Dante's Political Involvement: Dante was a member of the prominent Guelph family and supported the papacy, which was in conflict with the Ghibellines, who supported the Holy Roman Emperor.
Key People Mentioned
Gemma: Dante's wife
Beatrice: An allegorical figure representing divine love, admired by Dante (courtly love). She died young, leaving Dante distressed.
Giovanni Boccaccio: Author of Decameron
Francesco Petrarca: Anglicized as Petrarch, poet, scholar, known for Petracan Sonnets
Important Dates and Locations
Dante's Death: September 14, 1321, in Ravenna, Italy
Burial: Buried on the Adriatic coast, 100 miles away from Florence
Holy Cross Church (Santa Croce): Principal Franciscan Church in Florence where Michaelangelo and Galileo are interred.
Time Periods
Middle Ages: Approximately 5th century until 15th/16th century
Renaissance: Approximately 14th/15th century until 16th/17th century
Dante's Life and Works
Political Involvement: Embroiled in Florentine politics
Exile: Exiled in 1301
Vita Nuova: Early work, combining prose and verse, centered around his love for Beatrice and her early death, and its impact on him.
Education: Little information, presumed home-schooled with some formal philosophical studies; keen interest in Latin poetry
Inspiration: Love for Beatrice
The Divine Comedy
Length: 14,200+ lines
Original Title: The Comedy of Dante Alighieri, a Florentine by Birth, not Character
Significance: A preeminent work; “beautiful, demanding, and great”
Composition:Begun in 1306 and finished in 1320
Editorial Change: Addition of "divine" in early publication to denote spiritual subject/lofty style
Genre: Comedy (begins bad, ends happy)
Subject: Medieval narrative poem, Catholic theology, philosophy, imaginative vision of the afterlife, state of souls with particular emphasis on justice and freedom, allegory (soul’s journey toward God)
Language: Tuscan dialect (specifically Florentine), not Latin (which was most common in medieval literature)
Structure: 100 cantos with approximately 45 stanzas per canto; each stanza is a tercet.
Terza rima: A rhyme scheme that creates a linked chain of tercets
Rhyme Scheme: Dante created this interlocking rhyme scheme
Soul’s Journey: Through Christian afterlife (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso)
Contrapasso: Consequences of moral choice/sin; souls journey through afterlife understanding what failure to achieve to achieve alignment with God looks like when we struggle to reject it.
Punishment by a process either resembling or contrasting with the sin itself
Parts of the Divine Comedy
Inferno (Hell): 34 cantos, depicting the soul's rejection of God
Purgatorio (Purgatory): A penitential period, 33 cantos
Paradiso (Paradise): 3rd and final part. Describes the ultimate reward of the blessed. Dante sees the Triune God, understands the mystery of Christ's nature, and is aligned.
Setting
Time: Spring 1300, journey starts Good Friday goes a few days into Easter week
Place: Hell, Purgatory, Heaven
Main Characters
Dante: The pilgrim and the narrator
Virgil: Represents human reason, inspired by Aeneid
Beatrice: Represents divine love, inspiration for Dante's work, implores Virgil to save and guide Dante
St. Bernard of Clairvaux
Lucifer: Satan, Dis, Beelzebub, “Emperor of Hell”
Other Characters Mentioned
Proper nouns: Dis, Judas, Brutus, Cassius
Others: Aeneas, St. Paul, Charon
Figures from classical antiquity: Homer, Socrates, Plato
Figures in Hell: Minos, Francesca, Paolo, Ciacco, Cerberus, Epicurus, Farinata
Description of Punishment: Beatrice provides a description of a punishment and asks what's contrapasso—the idea that the punishment in Hell fits the crime of the sinners in a symbolic way.
Structure of Hell
Circle 1: Limbo
Location: Vestibule
Inhabitants: Unbaptized and virtuous pagans
Punishment: Reside in a state of eternal longing for God without experiencing damnation
Encounters: Dante met 4 poets Homer Horace Ovid Lucan, saw Elysian Fields
Circle 2
Sin: Lust
Punishment: Sinners are violently swept through the air eternally.
Encounters:
Minos: Determines the level of Hell sinners go to by the number of times his tail wraps around them.
Francesca and Paolo: Tragic love story and illicit affair between her and her husband's brother.
Circle 3: Gluttony
Sin: Gluttony
Punishment: Sinners are forced to endure eternal heavy rain, hail, filth, and suffer perpetual hunger and thirst.
Encounters:
Cerberus: A brutalizing three-headed dog who guards the gluttons.
Ciacco: A glutton who offered a glimpse into the life and fate of those punished for their sins of overindulgence.
Circle 4
Sin: Avarice (Greed)
Punishment: The Avaricious and Prodigal are locked in combat, pushing heavy weights that symbolize their selfishness
Encounters: Plutus, God of wealth and Fortuna, God of Fortune
Circle 5: Wrath and Sullenness
Sin: Anger and Sullenness
Punishment:
The wrathful destroy by biting and striking
The sullen are submerged underwater
Location: In the river of Styx/swamp lakes
Circle 6: Heresy
Sin: Heresy
Punishment: Heretics are entombed in fiery tombs.
Encounters: Farinata, Cavalcante, Epicureans (who deny the immortality of the soul)
Circle 7: Violence
Structure: Divided into three rings
Ring 1: Violence against Others
Sin: Murderers, tyrants, etc.
Punishment: Punished in a boiling river of blood
Ring 2: Violence against Oneself
Sin: Suicides
Punishment: Transformed into trees of dark wood and tormented by Harpies