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Divine Comedy: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Divine Comedy
Dante Alighieri stood at the threshold of the year 1300, exactly halfway through the biblical lifespan of seventy years, when he found himself lost in a dark wood. This was not a metaphorical confusion but a spiritual crisis that would become the opening line of the greatest poem ever written in the Italian language. At thirty-five years old, the Florentine poet was assailed by three beasts: a leopard of malice, a lion of violence, and a she-wolf of incontinence. These creatures blocked his path to the sun, which symbolized salvation, forcing him into a low place where the sun was silent. He was ruined, falling into a deep abyss, until the spirit of the Roman poet Virgil appeared to rescue him. This moment of rescue marked the beginning of a journey that would last from the night before Good Friday to the Wednesday after Easter, traversing the three realms of the dead. The poem, originally titled simply Comedia, would eventually be called Divine Comedy, a title added centuries later to reflect its profound subject matter and elevated style. The work was begun and completed shortly before Dante's death, establishing the Tuscan language as the standardized Italian language and becoming the pre-eminent work in Italian literature.
The Architecture of Hell and Justice
The structure of Hell, or Inferno, follows a precise mathematical pattern of nine circles plus one, totaling ten, with each circle representing a specific type of sin. Dante and Virgil descend through the underworld, which exists underneath Jerusalem, created by the displacement of rock when Satan fell from Heaven. The punishment for each sinner is a contrapasso, a symbolic instance of poetic justice that mirrors the sin committed in life. In Canto XX, fortune-tellers and soothsayers must walk with their heads on backwards, unable to see what is ahead, because that was what they had tried to do in life. The nine circles are divided into Upper Hell, outside the city of Dis, for sins of indulgence like lust, gluttony, avarice, and anger. Circle 7 contains sins of violence against one's neighbor, oneself, God, art, and nature. Circles 8 and 9 hold the sins of fraud and treachery, with the deepest circle reserved for Lucifer, the fallen angel who is trapped at the very bottom of the earth. The poem also includes Limbo, Circle 1, where virtuous pagans who were not sinful but ignorant of Christ reside, and Circle 6, which holds heretics who contradicted the doctrine and confused the spirit of Christ. This intricate structure reflects the medieval worldview of divine justice, where individuals receive appropriate punishment or reward based on their actions.
When was the Divine Comedy written and what historical event influenced its creation?
Dante Alighieri wrote the Divine Comedy during his exile from Florence, which began in 1302 and lasted until his death. The political struggle between the White Guelphs and Black Guelphs in central Italy directly shaped the poem's themes and characters.
What is the structure of Hell in the Divine Comedy and how many circles does it contain?
The Inferno consists of nine circles plus one entrance circle, totaling ten circles that descend through the underworld beneath Jerusalem. Each circle punishes specific sins through contrapasso, with the deepest circle reserved for Lucifer at the very bottom of the earth.
How many spheres of Heaven exist in the Divine Comedy and what do they represent?
The Paradiso contains nine celestial spheres plus the Empyrean, totaling ten levels of heaven arranged concentrically. The seven lowest spheres deal with cardinal virtues while the eighth sphere holds the theological virtues and the ninth sphere contains angels.
When was the first printed edition of the Divine Comedy published and who published it?
The first printed edition of the Divine Comedy was published in Foligno, Italy, on the 11th of April 1472 by Johann Numeister and Evangelista Angelini da Trevi. Fourteen copies of the original 300 printed copies still survive today.
What scientific concepts does the Divine Comedy discuss regarding the Earth and astronomy?
The poem discusses a spherical Earth with different stars visible in the Southern Hemisphere and altered sun positions. Dante also describes gravity changes when traveling through the Earth's center and uses Ptolemaic cosmology to structure the nine spheres of Heaven.
Having 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, an island in the Southern Hemisphere. The mountain has seven terraces, corresponding to the seven deadly sins or seven roots of sinfulness, which are classified more psychologically than in Hell, based on motives rather than actions. Love, a theme throughout the Divine Comedy, is particularly important for the framing of sin on the Mountain of Purgatory. While the love that flows from God is pure, it can become sinful as it flows through humanity. Humans can sin by using love towards improper or malicious ends, such as wrath, envy, and pride, or using it to proper ends but with love that is either not strong enough, sloth, or love that is too strong, lust, gluttony, and greed. Below the seven purges of the soul is the Ante-Purgatory, containing the excommunicated from the church and the late repentant who died, often violently, before receiving rites. The total comes to nine, with the addition of the Garden of Eden at the summit, equaling ten. Christian souls arrive escorted by an angel, singing In exitu Israel de Aegypto, and it is Easter Sunday when Dante and Virgil arrive. The Purgatorio demonstrates the medieval knowledge of a spherical Earth, discussing the different stars visible in the Southern Hemisphere, the altered position of the sun, and the various time zones of the Earth.
The Nine Spheres and the Empyrean
After an initial ascension, Beatrice, Dante's ideal woman, guides him through the nine celestial spheres of Heaven, which are concentric and spherical, as in Aristotelian and Ptolemaic cosmology. 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; 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 final four are positive examples of the cardinal virtues, all led on by the Sun, containing the prudent, whose wisdom lighted the way for the other virtues. Mars contains the men of fortitude who died in the cause of Christianity; Jupiter contains the kings of justice; and Saturn contains the temperate, the monks. The eight sphere of the fixed stars contains those who achieved the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love, representing the Church Triumphant. The ninth circle, or Primum Mobile, contains the angels, creatures never poisoned by original sin. Topping them all is the Empyrean, which contains the essence of God, completing the nine-fold division to ten. Dante meets and converses with several great saints of the Church, including Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Saint Peter, and St. John. Near the end, Beatrice departs and Bernard of Clairvaux takes over as the guide, leading Dante through the final cantos of Paradiso.
The Exile and the Political Struggle
Dante's life was irrevocably altered by the political struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines in central Italy. He was part of the Guelphs, who generally favored the papacy over the Holy Roman Emperor, but Florence's Guelphs split into factions around 1300: the White Guelphs and the Black Guelphs. Dante was among the White Guelphs who were exiled in 1302 by the Lord-Mayor Cante de' Gabrielli di Gubbio, after troops under Charles of Valois entered the city at the request of Pope Boniface VIII, who supported the Black Guelphs. This exile, which lasted the rest of Dante's life, shows its influence in many parts of the Comedy, from prophecies of Dante's exile to Dante's views of politics, to the eternal damnation of some of his opponents. The poem was written during this period of exile, and the bitterness of his political defeat is woven into the fabric of the work. The last word in each of the three cantiche is stelle, or stars, a recurring motif that ties the poem together. The work was originally simply titled Comedia, so also in the first printed edition, published in 1472, and later adjusted to the modern Italian Divina Commedia. The earliest known use of the adjective divina appears in Giovanni Boccaccio's biographical work Trattatello in laude di Dante, written between 1351 and 1355.
The Manuscripts and the First Printings
According to the Italian Dante Society, no original manuscript written by Dante has survived, although there are many manuscript copies from the 14th and 15th centuries, some 800 listed on their site. The first printed edition was published in Foligno, Italy, by Johann Numeister and Evangelista Angelini da Trevi on the 11th of April 1472. Of the 300 copies printed, fourteen still survive, and the original printing press is on display in the Oratorio della Nunziatella in Foligno. The first edition to name the poem Divina Comedia in the title was that of the Venetian humanist Lodovico Dolce, published in 1555 by Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari. Early translations include a prose translation into Castilian completed by Enrique de Villena in 1428 and a verse translation into Catalan by Andreu Febrer in 1429. The first complete translation of the Comedy was made into Latin prose by Giovanni da Serravalle in 1416 for two English bishops, Robert Hallam and Nicholas Bubwith, and an Italian cardinal, Amedeo di Saluzzo, during the Council of Constance. The first verse translation, into Latin hexameters, was made in 1427, 1431 by an unknown translator. These early translations and printed editions helped spread the poem's influence across Europe, establishing it as a cornerstone of Western literature.
The Science and the Classical Roots
Although the Divine Comedy is primarily a religious poem, discussing sin, virtue, and theology, Dante also discusses several elements of the science of his day. The Purgatorio repeatedly refers to the implications of a spherical Earth, such as the different stars visible in the Southern Hemisphere, the altered position of the sun, and the various time zones of the Earth. Dante travels through the center of the Earth in the Inferno and comments on the resulting change in the direction of gravity in Canto XXXIV. The Paradiso discusses astronomy extensively, but in the Ptolemaic sense, and also discusses the importance of the experimental method in science. Dante's use of real characters allows him the freedom of not having to involve the reader in description, and allows him to make room in his poem for the discussion of a great many subjects of the utmost importance. Without access to the works of Homer, Dante used Virgil, Lucan, Ovid, and Statius as the models for the style, history, and mythology of the Comedy. He built up the philosophy of the Comedy with the works of Aristotle as a foundation, just as the scholastics used Aristotle as the basis for their thinking. Dante even acknowledges Aristotle's influence explicitly in the poem, specifically when Virgil justifies the Inferno's structure by citing the Nicomachean Ethics. The Divine Comedy is also a product of Scholasticism, especially as expressed by St. Thomas Aquinas, and the text's portrayals of God, the beatific vision, and substantial forms all align with scholastic doctrine.
The Legacy and the Modern Voice
Critical reception of the Divine Comedy has varied considerably prior to its universal renown today. Although recognized as a masterpiece in the centuries immediately following its publication, the work largely fell into obscurity during the Enlightenment, with some notable exceptions: Vittorio Alfieri, Antoine de Rivarol, and Giambattista Vico. The Comedy was rediscovered in the English-speaking world by William Blake, who illustrated several passages of the epic, and the Romantic writers of the 19th century. Later authors such as T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Samuel Beckett, C. S. Lewis, and James Joyce have drawn on it for inspiration. The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was its first American translator, and modern poets, including Seamus Heaney, Robert Pinsky, John Ciardi, W. S. Merwin, and Stanley Lombardo, have also produced translations of all or parts of the book. In Russia, beyond Alexander Pushkin's translation of a few tercets, Osip Mandelstam's late poetry has been said to bear the mark of a tormented meditation on the Comedy. Erich Auerbach said Dante was the first writer to depict human beings as the products of a specific time, place, and circumstance, as opposed to mythic archetypes or a collection of vices and virtues, concluding that this, along with the fully imagined world of the Divine Comedy, suggests that the Divine Comedy inaugurated literary realism and self-portraiture in modern fiction. For Jorge Luis Borges, the Divine Comedy was the best book literature has achieved, and T. S. Eliot stated that Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them, with no third.