Summary
Hell
Song 1-2
As an adult, Dante “found himself in a dark forest,” dull and frightening. He tried to reach the mountains, gilded by the first rays of the sun, but to no avail.
In the forest, Dante appeared to the spirit of Virgil - “the honor and torch of all the singers of the earth”, who offered to go on a journey through Hell and Purgatory to get to the cherished Paradise. Dante was afraid to go on the road, but, having learned that Beatrice, his beloved who died in her youth, had put in a word for him, he agreed to go through all the circles of Hell.
Song 3
At the gates of Hell, Dante shared his fears with Virgil, but he replied that “here fear should not give advice.” Taking Dante by the hand, he led him inside, where they were deafened by “sighs, crying and ecstatic screams.” The hero learned that here were those “insignificant ones who will not be taken by either God or the adversaries of God’s will.”
Song 4
Approaching the river, Dante noticed the old man Charon, who was transporting the souls of the deceased to the other side, where the first circle of Hell began - Limbo. It represented a place in which the souls of unbaptized infants and those who “did not honor God as we should” grieved. Here Dante met the great poets and philosophers of antiquity: Homer, Horace, Ovid, Lucan.
Song 5
The second circle of Hell, in which the demon Minos ruled, was created “for those whom earthly flesh called, who betrayed the mind to the power of lust.”
Song 6
At the entrance to the third circle of Hell, sinners were met by “the three-mouthed Cerberus, predatory and huge.” The souls of gluttons languished here under the incessant rain and hail.
Song 7
The next circle of Hell, guarded by the bestial demon Plutos, served as a place of imprisonment for misers and wasters.
Song 8-11
In the fifth circle of Hell, Dante saw suffering souls ruined by laziness and anger.
Soon the city of Dit appeared before the travelers, the entrance to which was guarded by hordes of demons. After a short conversation, they allowed the brave travelers inside.
Here Dante met the Gorgon Medusa, but, warned by Virgil, he managed to close his eyes in time - “it’s terrible to see the face of the Gorgon,” capable of blinding a person forever.
In the sixth circle of Hell, Dante met the souls of heretics languishing in tombs.
Virgil explained to his companion how the last three circles, located in the lower tier of Hell, at the very center of the Earth, work.
Song 12-16
A wild and evil Minotaur stood guard over the seventh circle of Hell. A bloody seething stream here devoured those “who inflicted violence on their neighbors,” and from above they were fired upon by centaurs with bows.
In the second belt of the seventh circle, Dante encountered only thorny plants into which the souls of suicides were turned.
In the third zone of the seventh circle blasphemers languished, on whose rebellious heads “a blizzard of fire descended.”
Virgil explained to Dante that they would soon be descending into the center of Hell.
Song 17-30
Geryon, the hellish guard of the eighth circle, where deceivers were cruelly punished, appeared before the travelers from a bottomless abyss. They sat on his back and rushed to the bottom of the abyss.
The Eighth Circle of Hell consisted of ten Evil Crevices - deep concentric ditches. In the first of them, demons beat seducers and pimps with whips, in the second ditch, “crowds of people stuck in fetid feces appeared before the travelers” - such was the fate of all flatterers.
In the third gap, holy merchants were punished - church ministers who traded in church positions during their lifetime. Their bodies were crushed by huge boulders, and their heels were engulfed in flames.
The next ditch belonged to soothsayers and clairvoyants, each of whom was "strangely twisted in the place where the chest meets the face."
In the fifth crack of the eighth circle, the souls of the bribe-takers writhed in torment, immersed in boiling resin.
In the sixth ditch, crowds of sinners walked “at a leisurely pace, without hope, in tears, wearily moving forward” - these were hypocrites dressed in lead cloaks.
The seventh crack served as a prison for thieves, where their bodies were incinerated and fell into pieces, only to be reassembled into a body - such punishment continued endlessly.
The eighth ditch was intended for crafty advisers.
In the ninth crack, Satan crushed the heads of all the instigators of enthusiasm, cut off the ears and noses.
The counterfeiters faced a sad fate in the last crevice of the eighth circle of Hell, where they suffered from foul-smelling scabies.
Song 31-34
Dante and Virgil saw a “line of giants” who were punished by not being allowed to move.
The travelers reached the well, where “a new giant, Antaeus, emerged from a dark hollow.” Virgil appeased him, and the giant carried them “to the chasm, where Judas and Lucifer were swallowed up in the utmost darkness.”
At the bottom of the well there was an icy lake Cocytus, in which “the souls of sinners were blue from the ice” - this was the last circle of Hell. The souls of traitors suffered here.
In the center of the icy lake was the Three-Faced Lucifer. In one of his mouths was Judas, in the second - Brutus, and in the third - Cassius. Their sins were much more terrible than all the others.
Virgil informed Dante that their journey through the circles of Hell had come to an end, and now they could see heaven.
Purgatory
Song 1-8
The travelers “came out onto a deserted shore,” and Dante was immensely glad to see the sunlight again. They met a boat driven by a beautiful angel, who brought the souls of dead people to the foot of the mountain.
Among them were sinners who managed to repent of their wicked actions before death, brave warriors who fell in battle, and unfortunates who died a violent death.
Dante admired the night sky when three bright stars appeared on it, “lighting up the firmament around their spines” - symbols of faith, hope and love.
Song 9-26
Virgil and the other shadows needed no rest, while the exhausted Dante fell into a deep sleep. When he woke up, he was extremely surprised and frightened - the sun was shining brightly and “the sea spread out before his eyes.” Virgil said that while the poet was sleeping, Saint Lucia appeared and carried him to the very entrance to Purgatory.
Approaching the rock, the travelers saw “three large steps, different in color, and a gatekeeper with his mouth closed.” The angel guarding the gates to Purgatory drew the letter “P” on the forehead of each of them, the trace of which was supposed to disappear as they moved towards the top of the rock.
Purgatory was also divided into parts - circles. In the first circle were “Christians with proud hearts.” Large boulders of stone pressed on their backs, and they held on with all their strength, bending under the heavy weight. However, the shadows sang praises to the Lord and asked to guide people on the true path.
The second circle of Purgatory was intended for envious people who were deprived of sight here.
Suddenly, a new sparkle “struck” Dante’s eyes. Virgil explained that an angel approached them “to say that the way is open.” So the travelers found themselves in the third circle, intended to cleanse souls poisoned by anger. The “dark and night-like” smoke blinded them, making them think about meekness and humility.
The next circle of Purgatory was reserved for those souls who, during their lifetime, indulged in despondency. From one of the souls Dante learned that “the love of goodness, incomplete and dull, is given power here.”
In the fifth circle were spendthrifts and misers, and the sixth circle was for gluttons. They were destined to experience terrible pangs of hunger until the souls sincerely repented and atone for their sins.
The seventh circle of Purgatory was intended for sensualists who “forgot about human law, rushing to satisfy their passion, like cattle in a hurry.” They purified their souls by burning in fire and singing odes to a chaste life.
Song 27-33
By this point, Dante had almost all the letters erased from his forehead - he was ready to enter “the Lord’s forest, shady and alive.” This was the Earthly Paradise, in which all humanity would have lived if Eve had not violated the ban.
Here Dante met his beloved Beatrice, who died at the age of 25. Virgil disappeared, and Beatrice took his place next to Dante. With its help, the poet was able to look at all nine circles of Hell and seven circles of Purgatory with his own eyes, and realize how dangerous it is to sin in earthly life.
Beatrice asked her lover, who was only a guest in the Lord's forest, not to forget to describe everything that he saw here - “for the benefit of the world, where good is persecuted.”
Paradise
Song 1-2
“Beatrice fixed her gaze on the sun,” and Dante, unnoticed by himself, began to ascend with his beloved into the heavenly spheres. The entire space of Heavenly Paradise was divided into heaven.
As Beatrice explained, the celestial spheres are rotated by the crystalline ninth heaven - the Prime Mover. They are set in motion by angels.
Song 3-28
Together with Beatrice, Dante found himself in the first sky - the sky of the Moon - the closest luminary to the earth. Here they met the souls of nuns who were given in marriage against their will. One of them told the poet that they were in the first heaven because, although they became victims of violence, they did not show the necessary fortitude. This is how Dante learned that “every country in heaven is Paradise, at least to varying degrees, for it is unequally watered with mercy.”
In the second sky - Mercury - the souls of the righteous, who emitted a particularly bright light, awaited the wanderers.
In the third heaven, called Venus, the souls of lovers bathed in grace and joy.
In the fourth celestial sphere - the Sun - Dante and Beatrice met the wise men. Then they entered the fifth heaven, where “in the depths of Mars, surrounded by stars, from two rays, a sacred sign was formed,” that is, a cross. Dante heard the enchanting sounds of a song, whose words he could not understand, but enjoyed the melodic sound. Looking at the sparkling cross, the poet realized that it was a song of praise to Jesus Christ.
The sixth heaven - Planet Jupiter - was “full of sparkling love.” Here the souls of the just found their refuge. Letters began to appear from individual sparkling particles. Dante put them into words and read the biblical saying, and then the figure of an eagle appeared before his eyes - a symbol of the power and justice that reigned in heaven.
Beatrice urged her lover to move on, and they ascended to the seventh heaven - the planet Saturn. They noticed a “host of lights,” but in this celestial sphere no sweet-voiced singing was heard, as in the previous heavens. Here were souls who devoted themselves to serving the Almighty. This place was so far from the earth that Dante, looking down, was surprised at how tiny the globe had become.
The beloved rushed to the eighth, starry sky, where the great righteous found eternal refuge. By rejecting worldly wealth, they managed to accumulate spiritual treasures which they now enjoyed. The apostles Peter, John, and James began to talk with Dante. Here the poet saw the soul of Adam, which emitted an unusually bright light.
Arriving at the ninth, crystal sky, Beatrice said that “the whole fruit of the heavenly circulation” was collected here. The first thing the poet saw in this celestial sphere was “a point that shed such a sharp light” that he was forced to look away. This dazzling point symbolized the deity. The lights from which all nine angelic circles of Paradise were created swirled around her.
Song 29-33
Beatrice told Dante “where, when and how” the angels were created. Thanks to their continuous rapid movement, the entire Universe rotated.
The lovers ascended to the Empyrean - the highest sphere, where Dante saw his new mentor - Bernard, a mystic theologian. Dressed in a snow-white robe, “he was as affectionate as a gentle parent can be.” Meanwhile, Beatrice, having fulfilled her mission, returned to her rightful place in Paradise.
In the center of the amphitheater sat the one “whose face is most similar to Christ” - the Virgin Mary. Next to her sat Adam, John the Baptist, and the Apostle Peter. The elder turned to the Virgin Mary with a request that she help Dante, and then called on the poet to look up. When he raised his eyes, he saw an unusually bright radiance - “The Highest Light, so elevated above earthly thoughts.” He did not have enough words to convey his shock and delight at what he saw.
Thus Dante gained the greatest of all truths - he saw God in his trinity. Having experienced a moment of highest spiritual tension, he became weak. However, the insight he experienced forever determined his life - “But passion and will were already striving for me, as if a wheel was given a smooth run, love that moves the sun and luminaries.”
Dante Alighieri. A word about the poet. "The Divine Comedy"
Today in class we:
· let's find out what Dante Alighieri became famous for;
· let's figure out what impact Dante's “Divine Comedy” had on world culture;
· let's talk about the concept, plot, composition and characters of this poem.
Dante Alighieri can be called one of the most mysterious figures of world culture. It seems that we know more about many poets of antiquity than about the one who lived during the era of the decline of the Middle Ages and the birth of the Renaissance.
To begin with, the exact date of birth of the poet is unknown. It is believed that Dante was born at the end of May 1265 in Florence. According to the Alighieri family legends, Dante traces his origins to the Roman family of Elisei
, who were among the first founders of Florence.
Almost nothing is known about the education of Dante Alighieri.
Brunetto Latini, remains in history.
. No matter how much of a genius Latini was, one teacher was clearly not enough for a noble young man. Moreover, even judging by the text of the Divine Comedy, Dante received an excellent education. He knew well medieval and ancient literature, mythology, theology, heretical teachings, and understood the natural sciences.
Biographers suggest that Dante was a student at the University of Bologna
. The University of Bologna is considered the oldest university in Europe, and there are indications that Dante spent several months in Bologna. But there is no documentary evidence to support this theory.
The first mentions in documents of the name Dante Alighieri are associated with his political activities. He was one of the seven priors of Florence and a member of the Council of Sta. This council dealt with the financial affairs of the Florentine Republic. At that time, serious passions were in full swing in the political life of Florence. For two centuries in a row, two political parties fought for power: the Guelph party and the Ghibelline party.
.
The Ghibelline party supported the imperial power.
The Ghibellines wanted to limit the power of the Pope. The Guelphs believed that papal power would bring more benefits to Florence. Over time, the Guelph party split in two. Black Guelphs defended the interests of the aristocracy, and white Guelphs fought for the rights of wealthy townspeople of humble origin.
The poet tried to reconcile the warring parties. This is also why he married Gemma Donati
from a family that supported the black Guelphs. All efforts were in vain. In 1301 the White Guelphs were defeated. The party leaders were declared traitors, their property was confiscated and their civil rights were deprived.
Dante faced exile. The poet was no longer able to return to his native Florence. His wife remained in Florence along with their three sons. Until the end of his life, Dante wandered around Italy. In his book "The Feast"
he complained:
“I wander like a poor wanderer, almost like a beggar, in all the places where they speak the language of Italy, showing everywhere, against my will, the wound inflicted on me by fate.
Truly, I am like a boat without sails or rudder, washed to different harbors and shores by the dry wind that breathes the sorrowing poverty.” The poet died in Ravenna at the age of 57 from malaria. Next to him were his sons, friends and fans. Dante contracted malaria in Venice, where he went as an ambassador of the ruler of Ravenna. That is, we see that Dante was involved in politics all his life, even while in exile.
Dante Alighieri's second passion was literature. And if contemporaries knew Dante as a politician, then his literary talent turned out to be much more important for history. Why?
The fact is that for Italians Dante is like Pushkin for Russians. He is the creator of the national literary language. Before Dante, all literary works were written in Latin, and people communicated in different dialects of the Italian language. Dante was the first to write his works not in Latin, but in Italian. In the treatises "Feast"
and
“On Popular Eloquence,”
the poet expressed his thoughts on what a unified Italian language should be.
The poet combined the vernacular with Latin and wrote that it was necessary to create different styles of language. “Shame and eternal shame on the bad Italians who praise the vernacular language of other countries and humiliate their own,”
– the poet wrote.
Dante was a member of the society of poets of the “sweet new style”
. What did the poets write about in this “sweet new style”? It’s easy to guess from the name itself – about love. And this also showed their innovation. Wait, you say. Wasn't there love poetry in the Middle Ages? Was.
In religious poetry, the image of a woman was interpreted as the image of the Virgin Mary. Divine, spiritual love was sung, and physical passion was denied.
Courtly poetry, on the contrary, spoke of earthly love and the thirst for possession.
The Sweet New Style poets combined these two approaches. Love is a divine revelation, but embodied in earthly people. The beloved, a living woman, becomes a symbol of divine wisdom, while maintaining her human nature. And a poet in love is a philosopher who, through love experiences, comprehends the secrets of nature and deity. But at the same time, in the “sweet new style” philosophy coexists with jokes, flirting and completely earthly emotions.
All of Dante's lyrics are associated with the name Beatrice
and his only love. As we remember, the poet married Gemma Donati for convenience and spent most of his life away from his wife. Who is Beatrice? Dante's friend and student, writer Giovanni Boccaccio, claims that this is the real woman Beatrice Portinari. The poet first saw her at the age of 8 years. Beatrice married the rich man Simon de Bardi and died at the age of 23. The second meeting of the poet and the muse took place when Beatrice was already married.
Therefore, Dante’s love was secret and unrequited, but he sang it in poetry. In world culture, Dante and Beatrice have become the same symbol as Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Petrarch and Laura. The poet told his love story in the book “New Life”. It consists of twenty-five sonnets, three canzonas, a ballad, two poems and commentaries on the text. At the same time, the comments are both autobiographical and philological.
Name Beatrice
appears in Dante's main work,
The Divine Comedy
.
The poet devoted about 15 years of his life to this work.
It is written in the popular medieval genre of afterlife travel. The poet, lost in life, is looking for his new path. He descends into Hell, then passes through Purgatory and ends up in Heaven. In Hell he is accompanied by the Roman poet Virgil, who is sent as a guide to Dante by his beloved Beatrice. Beatrice herself becomes the poet's guide to Paradise. Thus, the poet's journey covers the entire Universe.
Why did the poet call his comedy divine? And why is this a comedy?
The fact is that Dante called his work simply “Comedy”. And she became “Divine” later, with the light hand of the writer Giovanni Boccaccio
, who was the first compiler of commentaries on the works of Dante Alighieri.
And Dante called his creation a comedy because in the Middle Ages a comedy was called “any poetic work of an average style with a terrifying beginning and a happy ending, written in the popular language.”
The poet himself speaks about this in one of his letters.
The Divine Comedy has an incredibly complex and clearly defined structure. Dante mixes Christian and pagan mythology, turns to symbols, including the symbolism of numbers.
For example, the number 3 is considered sacred. Dante’s comedy consists of three parts (“Hell”, “Purgatory”, “Paradise”)
, which are called
cantics
. Each cant has 33 parts, and they are written in tercets connected by rhyme order. There are a total of 100 songs in The Divine Comedy, including the prologue.
There are also more complex numerical levels. For example, the serial number of the verse in which Virgil appears corresponds to the year of birth of that poet. And the number of poems spoken by Virgil is equal to the number of years he lived.
If we talk about the symbolism of comedy, there are also a lot of levels here. In the prologue, the gloomy forest personifies the poet’s wanderings in life, Virgil – earthly wisdom, Beatrice – heavenly. And the three beasts that Virgil drove away are human vices. But there is also a political subtext. The lynx symbolizes Florence, the spots on its skin represent the struggle between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Papal to y
Riya is represented by a she-wolf, and France by a lion. The French monarchs, the Pope and the Florentine nobility fought among themselves, threatening the well-being of Italy.
In his comedy, Dante combined the modern and the eternal. He talks about eternal topics: about human nature, virtue, sin, the meaning of life, the structure of the world, and so on. At the same time, here you can see a reflection of political events, trace the poet’s likes and dislikes. For example, in Hell he also meets mythological heroes such as Achilles, Ulysses or Helen of Troy. Historical figures: Cleopatra, Brutus, Cassius
. And contemporaries.
Dante placed his political opponents in Hell and his allies in Purgatory and Paradise.
It is interesting that the teacher Brunetto Latini, endlessly revered by the poet, was placed by the poet in the seventh circle of Hell for his sins.
Dante originally solves the problem with the great people of antiquity, whom he considers righteous. This is Homer, Horace, Ovid, Virgil, Caesar, Aristotle, Socrates, Plato
and others. They cannot go to Heaven because they lived in pre-Christian times. For them, the poet creates his own island in the upper circles of Hell, where peace reigns without torment.
The comedy reflects not only the poet’s views on history, philosophy and politics. Reading it, one can appreciate the depth of scientific knowledge of Dante Alighieri. The concept of the origin of natural phenomena, physical phenomena is touched upon, scientific theories and mechanisms of mechanisms contemporary to the poet are mentioned.
Why did Dante create such a complex and large-scale work? What main idea did he want to convey to readers?
The point of comedy is to help people get rid of sin. Make them better, help them achieve spiritual perfection. Beatrice
in “Purgatory” he says to the poet: “Observe carefully and retell everything you have seen to people living the life that is the road to death.” This idea is repeated several times.
Having achieved enlightenment, the poet returns to Earth to convey what he saw to people.
Here the high spirit of soaring has exhausted itself;
But passion and will were already striving for me,
As if a wheel is given a smooth ride,
Love that moves the sun and luminaries.
This is how The Divine Comedy ends. Perhaps this is Dante’s main revelation: the basis of the Universe and its driving force is love.
The Divine Comedy is called a watershed, the border between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. There is hardly a work that has left a greater mark on art. The Divine Comedy inspired artists, writers, poets, composers and filmmakers. There is even a computer game and an anime series based on it.
Hundreds of scientific works have been written about the Divine Comedy, but it has not yet revealed all its secrets.
“Oh, wise ones, do not regret the powers of reason given to you, penetrating into the essence,” -
Dante exclaims through the centuries.
