INFERNO
I. Backgrounds: "epic in scope if not in form"
Dante's Divine Comedy is a journey, like the two earlier masterpieces we have read, the Odyssey and the Aeneid. You will also recall that in his journey to the underworld, Aeneas explores his own past so that he is able to achieve his future:
Like Ulysses and like Aeneas, Dante travels because his journey is wanted by the powers of heaven; he will also meet an ancestor, Cacciaguida (in Purgatorio), who predicts his future and gives him the mission of writing this poem; and finally, he too has his guide--not the Sibyl, but Virgil himself, the greatest poet and sage that ever lived, the personification of human knowledge and human reason at their best.
Writing this poem is for Dante what founding Rome and creating a new civilization are for Aeneas, as he uses reason to confront and understand sin.
II. Basic Structure: First Canto
Line 1: midway through life's journey he is lost in the woods and unable to climb the Mountain of Delight (ll. 13, 77). Three beasts block his way. The conception of life as a journey or pilgrimage is certainly not very original, but Dante charges it with a new significance:
He represents human life as a pilgrimage from error to truth, from darkness to life, from isolation and alienation to complete association and communion.
Like Aeneas, Dante's journey has a divine purpose established by God; we are told repeatedly that his journey was decreed in heaven; in Paradiso he even states that he is merely the scribe who records what he sees and hears, much like the authors of the New Testament and Old Testament.
In a famous letter to his patron, Can Grande, Dante declared that the purpose of the poem was "to remove the living from a state of misery and to guide them to a state of happiness"; in other words, the purpose of the poem is exactly the same as scripture. Repeatedly he is told by Beatrice, St. Peter and others, that he must report what he learns to help redeem the world.
In a famous anecdote Boccaccio tells, Dante overheard two women in Verona saw him walking down the street and one said:
"Do you see the man who goes down into hell and returns when he pleases, and brings back news of those who are below?" To which the other woman rather naively replied, "Indeed, what you say must be true; don't you see how his beard is crisped and his color darkened by the heat and smoke down there?" Boccaccio related that Dante was pleased in overhearing this since his poem had accomplished its desired effect.
As most epics attempt to be, the Divine Comedy is like a universal encyclopedia of its culture: it comprehends, reinterprets, and transfigures all the knowledge that human beings may need. It is the greatest work of the Christian Middle Ages. It is a meticulously structured work: the numbers three and ten are especially significant--one as the symbol of the Trinity and the other as the symbol of perfection. Three canticles--Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso--each of thirty-three cantos, with one introductory one: 3, 33, 100. Each realm is three levels with nine divisions. The Divine Comedy is more a revelation than an allegory: a great vision of the immensity of evil in the world, but also a vision in which the divine intention to intervene and restore the world is given: it records the pilgrim's illumination (Inferno), regeneration (Purgatorio), and beatification (Paradiso).
After Virgil appears to aid Dante, the poet tells him in Canto II.13-33, that he feels unworthy for this task: "I am not Aeneas. I am not Paul." Why these two? Dante is telling us who his spiritual and poetic inspirations are. Just as Aeneas had been destined to prepare the birth of Rome and her universal empire (and the Apostle Paul chosen to spread the true religion through that empire). Dante himself traced the problems of his own times to the lack of the two guides appointed by God for the welfare of man--the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. Most of those we meet are actual historical characters.
III. Dante's Moral System: What is Sin?
Scholasticism began in 12th century and remained dominant till 16th. It was a complicated intellectual system, which relied on logical methods derived from Aristotelian syllogisms, that tried to reconcile the tenets of Christianity with reason. In the scholastic conception of the universe, the physical is very much subordinate to the spiritual; in this world, each creature exists only in relation to the creator, who has established a certain order--the great chain of being. Everyone belongs to a group that lives by the rules of a certain hierarchy, according to which the various members, through constant obedience and performance of specific duties, are organized in a pyramidal form.
For Dante, this order is exemplified in the trinity itself: God as supreme authority at the top of the chain of being, Christ as analogue linking the human with the divine, and the Holy Ghost as the spirit of love uniting all things.
This order can be broken and shattered by the intrusion of evil, which consists of "offending," that is to say in damaging others by omission or commission, by action or by intention. Cf. XI.88-90. Dante's world is organized according to this principle: sin becomes graver and graver the more people it damages, beginning with the least serious offenses that hurt primarily the individual sinner and moving all the way down to the sin of treachery, which damages entire cities, entire nations. Evil is thus the deliberate violation of one's commitment to others.
Dante's inferno is the realm of those who, having been injurious to others, have been separated from the social body. They are alienated and isolated; they each scream in their loneliness producing a horrible noise. In purgatory, on the other hand, we find a harmonious society in which everyone assumes responsibility for his or her actions and behaves like an integral part of the group; in paradise, we find this ideal society perfectly realized.
For Dante, all punishments in the Inferno and the Purgatorio obey the law of contrapasso (XXVIII.142) or counter-penalty or retribution, for according to the scholastic philosophers, who had derived the concept from Aristotle, one must pay for a transgression with a punishment of the same nature as the transgression itself. In reality, Dante invents the various punishments by following a simple rule: he takes common metaphors and translates them into concrete, visual events: e.g., the lustful--who forgot all duties and let themselves be carried away by the tempest of the senses--are placed inside a real storm; the gluttons--who made "pigs" of themselves--lie in the mire.
But there is more to their punishment in this poem that moves for Dante the pilgrim--and for us--from ignorance to knowledge. The torment of the damned is also to feel forever the excruciating need for what they cannot have. Virgil says that the damned "have lost the good of the intellect" (III.18). Thus it can be said that the torture of hell consists in continuous and profound frustration, since men and women were born "to be followers of worth [noble deeds] and knowledge" (XXVI.120). And so they cannot achieve noble deeds without knowledge. The minds of those in hell are forever clouded.
Canto III: Limbo
The inscription written atop the gates of hell reads, "ABANDON EVERY HOPE, WHO ENTER HERE." Note that it says Hell was created by Wisdom/Intellect, Power, and Love. [See the discussion of love in Purgatorio XVII-XVIII and the last line of Paradiso.]
Note that Charon refuses to carry the travelors, as in Aeneid and that Dante faints out of fear.... Note Celestine V and the Great Denial [III.58].
Canto IV: the Virtuous Pagans
The virtuous pagans, who are born without the light of revelation but have the light of reason, reside in an "exalted castle" that is usually called the Citadel of Human Reason [IV.102]. Note that the poets greet Dante as one of the truly great.
Canto V: Paolo and Francesca
One thing to keep your eye on as you read is the relationship of Virgil and Dante--a teacher/pupil twosome who have attained a mythic life in western literature along with Don Quixote & Sancho Panza, Lear & his Fool, Faust & Mephistopheles. A rapport develops between them that makes learners out of us as readers. Virgil, like any good teacher, knows when to refrain from overemphasizing abstract, allegorical meanings in order to allow Dante to experience aesthetically/emotionally the fullness of a scene. The lectures he gives are not just informative; they also contribute to the dramatic movement, as when he persuades Dante to follow him into hell (II) or when he gives him a classical pep talk to spur him up the backbreaking escarpments of Malebolge (XXIV.46-57). Take another famous example:
After introducing the still-uninitiated pilgrim to the storm-tossed souls of the second circle of hell, and after succinctly describing the nature of their sin, he lets Dante take in the breathtaking scene. When Dante takes an interest in talking to one particular couple, Virgil tells him how to approach them (V.76-78), then later (V.111) interjects when he finds Dante speechless: What are you thinking? This helps Dante over his psychological impasse.
Dante is now able to address Francesca again, this time in the language of pity and passion she understands, thereby encouraging her to tell her story fully.
What is their story? Does Dante tell us all we want to know or need to know in these seventy lines? Would it be relevant to know, e.g., if she were happy with her husband?
How does Dante react to them? Unmistakably, at least to my reading, Dante is quite moved by them. As we know from Vita Nuova--and the fact that the she-wolf of incontinece is blocking his way--love is very dear to him; and, indeed, he is still impelled upwards by his love for Beatrice. His reaction is entirely sympathetic--or so it seems-for Dante intends to portray the attractiveness of sin.
What does it mean when he faints "because of pity"? This scene is a marker or indicator of where Dante is in his understanding. He is not prepared for the moral lesson that should be drawn from this experience. Not until the middle of purgatory will Virgil lecture his pupil on the nature and workings of the libido and on love; for only then will he be ready for a rational approach. At this point, Dante is comparatively unenlightened--almost as much as the condemned souls who submit reason to emotion. What Virgil has done here--instead of leading him intellectually by the hand and giving him intellectualized explanations of lust/desire etc.--is to allow his pupil to face this experience on his own (though under discreet guidance).
We find lots of carry-over from the Aeneid: e.g., Minos [V.3] is the judge whose encircling tail pronounces sentence.
Canto VI and VII: Gluttons and Misers/Prodigals
Note Cerberus (VI.12) is fed with offal, not drugged cakes. Note Ciacco the Hog's prophecy (VI.49 ff.). Note Dame Fortune (VII.69, 77-80).
Canto VIII: Argenti:
Note Dante's anger: ll.37-39, 52-54; and note Virgil's: ll.55-57. Note Argenti's insults (and irascibility as he implies that Dante has been so wicked that he has been sent down early): ll. 43-45. Does Dante have any business adding to the suffering of Argenti as he does? Does this scene mark a turning point in Dante's attitudes in contrast to Paolo and Francesca?
Canto X: Farinata & Cavalcanti:
What ensues, after Virgil pushes his shocked pupil toward the giant torso erect in the flaming tomb, is among the most dramatic passages in the poem: Here, Dante confronts his city's heritage, the sins of the fathers, and the unhealed wounds of his own life. Dante must confront the hopeless past and the seemingly hopeless present of a house divided against itself. Virgil simply acts as a catalyst, since he says nothing.
In their position as inhabitants of flaming tombs is expressed God's judgment upon the whole class of heretics and infidels. But the two are completely different, even though they are sinners of the same category. Their eternal fate is the same, but they have different personalities, different lots in their former lives; they accept their fates in different ways: Farinata disregards his situation and thinks only about Italian politics; Cavalcanti is jealous for his son's sake.
Hell freezes a character at his most characteristic--e.g. Farinata's obsession with Florentine politics; Cavalcanti's love for his son--yet these are part of his punishment in both cases because they are futile. Neither is aware of his "sin" since each obviously has a soul. Also, note how oddly they stand in relation to time: they can see past and future, but cannot move to them; they are stuck in the present--which they cannot see.
Canto XI: Structure of Hell
Three beasts = three basic sins.
she-wolf = incontinence (levels 2-5: lust, gluttony, avarice, anger)
lion = violence (levels 6-7)
leopard = fraud (levels 8-9: two kinds of fraud)
Sins of incontinence are punished in Upper Hell because they are not sins of election but sins of infirmity or of passion. Sins of malice are always ex intentione and ex electione.
If you were writing a revised version of the Inferno applicable to people today, what changes would you make? Would you make certain sins more serious, others less so? Would new sins have to be added?
Canto XII: The Violent in the River
What is the symbolic retribution involved in the punishment of the violent? As they wallowed in blood, they are immersed in a river of boiling blood (XII.47) shot with arrows by Centaurs (56). Who are some of the those up to their necks in it? Pyrrhus and Attila the Hun (XII.134-35).
Canto XIII: The Suicides in the Wood
What is the symbolic retribution involved in the punishment of the suicides? Those who destroyed their own bodies are denied human form. they are thorny trees whose leaves are eaten by foul Harpies; from these wounds they bleed and can speak. Dante devises this punishment himself, but Virgil is quick to remind us that it happened first in Aeneid III (XIII.47).
Pier delle Vigne tells us that after the Last Judgment the bodies will be hung on the trees! (XIII.97-107)
Canto XIV-XVI: The Unnatural in the Sterile Plain
What is the symbolic retribution involved in the punishment of the violent against God, Nature and Art? The blasphemers, sodomites and usurers suffer on a plain of burning sand--obviously suggesting sterility and wrath.
Virgil points out a "rivulet" (XIV.78-113) that petrifies the sands over which it flows, whose steam quenches the flames above. The Old Man of Crete is the most involved symbol in the poem: cf. Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Daniel 2:32-34 and the myth of the golden age--the tears of woe become the waters of hell ... frozen in Cocytus.
Dante loves and reveres Brunetto Latini (Canto XV), although he is a condemned sodomist. How does one explain this? Dante calls him "Master" (Ser) and uses the formal pronoun--as with Farinata. Dante regards him with a paternal image (XV.82-88). Does Dante distinguish between a person's inherent value and his eternal destiny among the saved or damned? What does this episode tell us about Dante's conception of sin?
Canto XVII: Geryon
To descend into the malebolge or evil ditches, the great circle of stones that slope like an amphitheater that constitute the 8th circle, Virgil calls on the figure of Geryon--the spotted leopard turned into a dramatic figure. Geryon is "the filthy effigy of Fraud"--a dragon-like monster with the tail of a scorpion, the "bright knots and subtle circlets" of a reptile, and the face of a human.. Note that Dante has a monk's cord knotted around his waist (XVI.106) as if to emphasize he is a pilgrim--or a monk? Pilgrims were denoted by a staff, wallet, bottle, and palm-branch to lay on the altar of the parish church. But not by beads.
Canto XVIII: Bolgia One & Two, Panderers & Flatterers
What is the symbolic retribution involved in the punishment of the panders and seducers? They are driven by horned demons who lash them just as they drove others to do their will Flatterers are sunk in excrement (ll. 106-14)
Canto XIX: Bolgia Three, Simonists
What is the symbolic retribution involved in the punishment of the sellers of ecclesiastical favors? They are stuffed upside down in holes (like cash) with the soles of their feet ablaze in proportion to their guilt. As they mocked holy office, they may be mocked with a demonic parody of the paraclete burning on their soles. Note that Dante begins his invective before the poets even get to the sinners. Note how many popes Dante places down there (cf. ll. 84 and following).
Canto XX: Bolgia Four, Fortune Tellers
What is the symbolic retribution involved in the punishment of the fortune tellers? Their heads reversed on their bodies and so they walk backwards, blinded by tears. How does Dante respond to their distortions? He weeps and Virgil tells him pity is arrogance against God's judgment (ll. 25-32).
What time is it? morning of Holy Saturday. How does Virgil know?
Canto XXI & XXII: Bolgia Five, Grafters
What is the symbolic retribution involved in the punishment of those who misused political office for gain? They are sunk in boiling pitch and clawed by demons with grappling hooks: "sticky fingers"
Why does Dante feel in physical danger here? His exile from Florence was based on a false charge of graft.
How does the Captain signal his permission? with a fart (XXI.139). Note also that Malacoda lies to him about the bridge (see XXIII.140-41).
These cantos are sometimes known as the gargoyle cantos, his most demonic and coarsest in style. What is also interesting is that Dante allows the figure who fools the devils a certain comic genius, by giving such a different tone to those cantos. Also he gets something for nothing--which is what he did on earth!
Canto XXIII: Bolgia Six, Hypocrites
What is the symbolic retribution involved in the punishment of the hypocrites? They are weighted down by great robes of lead that are brilliantly golden on the outside--i.e., the terrible weight of their own deceit.
Note Caiaphas is crucified to the floor of hell (XXIII.106-117).
Canto XXIV & XXV: Bolgia Seven, Thieves
What is the symbolic retribution involved in the punishment of the thieves? As thievery is reptilian, they are punished by reptiles. They also metamorphose...
Why is theft worse than murder?
Canto XXVI & XXVII: Ulysses, Virgil & Dante
Is Ulysses (Canto XXVI) recognizable as Homer's Odysseus? Is he sympathetic in Dante? Do we know enough about him to answer this question? There was a long tradition, before Plato's time, of allegorizing the Homeric sagas to make the treatment of the gods more palatable. Virgil was often allegorized by the "Fathers" because of his so-called Messianic Eclogue, in which he foretells the birth of a child who will restore the fallen world to its former glory--the golden age. By tradition the Odyssey, the Aeneid, and the Divine Comedy have long been regarded as physical journeys allegorizing or representing spiritual journeys to the soul's patria.
Book VI of the Aeneid is Dante's most important literary precedent for his descent to the underworld. But Aeneas doesn't even see Tartarus, the classical equivalent to hell; and it's populated with standard mythological figures--not people he knows. The classical hero has no intimate contact with the classical hell. Dante the pilgrim sees such figures too, but weight falls on those he knows. The exception to this is Ulysses, who gets a whole canto to himself (XXVI). It's also striking that Dante invents the final voyage of Ulysses (as foretold, but not described, by Tiresias).
Ulysses' speech in XXVI, 86-99 is a thorough-going rejection of pietas, making him the opposite of pius Aeneas. Compare Inferno, XXVI, 106-31, to Aeneid, I, 276-98, and Odyssey, XII, 250-65. [i.e., O socii] Odysseus is a man of action lifting up the spirits of his terrified men by appealing to their innate qualities, their shared experiences, and perhaps the help of the gods. Aeneas appeals to their shared experiences but reminds them of their duty and the assurance of divine assistance in achieving their goal--patria. (Aeneas is just recovering from a shipwreck and is going toward his goal.)
Dante's Ulysses rejects duty or obligation to his son, father, and wife--lusting after new experience--and so is being deflected from his goals and is about to shipwreck. He thus indirectly echoes his great Homeric and Virgilian models--but it is a "fool's flight."
Dante's major change in the Ulysses story is having Ulysses' homeward journey broken off by a quest for knowledge (or having him leave home after returning). What does this signify?
Ulysses' voyage is an image of the misguided philosophical Odyssey. Compare Ulysses' urging his men to experience (XXVI.116) and Dante the poet's view of journey to "gain full experience" (XXVIII.48)--which is leading to knowledge of sin > love of God. Ulysses is an example of classical cunning; Dante the pilgrim is an example of a Christian pursuing a course of true wisdom that confounds cunning. The difference between Odysseus and Aeneas is the difference between Greeks and Romans. Virgil the guide mediates between the irresponsible Ulysses and Dante the pilgrim (who is at first star-struck) but is pursuing a course that leads to wisdom. We thus need to distinguish between Dante the pilgrim and Dante the poet--between the pilgrim who is so excited about meeting the great mariner and the poet who put him in hell. [based on David Thompson, Dante's Epic Journeys (Johns Hopkins UP, 1974)]
Canto XXVIII: Bolgia Nine, Sowers of Discord
What is the symbolic retribution involved in the punishment of the sowers of discord? As they rent asunder what God intended united, so are they rent asunder only to be reunited to be hacked and mutilated again . . . .
Religious discord: the schismatics: his prime schismatic is Mohammed who is split in two (ll. 24-27). Political discord. And familial discord: one of the most memorable images from the poem is Bertran de Born holding his head up so that Dante can hear (ll. 112-33). He had divided a family against itself.
Canto XXIX & XXX: Bolgia Ten, Falsifiers
What is the symbolic retribution involved in the punishment of the falsifiers? As they corrupted others by their falsifications, so are they subjected to corruptions....
At this point (XXIX.130-49), Dante again is reprimanded by Virgil and Dante is clearly ashamed. Why? Perhaps for sympathy at those who falsified words. Again, his own potential sin....
Canto XXXI: Circle Nine: the Giants in Cocytus
After the malebolgia they approach the frozen waters of the Cocytus that form the ninth circle. They are see a number of giants standing (some in chains) on the frozen waters below. Perhaps, as the headnote says, "These are the sons of earth, the embodiments of elemental forces unbalanced by love, desire without restraint and without acknowledgment of moral and theological law." Among others they see Nimrod, who still babels, and Antaeus who sets them down in the central pit.
Cantos XXXII-XXXIII: Treacherous in Caïna, Antenora & Ptolomea
What is the symbolic retribution involved in the punishment of the treacherous? Since they denied all love and human warmth, their true nature is expressed in the unyielding ice. This is the polar opposite to the empyrean, which is divine fire. In Caïna are those who were treacherous to kinsmen, as Cain had been. They have their necks and heads out of the ice.
In Antenora are those who were treacherous to country (as Antenor who betrayed Troy). They have their heads out of the ice but can't move their necks. One traitor that Dante focuses on most is Bocca degli Abbati, whom Dante kicks for betraying Florence! Another is Ugolino--one traitor gnaws on his fellow traitor's head--the killer by starvation becomes the food of his own victim.
In Ptolomea (named for Ptolmaeus of Maccabees who murdered his father-in-law) are those treacherous against hospitality. Their faces are only half above the ice and their tears freeze in their eye sockets. [Remember in the Homeric sagas, Zeus was said to protect the rights of guests.]
Canto XXXIV: Circle Nine, the Treacherous in Judecca
In Judecca are those who were treacherous to their masters. At the very bottom of hell stands Satan, frozen in the ice, beating his wings to create the icy wind that is the exhalation of all evil.
In a demonic parody of the trinity, Satan has one head with three faces, each a different color, and in each mouth he gnaws on a sinner: in the central mouth is Judas Iscariot, and Cassius and Brutus are on either side.
Virgil notes that it is now Saturday evening (l. 68) and they start climbing down Satan's coat and pants; when they reach his genitals, they turn around--the center of gravity--and they get up and start climbing up following the course of Lethe. Virgil then explains that twelve hours have passed and it is now Easter Sunday morning "... we emerged, to see-once more--the Stars."
IS THE "Inferno" AN EPIC OR NOT?
The Commedia as Comedy:
Dante's poem was called "Divine" after his death, yet the term overshadows today the one he gave it--"comedy." He calls it a comedy twice in Inferno--XVI.128 and XXI.2. He calls the Aeneid, by contrast, "high tragedy" (XX.113). Aeneas is a prince--leader of a fleet, army, founder of Rome. The pilgrim Dante has no claim to fame. He never mentions high political offices he held in Florence--the historical Dante's claim to fame. Aeneas is courageous, while Dante is not--a fact he himself recognizes at II.31-33.
Notice when Dante uses "comedy": In XVI.128 the context is fantastic--see the description of Geryon XVII.7-27 & flight 97-136. Indeed, there are lots of passages that are plain funny. The longest comic part is Malebranche (Evil claws), which is best described as "farcical." [Note that this is the other reference to comedy] in XXI-XXIII.
XXI-- 43-45; 55-57; 101; 139 (and XXII.1-12)
XXII--demons in pitch
XXIII--joke on Virgil 133 ff.
There is other humor as well: Dante the pilgrim is funny too:
I.65-66. undignified cowardice
xxi. 58-60. Dante behind rock
xxii. 37-39. Dante knows all their names--a fussbudget, always asking people who they are
xxiii.37-42. Virgil as naked woman, Dante as child.
Has Dante changed much in his journey through the Inferno?
We don't see much enlightenment actually taking place. Notice that when they leave, Virgil says--in a flat, matter of fact way--"we have seen everything" XXXIV.69. Dante is reminding us that the Inferno is only something to see, to go through, on the way to something else. He emerges though to see the stars--stelle is the last word of Purgatorio and Paradiso also. Curiously, we don't hear from Lucifer, the greatest sinner of all. In fact, we see him more as an agent of divine punishment as he munches on Judas and Cassius, than as a victim of it.
What does Dante learn?
Remember that I.1 and II.58 ff. show him as lost. What has he found?