The 700 years old celebration of the iconic Divine Comedy
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The Divine Comedy
he Divine Comedy (Italian: Divina Commedia) is a long Italian
narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed in
1320, a year before his death in 1321. It is widely considered to be
the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest
works of world literature.
The Divine Comedy is composed of 14,233 lines that are divided into
three cantiche (singular cantica) – Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio
(Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise) – each consisting of 33 cantos
(Italian plural canti). An initial canto, serving as an introduction
to the poem and generally considered to be part of the first
cantica, brings the total number of cantos to 100.
The number three is prominent in the work (alluding to the Trinity),
represented in part by the number of cantiche and their lengths.
Written in the first person, the poem tells of Dante's journey
through the three realms of the dead, lasting from the night before
Good Friday to the Wednesday after Easter in the spring of 1300. The
Roman poet Virgil guides him through Hell and Purgatory; Beatrice,
Dante's ideal woman, guides him through Heaven. Beatrice was a
Florentine woman he had met in childhood and admired from afar in
the mode of the then-fashionable courtly love tradition, which is
highlighted in Dante's earlier work La Vita Nuova.
Overview
he poem's imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of
the medieval world-view as it had developed in the Western Church by
the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan language, in which
it is written (also in most present-day Italian-market editions), as
the standardized Italian language. It is divided into three parts:
Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
The narrative takes as its literal subject the state of souls after
death
and presents an image of divine justice meted out as due punishment or reward, and describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise or Heaven, while allegorically the poem represents the soul's journey towards God, beginning with the recognition and rejection of sin (Inferno), followed by the penitent Christian life (Purgatorio), which is then followed by the soul's ascent to God (Paradiso).
Inferno
he poem begins on the night before Good Friday in 1300, "halfway along our life's path" (Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita). Dante is thirty-five years old, half of the biblical lifespan of 70 (Psalms 89:10, Vulgate), lost in a dark wood (understood as sin), assailed by beasts (a lion, a leopard, and a she-wolf) he cannot evade and unable to find the "straight way" (diritta via) – also translatable as "right way" – to salvation (symbolized by the sun behind the mountain). Conscious that he is ruining himself and that he is falling into a "low place" (basso loco) where the sun is silent ('l sol tace), Dante is at last rescued by Virgil, and the two of them begin their journey to the underworld.
Canto
I
He, soon as he saw That I was weeping, answer'd
Canto
II
Hellish hurricane that torments the lustful
Canto
III
Charon, ferryman of the dead,comes to ferry souls across the river Acheron to Hell.
Canto
IV
Dante’s swoon after hearing Francesca’s story
aving survived the depths of Hell, Dante and Virgil ascend out of the
undergloom to the Mountain of Purgatory on the far side of the world.
The Mountain is on an island, the only land in the Southern
Hemisphere, created by the displacement of rock which resulted when
Satan's fall created Hell (which Dante portrays as existing underneath
Jerusalem). The mountain has seven terraces, corresponding to the
seven deadly sins or "seven roots of sinfulness." The classification
of sin here is more psychological than that of the Inferno, being
based on motives, rather than actions. However, Dante's illustrative
examples of sin and virtue draw on classical sources as well as on the
Bible and on contemporary events. Allegorically, the Purgatorio
represents the Christian life. Christian souls arrive escorted by an
angel, singing In exitu Israel de Aegypto.
The Purgatorio is notable for demonstrating the medieval knowledge of
a spherical Earth. During the poem, Dante discusses the different
stars visible in the southern hemisphere, the altered position of the
sun, and the various timezones of the Earth. At this stage it is,
Dante says, sunset at Jerusalem, midnight on the River Ganges, and
sunrise in Purgatory.
Purgatorio
Sould purged of their gluttony deprived of food and water.
Paradiso
“But already my desire and my will were being turned like a wheel, all at one speed, by the Love which moves the sun and the other stars”.
fter an initial ascension, Beatrice guides Dante through the nine celestial spheres of Heaven. These are concentric and spherical, as in Aristotelian and Ptolemaic cosmology. While the structures of the Inferno and Purgatorio were based on different classifications of sin, the structure of the Paradiso is based on the four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues. The seven lowest spheres of Heaven deal solely with the cardinal virtues of Prudence,
Fortitude, Justice and Temperance. The first three spheres involve a deficiency of one of the cardinal virtues – the Moon, containing the inconstant, whose vows to God waned as the moon and thus lack fortitude; Mercury, containing the ambitious, who were virtuous for glory and thus lacked justice; and Venus, containing the lovers, whose love was directed towards another than God and thus lacked Temperance.
The seven subdivided into three are raised further by two more categories: the eighth sphere of the fixed stars that contain those who achieved the theological virtues of faith, hope and love, and represent the Church Triumphant – the total perfection of humanity, cleansed of all the sins and carrying all the virtues of heaven; and the ninth circle, or Primum Mobile, which contains the angels, creatures
never poisoned by original sin. Topping them all is the Empyrean, which contains the essence of God, completing the 9-fold division to 10. Dante meets and converses with several great saints of the Church, including Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Saint Peter, and St. John. The Paradiso is consequently more theological in nature than the Inferno and the Purgatorio. However, Dante admits that the vision of heaven he receives is
merely the one his human eyes permit him to see, and thus the vision
of heaven found in the Cantos is Dante's personal vision.
The Divine Comedy finishes with Dante seeing the Triune God. In a
flash of understanding that he cannot express, Dante finally
understands the mystery of Christ's divinity and humanity, and his
soul becomes aligned with God's love.