Dante\'s Inferno Full Class Notes PDF

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Dante's Inferno Full Class Notes...

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DANTE’S INFERNO Questions: 1. Whos was Beatrice? And what was she in Dante’s poem? Beatrice is Dante the writer’s admiration. He has apparently only met her in real life twice. She died young at the age of 24, and after that Dante kept her memory by writing sonnets about her in the La Vita Nuova and making her a character in the Divine Comedy. The fictional Beatrice in the Divine Comedy is a messenger and guide. In the second Canto, Virgil tells Dante that Beatrice came to him and asked him to help her “lost friend”. Virgil learns that Beatrice is doing this out of love for Dante. Mother Mary asked Santa Lucia to send a message to Beatrice to go help Dante. Beatrice takes this message to Virgil so he can help Dante in Hell. 2. What is the historical time and date when Dante the character begins his journey in the Divine Comedy? The evening of Good Friday through the morning of Easter Sunday in the year 1300 (Year of the first Jubilee). Patronage to Holy Land/Vatican. 3. Guelfs and Ghibellines: Who were they, and what did they stand for in Dante’s time? The Guelfs and Ghibellines were two rival parties in Italy within Dante’s time. They mostly consisted of people within the middle or upper class of Florentine society. The Guelfs wanted the Pope to be ruler and the Ghibellines were in support of appointing the Holy Roman Emperor as the ruler. After the Guelfs defeat the Ghibellines (Guelfs at one point begin to let Guild members into their faction) a new separation occurs. White vs Black Guelfs. Dante was a White Guelf. White Guelfs wanted a separation of the Church and the state. Black Guelfs wanted the Pope to maintain all control. 4. For what sin is Ciacco being punished in the 6th Canto, and what does he tell Dante? Ciacco is a glutton. When Dante arrives in the third circle of hell, Ciacco notices Dante as a Florentine and demands him to recognize him. Ciacco introduces himself and then tells Dante the fate of Florence. “After a long feud between the Black and White Guelfs (this stuff already happened when Dante the Writer composed the Divine Comedy) First the Whites will win a battle and drive the Blacks out. But then the Blacks will return with the

help of the hated Pope Boniface VIII and crush the Whites, eventually driving many of them into exile, including Dante. Ciacco sees the two parties ignoring reason in favor of "envy, pride, and avariciousness”. Dante interrogates Ciacco and names some names. Ciacco concludes and requests that Dante make his name famous in the living world. 5. Who was Brunetto Latini, in which canto does he appear as a character, and what does he tell Dante? Latini appears within the 15th Canto within the 7th circle: the third ring which was the violent against God. Latini was Dante’s former mentor, Dante has much respect for this man. Latini stops running, this increases his penalty but it would increase more if Latini were to sit. So he is punished for sodomy or homosexuality. He tells Dante to stay away from the Fiesoles. He blames the Fiesoles, the natives whom the Romans conquered, for failing to understand or appreciate his and Dante’s intellectual work and blames them for all the Florentines’ bad traits. In his ranting, Brunetto warns Dante to stay away from the Fiesoles lest they either devour him or lure him into false beliefs. 6. “After I recognized a few of these, I saw and knew the shade of him Who, through cowardice, made the great refusal” Canto 3: Ante-Inferno. Scholars have interpreted this sinner as Pope  Celestine V, who abdicated his papal seat just five months after taking office. This paved the way for the election of Pope Boniface VIII, whom Dante hates with a passion.

 Levels of the Inferno:

I: ● 35- lost in the woods ● Sees purgatory but is stopped by three beasts ● Each beasts represents the 3 divisions of sin in Hell ○ The Lion: Violence and Beastiality. ○ The She-Wolf: Fraud and Malice ○ The Leopard: Incontinence ● Virgil saves Dante.

II: ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Virgil explains that Beatrice encountered him with a mission Virgil tells Dante that Beatrice came to him and asked him to help her “lost friend”. Virgil learns that Beatrice is doing this out of love for Dante. Mother Mary asked Santa Lucia to send a message to Beatrice to go help Dante. Beatrice takes this message to Virgil so he can help Dante in Hell. Virgil listens to Beatrice and runs to go save Dante from the beasts Dante gets excited for this journey.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Ante-Inferno "ABANDON ALL HOPE, [YOU] WHO ENTER HERE" Hell is nosy and is full of screams. No hope in death Ante-inferno for the neutrals Various insects sting their naked bodies as they chase a banner in circles. THERE ARE A LOT OF THEM They need to cross the River Archeron Charon drives the boat of souls from one side of the Archeron to the other Virgil tells Charon that it is God’s orders to let a living soul across. Earthquake hits with a tornado and knocks Dante out

III

V ● Second Circle: The lustful (promiscuous, feelings over intellect) ● Minos appears and decides which level of hell the sinner belongs in. The level is determined on how many times he coils his tail. ● The sinners are stuck in a tornado ● Francesca and Paolo: ○ Francesca stops to talk to Dante and tells him their story. ○ Her husband and Paolo’s brother kills them. ○ Fell in love while reading a book VI Third circle of hell: The Gluttons It rains dirty, polluted, rain and hailstones. Sinners try to keep themselves clean This circle is gated by Cerberus (the three headed dog) who is calmed when Virgil throws mud into his jaws and Cerberus eats it (HE IS A GLUTTON TOO OMG). This calms Cerberus down. ● He meets Ciacco, a Florentine. ● ● ● ●

● Ciacco tells Dante a prophecy about the feud between the White and Black Guelfs. ○ First Whites will win the battle and drive the Blacks out ○ The Blacks will drive the Whites out with the help of Pope Boniface VIII ■ This drives out many white Guelfs into exile, one of them includes Dante. ● Dante tries to ask Ciacco more questions about some Florentines and their fate after death. ○ Ciacco says he’ll see them in other circles, asks Dante to bring up his name for remembrance, and discontinues speaking. X ● The Sixth Circle: The Heretics (a professed believer who maintains religious opinions contrary to those accepted by his or her church or rejects doctrines prescribed by that church) ○ Everyone here is a follower of Epicurus (the Greek philosopher) who claimed that the soul dies with the body. ● Consists of open tombs (open until Judgement Day) where sinners burn. ● Dante hears a voice in Tuscan dialect who makes an attempt to stand up in his tomb to speak to Dante. ● This man is Farinata: ○ He asks Dante who his ancestors are so he can obtain an idea of who and what party his family is from ○ Farinata was the leader of the Ghibelline who (apparently twice) drove out the Guelfs in Florence. ○ Dante get some type of courage and he responds that all Guelfs that were driven out have returned. ● Another man stands up in his tomb and asks the whereabouts of his son. ● This man is Cavalcante dei Cavalcanti: ○ One of Dante’s political allies. ○ His son, Guido, was a famous poet and Dante’s close friend. ○ Like Dante, Guido was exiled when the Blacks took over Florence. ○ Dante responded using the past tense to describe Virgil as his guide and explains that Guido did not like Virgil’s work. ○ Cavalcante interprets this as, his son is dead and falls back into the tomb. ● Farinata just continues talking as if he never paused. ○ He continues to say that he prevented his party from ransacking Florence and in turn saved the city. ○ Dante asks if the dead can see into the future ■ They can but can not see into present human affairs ○ Dante tells Farinata to tell Cavalcante that his son is still alive.

○ Dante asks who else is in the circle and Farinata names some, but Dante wants to know more. XIII ● The second pouch of the 8th circle of hell. ● Called Malebolge->Surrounded by stone and valley is divided into ten pouches. ● The sinners are nude and march in a line as they are whipped on every side by horned demons. ● Dante recognizes a man by the name of Venedico Caccianemico: ○ He made his sister do sexual favors for a Marquis (A noble) ○ Basically a circle of pimps ○ A demon rams him in the head and it is a way to tell him to shutup. ● The sinners are led into the next pouch where flatterers are immersed in excrement. Here they fight each other and mold from their sighs grow on their bodies. They watch from the top of the bridge. ● Sinner screams at Dante asking why he decided to pick him. ● This man is Alessio Interminei of Lucca: ○ He states that he is here because of the things he used to say as a flatterer. ● Thais: ○ Another Flatterer who gave her man excessive thanks for sex.

XIX ● 8th circle: Third pouch: The simonists (Selling of Indulgences) ● The sinners are placed in a hole as big as the one in baptism. They are upside and only their feet stick out. They are burning in that hole for eternity. ● Dante is reminded of Baptism and tells the story where he broke a Baptism basin the save a drowning child in the church of San Giovanni. ● The sinner mistakes Dante for the current Pope that would take this sinner’s place ● This man is Pope Nicolas: ○ He states that once the next Pope arrives he declines further into the pouch to make room for the next Pope (Pope Boniface) ○ Pope admits he asks for indulgences to make him and his family richer ● Dante gets all mad and rants about the greedy nature of the church in comparison to its true purpose. XXVI ● 8th circle: 8th pouch: Fraudulent Counselors ● Each sinner is encased in a flame.

● Dante sees a figure approaching and asks who it is. ● It is Ulysses and Diomedes: ○ Most responsible for the Trojan horse. ○ Dante begs Virgil to speak to him ● Virgil indulges him. But on one condition, that Dante doesn’t speak. Virgil wants to talk to them and his excuse is that because they’re Greek, they might look down on Dante’s Italian. ● Virgil approaches them, obsequiously and politely asking one of them to describe his death. ● So the bigger of the twinned flames (because Ulysses was a greater hero than Diomedes) begins to wag back and forth like a tongue trying to speak. Well, in fact, that’s exactly what it is. ● Eventually the flame-tip/tongue finds its voice and tells its story. Here's his tale: ● Ulysses’ return journey from the Trojan War (recounted in the Odyssey ) isn't as straightforward as he might have hoped. Instead, because of a few mishaps, he ends up doing a lot more exploring. ● He sails past Spain and Morocco and even passed the pillars of Hercules, which at the time are the boundaries of the known world. ● Then, to encourage his tired crew, he gives a grand speech. "Brothers, we’ve explored further than any man ever has before. And we should continue exploring. Because we’re men, not animals! And we crave knowledge." ● So with the men rearing to go, they sail out with the wind and with joy in their hearts until they reach (gasp)… the Southern hemisphere. (We know this because suddenly the stars turn upside down.) ● They sail for five days until they see a really high mountain rising in the distance. This is the Mount of Purgatory. Apparently, God decides "this is far enough" because then a whirlwind springs up, heads straight for the boat, and everyone dies. ● Ulysses ends the tale of his death.

XXXIII ● Ninth circle: Traitors against their guests ● The hungry sinner raises his mouth from the bleeding skull, wipes his lips on his victim’s hair, and begins to speak. ● He says that reliving his story causes him pain. But if it’ll shed light on the truly nasty nature of his betrayer, he’ll be happy to talk. And cry. At the same time. ● He tells Dante he doesn’t know who Dante is, but according to his accent, he sounds Florentine.

● Finally, he starts his story. His name, by the way, is Count Ugolino—which already sounds like a sinister name—and his meal here is named Archbishop Ruggieri. ● We find out Ugolino isn’t a very good storyteller because he ruins the ending before even beginning. So it seems this Archbishop tricked him into something and later killed him. According to Ugolino, this is common knowledge. ● But what people don’t know is just how cruel and premeditated his murder was. ● Here's Ugolino's story: ● As a magistrate of Pisa, Ugolino is forced into some tough decisions. One of them is ceding three of Pisa’s fortresses to hostile neighboring cities, a move which many consider a betrayal. ● Later, political reasons force Ugolino to be exiled from Pisa. Then the trap is set and the two-timing Archbishop Ruggieri invites Ugolino back into the city, and then betrays him. ● Ugolino is locked away in a Pisan tower (no, not the leaning one) called the Eagles’ Tower, but— after his death—known by the nickname of the Hunger Tower. ● Well, our Count is locked away there for "several moons" when he has a dream. And because dreams suddenly become important when you’re scared and hungry, this is what happens: ● Archbishop Ruggieri appears as a lord and master of the hunt, riding with his allies Gualandi, Sismondi, and Lanfranchi (all Ghibelline families) and hunting down a lone wolf and his poor pups from a Pisan mountain with a bunch of hounds. After only a short flight, both father and son wolves are attacked by the hounds. The wolves represent Ugolino and his sons. ● When Ugolino wakes up in the morning, he hears his sons (yes, who are there with him) crying in their sleep and begging for some bread. ● Here, Ugolino stops his story to ask for Dante’s pity, telling him he should already be crying at his sad plight. ● Back to the story. As the day goes on, the boys expect the food that is usually brought to them. ● But instead of food comes the sound of people nailing up the doors of the tower. ● Upon hearing his doom, Ugolino turns silently to his sons. He’s curiously quiet; he doesn’t cry, doesn’t say a word, and inside he "turned to stone." ● But his four sons cry and little Anselm asks his father what’s wrong. But Ugolino doesn’t answer and he refuses to speak or weep the whole day and night. ● When the first ray of the new dawn touches him, Ugolino sees his sorry self reflected in his sons’ gazes. He can’t take it anymore and snaps; he starts biting his hands out of grief. ● His sons mistake his behavior for hunger and tell him, heartbreakingly, that it would be better if their good father ate them instead. Their reasoning? "You clothed us, father, in our miserable flesh [a.k.a. gave birth to us], so you should be able to strip us down too."

● At this, Ugolino grows calm and falls silent for the next two days. Notice that he doesn't say anything to comfort his kids. ● On the fourth day, Gaddo (a son) throws himself at his father’s feet, begging for help. Then he dies. ● Throughout the next two days, the remaining three sons resign themselves to the same fate, and Ugolino goes blind. But he’s still silent. ● Finally, after all his sons are dead, he gropes around blindly. In the moment of truth, he breaks his silence, calling after his sons. They’re dead. ● He ends his story with a really cryptic line: "then fasting had more force than grief." Which could mean that a) he kept not eating despite his grief or b) he ate  his dead sons. ● Back in the present: Ugolino goes wild with grief and bites down on Ruggieri’s skull again. ● Dante is as horrified as we are, but he expresses it rather differently. He curses Pisa, wishing that the neighboring islands of Caprara and Gorgona would dam up the river Arno so that all Pisan citizens would drown. ● So goes his thought process: even if Ugolino were guilty enough to deserve death by starvation, his sons were innocent. It’s so unfair.. ● They move on, passing into the third ring, where they find sinners, not bent in the ice, but lying flat on it. It’s so cold there that they are not even allowed to weep because their tears immediately freeze into a sort of "crystal visor" over their eyes. ● Dante, too, is feeling the effects of the cold; he’s going numb. ● But, against all odds, he feels a wind against his skin. Strange. So he asks Virgil about it. (Note: medieval thinkers assume that the heat of the sun causes wind, so in this cold dark place, Dante wouldn’t expect any wind.) ● Virgil, in his maddeningly mysterious way, answers that Dante will soon see for himself the source of this wind. ● Suddenly, one of the sinners cries out to them. He mistakes them for fellow sinners and implores them to remove the veil of frozen tears from his face, so he can have a moment of relief before his tears begin freezing again. ● To which Dante replies that he’ll grant him this boon in exchange for the sinner’s name and story. Interestingly, Dante promises to do this on pain of banishing himself to Hell. Ooh. ● So the sinner starts: his name is Fra Alberigo and he claims to have nurtured fruits in a bad garden, for which he’s now being punished. No, that doesn’t mean he’s a terrible horticulturist, but is symbolic for his crime. Alberigo invited his relatives over for dinner, then had them assassinated. The assassins’ signal? Fruit. ● Alberigo claims that his punishment is too severe for his crime. ● But Dante’s doing some math in his head and because things don’t add up, he asks Alberigo if he’s already dead. What an interesting question.

● Alberigo answers that he doesn’t know. Because Ptolomea (this place) is special: it has the power to take a soul to Hell (via a demon) before the sinner has even died. ● To illustrate his point, Alberigo points out the sinner behind him, a guy named Branca Doria. ● Dante accuses Alberigo of lying because he knows that Branca Doria is still living. ● But Alberigo insists that Branca’s been his neighbor for while, even before the other sinners Dante saw earlier arrived in Hell. ● Here's the big question: how can a soul be in one place and the body in another? Here’s how it works, according to Alberigo: once a traitor commits a crime against his guest, a demon from Ptolomea possesses the sinner’s live body on earth and hurls the sinner’s soul down to Hell. So a demon-possessed Branca is still living on earth. ● Now, Alberigo calls in his favor, asking Dante to relieve his eyes. But Dante refuses. Even after promising to do so on pain of eternal condemnation. ● Dante is even proud of his refusal, calling it a "courtesy" to the sinner. ● He proceeds to curse the Genoese (because apparently both Alberigo and Branca were from Genoa) as a people so corrupt that their souls can be in Hell while they’re still living.

XXXIV ● Ninth circle: Traitors against their benefactors. ● "Vexilla Regis prodeunt inferni" opens the final canto. It's Latin and means "the banners of the King of Hell draw closer." ● Appropriately, these words are spoken by Virgil, who—as you know—is Roman and speaks Latin. ● He tells Dante to keep his eyes peeled for the big cahuna, Lucifer himself. ● So our hero strains his eyes through the darkness to glimpse something like a whirling windmill in the distance. It’s whirling because of that infernal wind. Remember that? Now, it’s so strong that Dante has to use Virgil as a windbreaker. ● In this final region of Hell, all the sinners are completely submerged in ice. Dante can see them frozen in all their funny positions beneath him. ● Virgil, deciding to milk Dante’s awe for all it’s worth, stops to announce that this is Dis. And Dante will have to be brave. ● Dante now turns to his reader and tells us how he froze with fear, to the point where he almost couldn’t write. ● He tries to convey what it feels like to be there: "I did not die, and I was not alive."

● He now witnesses Lucifer in all his glory. "Glory" meaning size. Lucifer is BIG. So big that Dante claims he himself is closer in size to a giant than a giant is to Lucifer. Big beyond imagination. ● Dante wonders how Lucifer could possibly have been beautiful once… because he’s nauseatingly ugly now. ● Observe: Lucifer has three heads—one blood red, one yellow, one black. Underneath each head flap, a pair of enormous bat-like wings.Bingo! This is ...