Author Archives: Zeng Hong Li

The Divine Comedy and the Journey of Knowledge

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.

Pastoral setting in Canto 28

Dante and Virgil enter the earthly paradise, the garden of Eden at canto 28. The entire setting of the Earthly Paradise is related to the concept of the Golden Age, which is coined by Hesiod in the poem of Work and Days. The Golden Age is a period of prosperity and harmony when men only rely on the abundance of the earth to feed themselves (Wikipedia). There is a notion of the pastoral and idyllic environment throughout the canto. The garden is presented as a deep forest that is “thick and alive”, and Dante then makes a reflected comment: “tempered the new days to my eyes” to show that the density of the forest creates a shaded environment in which light seeps in. Alighieri uses the veil motif to highlight the natural innocence that men have in their unfiltered and unrefined habitat. The beauty of the garden is emphasized in verses 7-9 and 13-15:

“A sweet breeze, unchanging in itself, struck my brow with no greater force than a gentle wind,” (Purg. 28. 7-9)

“but not parted so much from their straightness that the little birds in the treetops left off exerting their every art” (Purg. 28. 13-5)

The spring-like scenes in both verses render a tranquil and harmonic quality that defines the Earthly Paradise. And the word “straightness” alludes to the natural justice that is inherited in men, but natural justice can be tampered whenever there is an opposite sex involved. For example, when the pilgrim sees Matelda, the guide in Earthly Paradise, he said

“Ah, beautiful lady who warm yourself in the rays of love, if am to believe your expression, which usually bears witness to the heart… You put me in mind of where and what Proserpina was” (Purg. 28. 43-50)

Martinez commentary suggests that there is a sexual overtone in these particular passages because it expresses a style that is similar to the poetic tradition of pastourelle. In pastourelle lyric form sexual relations often happens between the narrator and shepherdess, either consensual or rape. But according to the story of Proserpina, she was abducted and raped by Hades (Martinez 485).The juxtaposition presented in these particular passages is a bit out of place since the Earthly Paradise is described to be a perfect setting. More or less the concept of the Earthly Paradise or the Golden Age is merely an appearance derived from the fascination we have about the idyllic past. Though taking place in the pastoral setting the story of Adam and Eve is perhaps an anti-pastoral story. And that the structure of a pastoral narrative can be broken down as anti-pastoral because of its innate feature of innocence and “straightness”.

Reflection 1

When one embarks on a hermeneutical journey of a great text, especially to that of the Divine Comedy, one is bound to confront the puzzlement of interpreting and analyzing the text. Certainly, one must read, and one must also write, in order to make an attempt to understand the text. For the comedy, it is a literary work of pedagogy that presents a well-rounded, cohesive, sets of classical ideas derived from liberal education that ranges from philosophy, mythology, theology, painting, politics, religion, and poetry. If we are only to read the text in our inner voice or out loud to our self, we are treating the text as a form of dogmatic study. I certainly do find the beauty and the challenge of coming to class to explicate my analysis on a particular theme or idea in the cantos. And indeed, whatever one is spewing out onto the open classroom initiates the reciprocation of interpretation, like when different perspectives of textual analysis are being cross-examined. In the open classroom, new ideas are being born, and instructors and students are all contributing their method of how certain implicit elements come into play and building upon each other’s ideas with their proposed textual evidence and explanation.

Lest we forget that the Divine Comedy should be approached in a holistic manner, by this mean, there is equal merit in analyzing each facet of the liberal education. For example, my treatment of the text tends to gravitate to philosophy and mythology. For once, I was fascinated by the iconography of ascension and the cosmos and its underlying philosophical connection to stoicism. And also, I was eager to find if there is any highlighting connection between the theory of social contract put forth by Thomas Hobbes and why Florence was a discordant city-state at that time. These ideas and other similar ones were composed in a collective class journal that every student can read and comment. For one to derive pleasure in one’s writing, is one just to write for the sake of one. However, we must pretend to acknowledge that our instructor and students are an ignorant layman who has never read the text, and whatever experimental interpretation we have must be subjected to the sterilization of lucidity. It is foolish to start to analyze about metamorphosis in depth when the writer hasn’t even begun to give a proper introduction to the term. I must be frank that I’ve committed such mistake of assuming that the audience knows what I am explicating about.

Since this is an open collective class journal, we certainly do want to be considerate by communicating in a way that is effective and contributing. Although we are not writing an academic paper on this forum, we should treat our written delivery of it as such. If we are explicating our interpretation in the class, it is more acceptable to make a mistake on the fallibility and the delivery of the explication. But if are writing about it on the collective class journal, there is less room for errors, and there is no excuse as to the poor development of one’s idea. Therefore, our instructor points out our mistakes sharply before the students notice it. I reckon that some students express a slight annoyance because the comments that the instructor gave might be too much criticism on their grammar or idea development. But I do want to emphasize one point, which is to find the true lesson of what the text means to you in whatever way, regardless of caring too much about performing poorly on the class journal. One should interpret the comedy by, drawing out on any implicit element that might sound outrageous or out of touch. And that we should risk being wrong, rather than not making any thoughtful interpretation at all. As long as there is an innate attraction for that interpretation, finding evidence of it to support the claim will be a job that certainly requires the pleasure of mental stimulation.

 

Of Cosmological Apatheia

Stoicism is a school of philosophy that dates back from 300 B.C.E. It emphasizes philosophy ought to be practiced not as academic studies, but as a way of life. Alighieri has indeed incorporated many stoical concepts and references throughout the Cantos from thinkers like Epictetus, Seneca, and Cicero. Of those concepts, I would like to introduce what Apatheia is. Apatheia, as the stoic Epictetus would define, ‘is freedom from unhealthy passion’ (pain, fear, craving, and pleasure) and having apatheia in one’s life would constitute a life of that is both virtuous and flourishing (IEP).

The method of practicing and developing apatheia towards one life can be achieved through the visualization of the cosmos from the omnipresent perspective of looking at the world down below and up above.

We can see that Alighieri expresses a similitude of the grandeur view of the cosmos. On line 1-3 of Canto 24, There is an astrological description showing the relative relation between the Sun and the constellation of Aquarius, which causes the changing of the firmament. It is important to notice the order of this Terzina because the cosmological element is ordered like this: Sun, Aquarius, and the sky.

In that part of the youthful year when the sun

tempers its locks under Aquarius and already the

nights are moving south (Inf. 24. 1-3)

Then on the next Terzina, the causal relationship between the ground and the frost – which hints at the melting of frost – alludes to the Earth and the changing of the weather.

when on the ground the frost copies the image of

her white sister, but her pen retains its temper only

briefly (Inf. 24. 4-6)

And again, the element of frostiness is being mentioned again in later line, “see the fields all white”. But more importantly, the perspective of the cosmos shifts into a one that focuses on human matter. And there is some type of unbalanced display of emotions that are concerned with the changing of season and nature.

[the peasant] goes back in his house, and complains here and

there, like a wretch who knows not what to do; then

he goes forth again and stores hope in his wicker basket

again (Inf. 24. 10-12)

Those dispositions can be characterized as being fearful, anxious, and distressed when the changes in the environment are not depended on our expectations and our ability to control certain situations. Such moment of unstable emotion is emphasized on line 16-17, “so my master made me lose confidence, when I saw his brow so clouded”. However, there is a sudden shift in Virgil’s disposition in the next two Terzina that can be summarized as:

with the sweet expression I first saw at the foot of the mountain, / he opened his arms and took hold of me (Inf. 24. 20-23)

And as Seneca has said

“The wise man and devotee of philosophy are needless to say inseparable from his body, and yet he is detached from it so far as the best part of his personality is concerned, directing his thoughts towards things far above.” (Letter LXV, Letters from a Stoic)

The excerpt brought from Seneca highlights the importance of Virgil’s virtuous strength, in which draws a connection when the pilgrim praises Virgil “And like one who uses judgment as he acts, always seeming to look ahead, so, carrying me up to the top.” We can see there is an implicit iconography of ascension by comparing these two excerpts. It is the one who directs his study above earthly and cosmological configurations to establish a complete perspective of the cosmos, thus enables one to have an outlook of mental calmness on life.

As a whole Alighieri’s meticulous layering of the cosmos imagery provides adequate ground for that one must see the world in a way that goes beyond human and social affairs, the changing of earthly environment and seasons. We must put our fascination onto the stars and the constellations to develop a sense of universal apatheia, that human worries and suffering is so insignificant compared to the sublime vastness of the universe. From there on, we can go ‘up’ to see the world in perspective starting from the smallest anthropological layers to the cosmological layers (human and society, the earth, the firmament, and the stars) to have a complete view of nature and the divine, and that we must confront the uncontrollable nature with emotional resilience like that of the cardinal virtues (justice, prudence, fortitude, temperance).

Of Simony

Alighieri begins canto 19 with the apostrophe of “O Simon Magus, O wretched followers, you who the things of God, that should be brides of goodness rapaciously” (Inf. 19. 1-2). The subject of the apostrophe, Simon Magus is a Samaritan magician who offered money to buy priesthood from Saint Peter. And eventually, this becomes a permissible common practice to commercially exchange priesthood and the church (Durling Comm.). Alighieri then draws an analogy comparing Simony to prostitution with the line of “adulterate for gold and for silver” (Inf. 19. 4). We can see that the spiritual role of the priesthood cannot be leveraged through monetary means; and if it does, it will corrupt the intellect and the will of the individual. There is somewhat of a connection between simony and usury since both sins are predicated on the exchange of money. Usury, the practice of money-lending seems to be a self-defeating action; the mean of this action is also the end of this action, and this renders usury as a sin that is meaningless, yet benefits the interest of the self. Whereas simony is a more severed sin that utilizes money to gain spiritual and religious power; this makes it easy for a wealthy individual to buy their way to becoming a priest. Many can abuse simony to influence others to gain self-interest, thus causing corruption in social order. In Alighieri’s imagery, corruption is never viewed as a whole or complete, but is being metaphorically described in the form of pockets: “the livid rock perforated with holes” (Inf. 19. 13).

Contractarianism and Fraud

Virgil, the tour guide of Dante’s pilgrimage explains the itinerary for the inner construction of the seventh and eighth circle of hell. For Virgil the tour guide, he has the power to anticipate what’s coming next in the journey to Inferno, therefore giving Dante the tenacity to descend further while overcoming fear and cowardice.

In Virgil’s account, the seventh circle consists of violence, and it is separated “and constructed in three sub-circles. [It is the type of violence that applies] to God, to oneself, and to one’s neighbor.” (XI 30-31). He also hints that fraudulence is a sin that is caused by human intellect, therefore the degree of suffering would be greater than that of violence (XI 25-27). By anticipating deeper to the Malebolge, we are confronted by the various characteristics of fraudulence: hypocrisy, flattery, casters of spells, impersonators, thievery and simony, panders, embezzlers, and similar filth (XI 58-60).

From verse 55 to 56, Alighieri mentions that Fraudulence severs the connection between Nature and human. To a further extent, this type of disconnection also applies to the citizen and society and citizen to citizen as well. In the philosophical theory of ethics, Contractarianism explains that the authority of moral norms is derived from the mutual agreement that everybody agrees on, and it rejects the notion that divine ideals would provide justifications for moral norms (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Contractarianism). In this sense, fraudulence in various degrees corrupts the political and moral contracts of modern society. And it undermines the idea of self-interest because there is a reciprocal response in how human beings are committing fraudulent act to violate each other’s self-interest. I believe Alighieri realizes that fraudulence is indeed a contagious force. When fraudulence is committed within the individuals, this will further erode the moral and political stability of the society (which is expressed in the political state of Florence during that time). If we are looking at society and its human beings as a whole, doesn’t this also corrupts the ever-changing state of Nature?

 

Hell as Babel

In Canto 7, we are confronted with Plutus opening verse of “Pape Satan, pape Satan aleppe!”. This verse deserves a special mention because it is one those verse in the Divine Comedy that remains untranslated, and it might lose its intended and original meaning if it is translated. Untranslatable verse like this allows us to investigate on the general meaning and the hidden implication of the words in the verse.

In the case of “Pape Satan, pape Satan aleppe!”, Alighieri does not use the common Italian/Latin word ‘papa’ as pope, but instead uses the informal and debased version of the word ‘pape’.  And at the same time ‘Pape’ is a rhetorical device that act as an interjection for showing affection. The last word ‘aleppe’ is similar to the first Hebrew alphabet of ‘aleph’ which implies God (the divine one). In the verse ‘aleppe’ is placed at the end of the verse, showing that God permeates from the beginning to the end (Digital Dante C Inf VII).

Not only Plutus is a Greek god of wealth, we can imagine that he has shown proficiency in the art of language, mastering both Italian, Latin, and Hebrew, and as well as mastering the debauched dialects of these languages. He is to be reminded of a polyglot with a confused tongue who were banished from the tower of Babel. It is like that of Plutus, a pagan god who is punished by the Judeo-Christian version of God. Plutus, speaking with “his clucking voice”, utter the corrupted speech of interjection, “Pape Satan, pape Satan aleppe!” to show his affection to Satan, yet satirizing himself to reveal the papacy state during Alighieri’s time, when the indignation of Paganistic heresy were very common.

On a broader scale, I am not familiar with the specific historical context of how the multiplicity of language comes into play with the sociopolitical structure of the Church state (since the common language is Latin). But there might implication on how the diversity of languages and thoughts affect the sociopolitical structure of the Church state, if there is any at all, from my previous drawing of the parallel between the tower of Babel to the political state during Alighieri’s time.

 

Assignment 1: Canto 6

This image is engraved by John Flaxman in 1973. It is under the University of Virginia (The World of Dante) archive.

http://www.worldofdante.org/pop_up_query.php?dbid=I168&show=more

This image illustrates Cerberus, the three-headed beast who resides in the third (gluttony) circle of hell. When Dante regains his consciousness from a fall, he is greeted by the harshness of the weather condition; he describes that there are hailstones, heavy rains, snows, and filthy water that stinks the environment. He then sees Cerberus, barking violent over those who have been eaten. In Cerberus’ physical appearance, the beast’s eyes are red and has a big belly, and he has talons to preys on his victim at ease. Cerberus proceeds to devours his foods with raving hunger and remains to silence while he is fulfilling his appetite.