey will succeed but why does this happen even though they are of similar character? That is because of Beatrice or more precisely faith as we see in Purgatorio 31 we learn that Beatrice is the one that guides Dante onto the true path, she is the reason why Dante made this journey in the first place as he was slowly straying from the true path and needed to be corrected. That is why Dante makes the comparison with the Admiral, Beatrice is able to help guide Dante because of his faith. Ulysses on the other hand wanted to rely on reason and logic, without faith he was destined to never succeed in his voyage. This draws back to the theme of faith vs reason as we have seen with Virgil in where he was unable to get through hell by only using reason and had to rely on faith to get past these obstacles.

Reflective Post 1

After reading my posts i realized that my first couple of posts were solely narrative posts as I failed to fully engage with the text. It was only during the next few that i was starting to engage and analyze the cantos. I noticed that my more successful posts were focused on Virgil as i find him to be a more interesting character than Dante.

Writing is definitely not my strong suit as bits of grammatical errors are sprinkled across my posts. Critical analysis and finding hidden meanings are things that I always struggled with, it never seems to click in my head. With a classical work such as The Divine Comedy it increases the difficulty of analyzing for me as now i must struggle to even grasp the most surface level understanding from the text. One thing that i should really improve upon is adding more text from the cantos into my posts to help support my analysis. There is also the lack of outside sources to draw from like Barolini’s comments or the comments from the book, these are insightful comments that have a much deeper understanding of Dante’s Divine Comedy and can provide me a better understanding of the text so i am able to grasp the topics and themes that Dante explores in his text.

Test of Faith

In the Commento Baroliniano of canto 21 it discusses that Malacoda was able to deceive Virgil thus placing them in danger “Malacoda is able to deceive Virgilio because he accompanies his lie with a great truth: the true date of the death of Christ … Malacoda’s truthful lie—in effect, a falsehood that appears true—is the precise inversion of comedìa, a truth that appears false.” This marks the second time that Virgil has failed in this journey of guiding Dante. Although it wasn’t a walk in the park their journey has been relatively smooth aside from some hiccups like this event or at the gate of Dis. The purpose of this journey seems to be for Dante to understand the actions that God makes and to have faith in his decisions. But what is the purpose of these failures, these are certainly not coincidental Hell itself and its occupants are all governed by God himself, this little excursion of Dante and Virgil is definitely a part of his design. These incidents don’t seem to affect Dante much as we saw during the gate of Dis, he only became more and more nervous as he watched Virgil become more anxious through his face. In contrast these events seem to affect Virgil much more as we saw during in Dis his confidence that always seemed to be invincible was wounded and even now as we have seen in these recent dealing with the devils it has left a crack in him. It seems that this journey is also a test of faith for Virgil as much as it is for Dante.

Virgil’s Confidence

in canto 21 Dante and Virgil arrive at the fifth bolgia, as Dante tries to figure what is happening in the dark tar-like substance Virgil shouts at him to look out as they spot a black devil carrying a sinner towards their punishment. As the devil continues to torture the sinners Dante and Virgil that he is not alone, there were more devils in hiding, to get past this place they must confront the group of devils. At this moment a rare thing happens, Virgil tells Dante to hide “So it may not appear that you are here, squat down behind a projecting rock to hide;”(58-60). Throughout the cantos Dante was very rarely in danger and was mostly there standing beside Virgil as he confront the challenges that bar them from moving forward. This showed Virgil’s confidence in himself and his task as he never believed that they would face any serious danger, that changed at the gate of Dis. Virgil’s failure at Dis hurt his confidence and even more importantly his faith in the task of guiding Dante through hell. Though he gets most of it back we can see that there are still cracks remaining in this canto. Here we see Virgil contradict himself, he advises Dante to hide but reassures him that everything is going to be alright “and no matter what harm they offer me, do not be afraid, for i have foreseen everything” (61-63). If Virgil was as confident as he says why doesn’t he just bring Dante along like he did when he was confronting the previous obstacles, it shows that he might not be as sure as he says “and as he reached the sixth bank, he needed to have a confident brow.” this line makes it out as if Virgil is trying to psyche himself up, to put on a mask of confidence as he himself seems to believe that he does not have enough of it.

Sin of Sodomy

In canto 15 Dante and Virgil enter the third and last circle of the seventh hell where the heretics, sodomites, and usurers are punished for their violence against God. In this place Dante meets a familiar figure, his mentor Brunetto Latini who is placed in this hell for his acts of sodomy. In the notes of this canto it is said the Brunetto was burned in real life as punishment for the act of sodomy “Brunetto (whose name means “dark”) is burned over his whole body; in some Italian cities (though not Florence), burning was a frequent civil penalty for sodomy ” (27) this shows just how severe the crime of sodomy was even though sodomy is just one part of the sin of lust. In Dante’s version of hell the actual sin of lust is placed only on the second circle of hell which shows that he views it as one of the least offensive sins out there, but then he goes and puts sodomy at the end of the seventh circle of hell, a drastic difference from the treatment of lust . At this time period most people viewed the act of non-procreating sexual intercourse as an affront to God himself as he designed nature in a way were the path humans are supposed to follow is the path of procreation. The act of sodomy strays off the path that nature has created for humans, therefore those who commit sodomy are going against not only nature but the creator of nature himself God and that makes sodomy an severe offensive sin.

The Poet’s Wrath

 

Illustrazioni sulla Divina commedia di Dante [in 4 portfolios]
https://library.artstor.org/#/asset/SS33624_33624_33393782;prevRouteTS=1549948920011

In Canto 8 we experience a new Dante that we have not seen in the previous canto. In the fifth circle of Hell Dante and Virgil are crossing the Styx on a boat when they meet someone that Dante recognizes, this person is Filippo Argenti who is Dante’s nemesis in real life. Here we can see Dante the poet heavily intrudes into the story basically supplanting himself as Dante the character. The once sympathetic character who fainted out of pity from listening to a bitter love story is now replaced by a person who wishes to see someone suffer further punishment “Master, much would i desire to see him ducked in this broth before we leave the lake” (52-54). It goes even further to the point where Filippo Argenti is being torn to shreds but Dante is not shocked or disgusted by it, instead he revels in it and praises God for this event. Everything in the canto is against him Dante, Virgil, even the other sinners, here we can see the ruthlessness of Dante the poet providing a sharp juxtaposition between the two Dantes. On one hand we have a Dante that weeps with excessive pity to the poor souls that are damned, on the other we have a Dante that put these souls in hell and condemned them believing that they deserved to be placed there for their sins that they have committed. Dante the poet seeming to give into his wrath and write about the condemnation of his real life enemy to suffer in Hell for the sin of wrath gives this canto a bit of morbid irony. 

Assignment 1 Canto 5

https://library.artstor.org/#/asset/SS35197_35197_19446895

Pinelli, Bartolomeo (Italian sculptor, painter, and printmaker, 1781-1835)

This is a image of Dante fainting after listening to the bitter love story of Francesca.

When Dante and Virgil enter the second Hell they are met with a raging tempest, “The infernal whirlwind, which never rests, drives the spirits before its violence; turning and striking, it tortures them. ” (31-33). The sinners of the second hell are those that fell victim to their own lust and weak will and are thus punished by losing control of their bodies like they have when they succumbed to their sins. The whirlwind is intense throwing bodies back and forth to the wails of occupants “Now the grief-stricken note begin to make themselves heard; now i have come where much weeping assails me” (25-27). Dante listens as Virgil starts to point out those in the storm slowly giving him bits of their respective history. Dante, prompted by Virgil, calls out to a couple and listens to their bitter tale of love. Overwhelmed with pity for Francesca and Paolo he falls over and faints after their tragic story is finished.