Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
Dante Alighieri (c.1265-1321) is often ranked as the greatest of medieval poets, and is known as il Sommo Poeta (‘the Supreme Poet’) in his homeland. The Divine Comedy is a monumental work that really needs no introduction, but it is worth putting it in the context of Dante’s life. Like most Florentines, Dante became involved in the Guelph-Ghibelline conflict, a dispute between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor. His role in the conflict in Florence led to him being exiled from the city accused of corruption, and he wrote The Divine Comedy in fury at his unfair treatment.
‘Midway this way of life on which we’re bound upon/ I woke to find myself in a dark wood/ where the right road was wholly lost and gone’, says Dante at the beginning of the 14, 233 lines of The Divine Comedy, which will see him visit hell, purgatory, and paradise in the company of Virgil and his beloved Beatrice. Like William Langland, Dante is inspired on the journey through the corruption and sin he observed in the world around him. Beginning in Hell (Inferno), he witnesses the punishment of those who have sinned on earth, from simonists to traitors.
The punishments in Inferno are contrapasso, either resembling, or contrasting with, the sin committed. For example, gluttons who have put their desire for material things above other people are condemned for eternity to be chewed by greedy demons and worms and to eat filth and mud. As macabre as they are, these punishments show Dante’s creative mastery. In Purgatorio, which is structured in 7 levels representing 7 Deadly Sins, Dante sees people who did not act on their wishes punished for their desire to sin. Paradiso is physically structured to resemble the 4 Cardinal Virtues and 3 Theological Virtues.
Dante’s pilgrimage through The Divine Comedy is an allegory of the Christian life. Inferno corresponds to him seeing the truth of sin, Purgatorio to his feeling of penitence for suffering temptation, Paradiso to the soul’s ascent to God. Thus, Dante starts in hell, making his way to the very bottom where the worst sinners of all (traitors) are punished before ascending through the diminishing stages of sin in purgatory to seeing a vision of God (the reward for a good life) in paradise. It is no wonder that this ambitious work continues to have so great a cultural impact.
Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
The following are recommended translations which come with useful explanatory notes on the texts.
Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. Trans. by Robin Kirkpatrick. London: Penguin, 2012.
Beowulf. Trans. by Seamus Heaney. London: Faber and Faber, 1999.
Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron. Trans. by George Henry McWilliam. London: Penguin, 2003.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Trans. by Jill Mann. London: Penguin, 2005.
Chrétien de Troyes. Four Arthurian Romances. Trans. by D.D.R. Owen. London: Everyman, 1987.
Egil’s Saga. Trans. by Bernard Scudder. London: Penguin, 2004.
Langland, William. Piers Plowman. Trans. by A.V.C. Schmidt. Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, 2009.
The Owl and the Nightingale/ Cleanness/ St Erkenwald. Trans. by Brian Stone. London: Penguin, 1977.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Trans. by Simon Armitage. London: Faber and Faber, 2008.
The Song of Roland. Trans. by Glynn Burgess. London: Penguin, 1990.