The Massachusetts Medievalist on Inferno, Cantos 1-3
Corot, Dante and Virgil, detail, 1859 (MFA Boston)
Today is the scheduled kick off for the Massachusetts Medievalist's online summer 2020 reading group on Hell, aka Dante's Inferno + Morrison's Beloved.  This morning, the Boston Globe and twitter are full of terrible news and images of the #BostonProtests, riot police and fires downtown and in the Back Bay, some of which could illustrate Dante's poem (photo from bostonglobe.com).
It seems odd to turn to a 700-year-old poem about Hell for any sort of comfort, especially when we are facing imminent dual threats of epidemic police violence and a global pandemic.  But I am reminded of Freccero's point that in the Inferno, "the dominant theme is not mercy, but justice" (xi, Pinsky translation). In alliance with the justice goals of Boston's #BlackLivesMatter and of the Chelsea Collaborative's work on the pandemic in that hardest-hit community, I thus offer this medieval assurance that justice will be served. Please consider a donation through the links above to those organizations. Read on for an overview of this week's focus, the first three cantos of Inferno (for summer overview and schedule, please see the previous post).
Some background and context for this very complicated text: the Inferno is the first section of the three-part Divine Comedy (so-called because it has a happy ending, not because it's funny). Inferno (hell), Purgatorio (purgatory), and Paradiso (heaven) provide a journey through the three options of the medieval Christian afterlife. Dante Alighieri (c.1265-1321) finished the Comedy in 1320; it was enormously, immediately popular, with an extensive genealogy of 14th- and 15th-century manuscript witnesses before its first printing in 1472 (check out this British Library blog about one of their deluxe Dante manuscripts, the source of the image below).
The Comedy is full of important numbers. For instance, Canto 1 of Inferno presents something of a prologue to the entire Comedy; the remaining 33 cantos of Inferno balance the 33 cantos of Purgatorio and of Paradiso, so there are 100 cantos total.  Christ was 33 when he was crucified, and the three sections of the Comedy allude to (among other things) the Holy Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Each individual three-line stanza (called a 'tercet') of the Comedy is a miniature version of these already-layered numerical allusions.  Dante actually invented the form we call terza rima (it's safer to say that Comedy is the "first known use" of the form, but I'm going all-in and just agreeing with Pinsky - Dante invented it). Each line has 11 syllables, so each tercet has 33 syllables just as each section of Comedy has 33 cantos. There's a lot more Dantean numerology-criticism if you want to go down that rabbit hole - have fun!
More important, keep in mind that terza rima is an interlocking rhyme scheme that has no defined end point (Dante simply ends each Comedy section with a stand-alone line that rhymes the middle line of the previous tercet).  Look at the Italian text and you'll see the rhyme scheme ABA, BCB, CDC, DED, EFE, etc. And- each section of the Comedy ends with the word "stars" (stelle).
If you're using the Pinsky translation, you'll see that he uses slant rhyme (sometimes termed  "half-rhyme") to create terza rima in English. His "translator's note" is worth the read if you're interested in the choices translators have to make as they try to move poetry from one language to another. If you're not using the Pinsky, check out the choices your translator made -- complete abandonment of the rhyme? Drop of a syllable to create more-familiar-in-English iambic pentameter?
In addition to the revolution in poetic form, Dante also revolutionized literature by writing in the vernacular -- the daily language of the ordinary people i.e. Italian and not Latin. Like Chaucer's writing in English some 60 years later, Dante's language declared the poem's audience to be The People, not just The Educated (who were largely aristocratic men).Â
Last overview point: we need to try to remember that Dante the poet and Dante the character are different, just as Chaucer the poet and Chaucer the pilgrim are different in Canterbury Tales. The Dante/Dante distinction is not as sharp as it is for Chaucer/Chaucer (after all, Chaucer had Dante to build upon), but we should try to remember that Dante the successful poet was around 50 years old when he worked on the Comedy while quasi-fictional Dante the character is 35 - as he tells us in line one, that is Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita (literally: in the middle of the journey of our life). So the poem begins before dawn on Good Friday, 7 April 1300, when the historical Dante is 35 years old.
Whew! And that was just the big-picture overview! I didn't even get to the cool Greek mythology references (see boat ride image above), the way that Virgil just sort of conveniently pops up to lend a hand when Dante figures out he's lost ("this lovely heavenly lady named Beatrice asked me to help you out…"), super-symbolic large animals (see Corot painting above)….what were you thinking about as you dove into this hyper-canonical text?
Some potential starter discussion questions:
How does the exposition in Cantos 1-3 show that this quest is similar to other quest-narratives you already know? (For instance, our main character is a man going on a journey looking for self-knowledge and revelation).
And -- how is it different from those? (For instance, our main character is a bit older than the usual man on a quest - Sir Gawain is probably 20-ish, as is Beowulf, at least in the first half of his poem).Â
What else were you thinking about in these initial cantos?
Hi everyone! Excited to be part of this reading group. FYI, I am using a 1998 translation by Elio Zappulla.
I encountered several similarities between Cantos 1-3 and other quest-narratives that I am familiar with. The first would be the classic "invoking of the muses." Both Paradise Lost and The Odyssey begin with the speaker invoking a Muse to aid in (or assume responsibility for?) their storytelling. Canto 2 begins in a similar way: "Oh Muses, lofty Genius, who inscribed/ The things I saw, assist me now, I pray!/ Here will be seen your true nobility!" (II. 7-9). Admittedly, I am not too familiar with this literary strategy, but my assumption is that it is to earn some credibility or legitimacy for the story? Almost as if to doubt the story you are in turn doubting the Muses? If anyone could shed light on this I would appreciate it!
Another major parallel I am seeing between Inferno and the quest-narrative is how Cantos 1-3 have aligned with the "Hero's Journey" archetype of mythology. My 6th graders and I studied this as part of our pre-reading for a unit on the first Percy Jackson novel. There are varying interpretations as to the quantity of stages of the journey and their proper titles, but they all follow a similar trajectory. Already we can see the early stages of the journey in Inferno:
Stage One - Ordinary World: Typically, a traditional "hero's journey" would begin in some representation of the ordinary world. This stage is interesting in Inferno because Canto 1 begins with the character Dante already in a "sunless wood" after having "wandered from the narrow way." Is the narrow way the "ordinary world"? The first line also reads "Halfway along this journey of our life" which could imply the ordinary world (life itself?) in some way.
Stage Two - Call to Adventure: The ordinary world is then interrupted by a "call to adventure." This stage, I am guessing, is represented by Virgil offering to guide Dante through Hell.
Stage Three - Refusal: Next, the hero refuses the task before them. I am seeing this in Canto 2, wherein Dante experiences overwhelming fear from the impending journey, which is eventually calmed by Virgil.
Stage Four - Mentor/Helper: There is almost always a mentor to assist the hero on their journey. This is clearly Virgil; however, it is interesting that Dante's character is immediately aware of the mentorship from his study of Virgil in his waking life.
Stage Five - Crossing the Threshold - There is then a point of no return for the epic hero, which must be crossed. I would say this would be the Gates of Hell.
I'm interested to see how Inferno adheres to or diverges from the "Hero's Journey" as our reading continues. I'm also curious to see how the character of Dante stacks up to the traits of the typical "epic hero" that is associated with the hero's journey.
Hello everyone! Some amazing stuff here! I'm fascinated by this numerology stuff and will be very interested to see if we can see some matching numerology in Beloved which also has a ton of numerology (including the number 33 I think. I haven't read it in a few years). As for his age, Beowulf and Gawain, being so young, are ready for adventure and seek glory in their early years. they are unafraid of death. In much of European folklore, young age is tied with inexperience and lack of caution. Maybe for Dante, it would be unrealistic for a younger person to have the caution necessary for fear. This sounds like kind of a stretch at first but if you put Beowulf or Gawain in Dante's place going up that mountain, they would fight the animals. I think this is important to note because the trials Dante faces in his quest are not those of brute strength and physical force like Gawain and Beowulf but of soul and mind. He needs that caution and that fear of death in order to characterize the kind of journey he is about to pursue. This is Dante telling us that we're not dealing with the physical monsters of older quests, we're dealing with mental monsters. However, Virgil's presence as a guide also makes it clear that this is still a quest on the same level of the Aeneid; it has the same urgency.