Written: c 1306-1321
Translator: John Ciardi
Publisher: New American Library (2003 Edition)
Bought from: Book Depository
Introduction
Durante degli Alighieri (Dante), is an Italian author best known for his epic poem La commedia (The Comedy), later renamed La divina commedia (The Divine Comedy).
Dante was born in Florence, Italy during a period marked by conflict in northern Italy. Dante’s family belonged to the Guelphs which supported the Papacy. The Guelphs was involved in a long and bitter struggle with the Ghibelline faction which supported the Holy Roman Emperor. For much of Dante’s childhood, the Guelphs were in power in Florence. Around 1300, the Guelphs splintered into White Guelphs and Black Guelphs. Dante’s family belonged to the White Guelph faction. The Black Guelphs began agitating for Pope Boniface VIII to intervene. In 1301, Dante was part of a White Guelph delegation that traveled to Rome for an audience with the Pope to determine his intention. While Dante was in Rome, the Pope’s agents and the Black Guelphs overran Florence. Many White Guelphs were killed. In 1302, the papal-appointed Lord Mayor of Florence, Cante de’ Gabrielli da Gubbio condemned Dante to exile for 2 years and a large fine. All his properties in Florence were expropriated. When he refused to pay the fine, he was sentenced to perpetual exile.
Dante wrote The Divine Comedy during his exile. The politics of the period greatly informs the work. Dante lost faith in White and Black, Guelph and Ghibelline, and even the Papacy. He resolved to “make a party by himself.”
Dante never returned to his beloved Florence. He died and was buried in Ravenna.
Today, Dante, together with Petrach and Boccaccio, are known as the “Three Fountains” of Italian literature. Before Dante, most literary works were written in Latin, eg. Virgil’s Aeneid. Dante wrote The Divine Comedy in his Tuscan dialect. This had the effect of unifying the Italian language and paving the way for literature to be written in vernacular languages.
The Divine Comedy is considered the greatest work ever written in the Italian language. It is made up of three separate but connected canticles – Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso.
What is it about?
The epic poem is told by Dante in first person narrative. On Good Friday in 1300, Dante finds himself in a dark wood. The shade of Virgil appears and offers to guide Dante on his journey. As they enter Hell proper, Dante sees the following words cut into a stone gate:
“I am the way into the city of woe.
I am the way to a forsaken people.
I am the way into eternal sorrow.
Sacred justice moved my architect.
I was raised here by divine omnipotence,
Primordial love and ultimate intellect.
Only those elements time cannot wear
Were made before me, and beyond time I stand.
Abandon all hope ye who enter here.”
(III.1-9)
Dante meets the shades of numberous historical and mythological figures in Hell. He finds the punishment inflicted on each person is a perverse reflection of the sin he or she committed while alive. It is a kind of poetic justice and it is called “contrapasso” in Italian.
The sins that are punished in hell are classified as the sin of Incontinence (self-indulgence), the sin of Violence and Bestiality and finally the sin of Fraud. The more familiar Christian categorization of seven deadly sins appear in Purgatorio.
Finally, in Circle Nine, right in the center of the earth, Dante sees Satan and three sinners who were treacherous against their masters. In Dante’s typology, this is the gravest sin of all. The three are Judas Iscariot (who betrayed Jesus Christ) and Brutus and Cassius (who betrayed Julius Caesar).
Dante emerges from Hell on Easter Sunday and starts on the next stages of his journey, through Purgatory to reach Heaven.
Themes
Dante employs many allegories and symbolisms in The Divine Comedy. The journey through the three sections of afterlife itself is an overarching allegory of the soul’s journey towards God, in other words towards perfection. It is a journey into and through darkness and out into light. The descent through Hell is described as the recognition of sin. The ascent through Purgatory is described as the renunciation of sin. Only then can the final leg, the flight to Heaven, happens.
The imaginative punishments dreamt up by Dante provide colourful symbolism. It would be all too easy to miss many of them without the aid of good notes. Take the punishment suffered by fortune-tellers and seers. Dante describes what he saw in Circle Eight: Bolgia Four:
“And when I looked down from the faces, I saw
that each of them was hideously distorted
between the top of the chest and the lines of the jaw;
for the face was reversed on the neck, and they came on
backwards, staring backwards at their loins.
for to look before them was forbidden. Someone,
sometime, in the grip of a palsy may have been
distorted so, but never to my knowledge;
nor do I believe the like was ever seen.”
(XX.10-18)
Now read Ciardi’s explanation of the symbolism:
“Characteristically, the sin of these wretches is reversed upon them: their punishment is to have their heads turned backwards on their bodies and to be compelled to walk backwards through all eternity, their eyes blinded with tears. Thus, those who have sought to penetrate the future cannot even see in front of themselves; they attempted to move themselves forward in time, so must they go backwards through all eternity; and as the arts of sorcery are a distortion of God’s law, so are their bodies distorted in hell.”
Dante mentioned a number of persons from his own time who he may have blamed for his exile. In Circle Eight: Bolgia Five, Dante meets a gargoyle named Crazyred (XXI.122). According to some writers (but not Ciardi), this gargoyle, named Rubicante in Italian, may refer to Cante de’ Gabrielli da Gubbio who exiled Dante from Florence. Dante could not include Pope Boniface VIII in Hell because the events in Inferno take place in 1300, two years before the Pope’s death. But Dante was not going to allow the Pope to escape unscathed. So, he meets Pope Nicholas III in Circle Eight: Bolgia Five who says he is waiting for the arrival of Pope Boniface III (XIX.49-54).
What about the book?
This is one of the rare publications where all three canticles Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso are included in one volume. There are various reading aids.
The preface includes a note on How to Read Dante and Translator’s Note. Both are worth reading.
Then there are a separate introductions for each canticle. The introduction for Inferno, written by Archibald T. Macallister, is a useful stop before getting into the canticle itself.
Next, Ciardi has written brief introductions before each canto that describes the geographical layout of where Dante and Virgil are, the characters encountered there and their punishment. Detailed notes followed at the end of each canto.
And last but not least, there are also 10 illustrations that are very handy in helping the reader navigate Dante’s afterworld.
Finally …
I have only managed to finish Inferno. Ciardi’s verse translation is accessible but the introductions to each canto and the notes that follow are indispensable. I started on Purgatorio but found it very dense and gave up. I will try to finish the entire poem at some stage!
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