Dante's Divine Comedy

Allusions/Symbols

The Dark Wood

• Symbolic of the pilgrim’s spiritual, physical, psychological, political, and moral disorientation
• Establishes two important ideas regarding reading the poem
  • That the reader identify with the Dante the pilgrim
  • That the reader recognize that learning is a process that sometime requires our reading backward from later events to gain a fuller understanding of what happened earlier
• Based on ideas from various traditions
  • Augustine’s association of spiritual alienation with a “region of utter unlikeness” (Confessions 7:10) and temptation with “so vast a wilderness [tam immense silva], so full of snares and dangers” (Confessions 10:35)
  • The medieval Platonic image of chaotic matter, unformed and unnamed, as a type of primordial wood (in Latin, silva)
  • The forest at the entrance to the classical underworld (Hades) as described by Virgil in the sixth book of the Aeneid
  • The dangerous forests from which the wandering knights of medieval romances must extricate themselves
  • In his Convivio, Dante imagines the bewildering period of adolescence, in which one needs guidance to keep from losing the “good way,” as a sort of “meandering forest” (selva erronea)

“The straight and true”

• “Dante associates straightness with justice, that is to say with a thing’s true aim, the fulfillment of the purpose inherent in its creation.” – Esolen
• In medieval thought, abandonment of the straight way often indicates estrangement from God.
• Augustine views sin as a “perversion of the will” when it veers from God toward lower things.

The Three Beasts

Medieval thinkers carried on the Platonic belief that the human soul is divided into three parts: the appetites (located in the abdomen), the spirit or emotions or passions (located in the heart), and the intellect or reason (located in the head). Dante melded this view with Aristotle’s teaching that evil (sin) is divided into incontinence (sins of the appetites), violence or bestiality (sins of the spirit), and malice or fraud (sins of reason).

Virgil

• Symbol of Human Reason
• Why Virgil?
  • The classical poet Dante most admires, crediting him with inspiring his own poetic style
  • Wrote the Aeneid, the source material for the geography and many of the mythological creatures in Dante’s Inferno
  • Wrote the Eclogues, ten pastoral poems, the fourth of which foretells the birth of a “wonder child” who would bring peace to the world, giving rise to a deep interest in the poet throughout the Middle Ages
  • Wrote the Georgics, the fourth book of which includes the story of Orpheus and Eurydice
  • Lived during the transition from Julius Caesar to Augustus Caesar
  • Lived during the transition from republic to empire

Aeneas and Paul

• Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 claims to have been “caught up into paradise (specifically the “third heaven” where he “heard secret words which it is not granted man to utter.”
• Virgil scribes Aeneas’ visit to the underworld in the Aeneid, Book VI.
• St. Paul and Aeneas are linked with Rome, seat of both empire and church.

Figures of Speech

Similes (comparisons that employ the words like, as, or so)

• Lines 22-27 (the drowning man)
• Lines 55-60 (the gambler)

Synesthesia (a mixing of senses wherein terms normally associated with one the five senses are applied to a different sense)

• Line 60 (“where the sun is silent”)

Epic Conventions

• Epics begin in medias res (“in the middle of things”) – more on this in Canto II
• Epics employ extended similes of several lines’ length – already shown above

The traditional epic

The following lists are distilled from Homer and later codified by classical and Renaissance critics. These conventions describe how epics tend to be structured and stylized, especially in the Homeric model.

The traditional epic form possesses six observable characteristics, all of which can be found in The Divine Comedy.

1. The protagonist is a figure of heroic stature, of national or international importance, and/or of great historical or legendary significance.
2. The setting is vast in scope, covering great nations, the world, or even the universe.
3. The action consists of deeds requiring great valor or superhuman strength.
4. Supernatural forces — gods, angels, and demons — take interest in the action and intervene in it.
5. The style is of sustained elevation and grand simplicity (in content, not necessarily in form or diction).
6. The epic poet recounts the deeds of the protagonist objectively.

The epic conventions

The epic conventions, devices that are incorporated into the style and the story in almost every epic since Homer’s, include the following.

• The poet opens by invoking the Muse — the poet begins by calling upon a divine source of inspiration to help tell the tale.
• In the invocation he states the theme.
• The narrative opens in medias res — the story opens “in the middle of things,” with earlier events revealed through flashback, narration, or embedded tales.
• Cataloguing — long, detailed lists of events, descriptions, persons, conditions, and so forth — is employed.
• The main character and others make extended, formal speeches.
• The poet makes ample use of epic similes — elaborate comparisons more involved and ornate than the usual simple similes.
• The epithet — a stock word or phrase almost inseparably associated with a character, circumstance, condition or idea — is used.
• The plot always includes a descent into the underworld.