Dante' s ' Inferno' is a journey to hell and back Dante - İnferno HEAD TOPICS
Dante' s ' Inferno' is a journey to hell and back
10/21/2022 7:01:00 AM Written more than 700 years ago this terrifying epic poem is filled with damned souls including Cleopatra Judas Iscariot and Dante' s own enemies
Dante İnferno
Source National Geographic
Dante ’s depiction of hell constitutes some the most vivid and emotionally charged writing in world literature—fascinating and inspiring readers to this day Written more than 700 years ago, this terrifying epic poem is filled with damned souls, including Cleopatra, Judas Iscariot, and Dante 's own enemies. Dante embeds symbolic numbers throughout(sections or canticles), each one composed of 33 cantos (theDante’s construction of the afterlife follows the cosmology developed by the second- century Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy. The entrance to Hell is placed in the land-filled northern hemisphere, under the city of Jerusalem, while the mountain of Purgatory rises in the water-filled southern hemisphere opposite. The second of the otherworldly realms is, in turn, surmounted by the nine spheres of Paradise. Although the structure of Dante’s Hell bears little resemblance to physical geography, the medieval mind conceived of it as a real place: Barren plains, caverns, swamps, cliffs and precipices, tongues of flame and dead waters give life to landscapes both terrifying and symbolic. Read more:
National Geographic » Single-family residence in Oakland sells for $2.5 million Friends' Matthew Perry 'Grateful to Be Alive' After Addiction Battle - E! Online 'Friends' Star Matthew Perry Writes Frankly About His Addiction Battle in New Memoir Miss Manners: Breaking bad news is your boss’s job Who will replace Truss as UK prime minister Sunak Mordaunt Johnson
Liz Truss quit on Thursday after the shortest, most chaotic tenure of any British prime minister, forced out after her economic programme shattered the country's reputation for financial stability and left many people poorer. Read more >> The book is very much about the human journey here on earth. Dante was an amazing author. His 'Inferno' is something one never forgets. No video game can compare. Do kids read anymore? Listen to Spiritual Direction From Dante: Avoiding the Inferno by Paul Pearson on Audible. That’s okay, I’ll pass. It’s been a rough few years. Single-family residence in Oakland sells for $2.5 millionA spacious house built in 1937 located in the 700 block of Rosemount Road in Oakland has a new owner. The 2,946-square-foot property was sold on Aug. 10, 2022. The $2,500,000 purchase price works o… Friends' Matthew Perry 'Grateful to Be Alive' After Addiction Battle - E! OnlineIn a new interview, Friends alum Matthew Perry looked back at his battle with addiction and reflected on his journey to sobriety—which included a near-death experience. Mathew Pelee he to Lee top hua or mathew bottom 'Friends' Star Matthew Perry Writes Frankly About His Addiction Battle in New MemoirIn a new interview, 'Friends' alum Matthew Perry looked back at his battle with addiction and reflected on his journey to sobriety — which included a near-death experience. Miss Manners: Breaking bad news is your boss’s job... my boss occasionally “lends” me to other departments for short assignments ... when my department has an urgent project, I am pulled back in. ... Power of three Please be respectful of copyright.October 20, 2022 at 5:30 a.Perry did survive.A Sequel to ‘Twister' Is Coming! Here's What We Know While Perry experienced challenges — with People stating he attended rehab 15 times over the years — he stayed committed to the journey and is now sober. Unauthorized use is prohibited. The Dantean Cosmos are shown in an illustration from an undated Italian edition of The Divine Comedy. UPDATED: October 20, 2022 at 5:39 a. Mary Evans/Scala, Florence Dante embeds symbolic numbers throughout The Divine Comedy . "I could handle it, kind of," Perry recalled. The principal number is three, representing the Trinity (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit). 782 Rosemount Road – Google Street View A spacious house built in 1937 located in the 700 block of Rosemount Road in Oakland has a new owner. The work is written in interlocking terza rima (a verse form of three-line verses) and divided into three cantiche (sections or canticles), each one composed of 33 cantos (the Inferno has 34, perhaps so as to reach the number 100). And that's a very scary thing to be living with. Dante visits three separate realms of the afterlife accompanied by three different characters: Virgil, Beatrice, and St. 10, 2022. "Season nine was the year that I was sober the whole way through," he added. Bernard. Before entering the nine circles of Hell, Dante encounters three wild beasts; in Hell, he encounters Cerberus—the three-headed dog—and Lucifer, who has three faces. The property features four bedrooms, four baths, a garage, and two parking spaces. Mirroring the number of circles in Hell, Paradise has nine celestial spheres. While Perry experienced challenges—with People stating he attended rehab 15 times over the years—he stayed committed to the journey and is now sober. Geography of the afterlife Dante’s construction of the afterlife follows the cosmology developed by the second- century Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy. These nearby houses have also recently been purchased: A 2,166-square-foot home on the 700 block of Longridge Road in Oakland sold in June 2022 for $1,910,000, a price per square foot of $882. And that gives me the possibility to do anything. The entrance to Hell is placed in the land-filled northern hemisphere, under the city of Jerusalem, while the mountain of Purgatory rises in the water-filled southern hemisphere opposite. The second of the otherworldly realms is, in turn, surmounted by the nine spheres of Paradise. In May 2022, a 2,555-square-foot home on Mandana Boulevard in Oakland sold for $2,700,000, a price per square foot of $1,057. "I think they'll be surprised at how bad it got at certain times and how close to dying I came," Perry said. Although the structure of Dante’s Hell bears little resemblance to physical geography, the medieval mind conceived of it as a real place: Barren plains, caverns, swamps, cliffs and precipices, tongues of flame and dead waters give life to landscapes both terrifying and symbolic. The first, and highest, circle in hell is Limbo, whose residents are there through no fault of their own, so are not punished. On Verrada Road, Oakland, in August 2022, a 3,232-square-foot home was sold for $2,300,000, a price per square foot of $712. Limbo is reserved for the unbaptized and the virtuous pre-Christian pagans, such as Virgil himself, Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan. So my hope is that people will relate to it, and know that this disease attacks everybody. From there, the eight remaining circles descend, filled with the damned and the punished, each one corresponding to a sin: Lust, Gluttony, Greed and Waste, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, and Fraud.. The ninth circle is reserved for Treachery, and below this is the center of Hell itself, where the devil resides in the form of a three-headed beast. Descent into hell “All hope abandon, ye who enter here!” are the famous words inscribed above the threshold of Dante’s hell. Accompanied by the poet Virgil, Dante enters the upper part of the inverted cone that opened up in the earth when the rebellious angel Lucifer fell from heaven. The nine circles, descending to the frozen lake where Lucifer is trapped, are the abode of the damned, assigned to eternal punishment for the sins they committed in life. From top to bottom, they are vestibule, limbo, gluttony, greed and waste, wrath, heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. Illustration by Santi Pérez Please be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Dante’s Hell also has its own internal logic: The Rivers Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon are said to come from a single river born from the tears flowing from the giant statue of “Veglio di Creta,” the “Old Man of Crete,” described in canto XIV. The old man represents humanity’s corruption by sin. Carried by the rivers, these tears reach the lowest point in Hell to form the frozen lake in which Lucifer is trapped. In this way, Hell is literally made from human sinfulness. Dante’s story begins on the night of Maundy Thursday, shortly before the dawn of Good Friday in 1300. While Dante’s geography has its own consistency, so too does time: About 24 hours pass between when the poet loses his way in the dark wood to the moment when Dante and Virgil find themselves on Saturday, the day before Easter. In 1588 a young Galileo used the descriptions in the Inferno to calculate Hell to be over 3,245 miles deep. As Dante and Virgil do not walk in a straight line, they cover an even greater distance! By the time they emerge from Hell, it will be before the dawn on Easter Sunday. Crimes and punishments Inspired by both classical mythology and medieval demonology, Dante’s Inferno includes a hybrid of pagan and Christian features. The crossing of the River Acheron at the gates of Hell is presided over by Charon, the infernal ferryman “with eyes of burning coal,” (canto III). Dante’s guide, Virgil, had included Charon in the Aeneid , when the hero Aeneas descends as a mortal to the underworld, echoing Dante’s journey in The Divine Comedy . The punishments that afflict the damned either contrast or mimic their actions in life. Shortly before meeting Charon, Dante and Virgil run into a host of “the melancholy souls of those / Who lived withouten infamy or praise” (canto III). These are the uncommitted, who are punished by analogy (the punishment fitting the crime). Unable to make moral choices in life, they are now forced to run naked, chased by wasps in the attempt to grasp a banner that remains out of reach, symbolizing the causes they should have fought for while alive. Fortune-tellers, by contrast, are punished by the opposite: In life they had thrust their heads too far forward in order to see the future, so in Hell they are forced to walk with their heads on backward (canto XX). ( Secret cults in ancient Greeks changed beliefs about the afterlife . ) While the “shades” or souls congregate in huge throngs, not all are faceless: Dante presents individuals from his own life, engaging them in often gossipy conversation. Among the slothful in canto III, Dante glimpses ”the shade of him / Who made through cowardice the great refusal,” identifying the figure as Pietro da Morrone, the hermit monk who was elected pope in 1294 with the name Celestine V. After a lifetime spent in passivity, the pope was a victim of plots that led him to give up the papacy. This choice was probably orchestrated by Cardinal Caetani, who succeeded him as Pope Boniface VIII and was secretly a supporter of the Black Guelph faction that seized power in Florence in the year 1301, forcing Dante into exile. The second circle (described in canto V) is guarded by the snarling Minos. The ancient king of Crete known for his marked sense of justice has become a demon charged with judging the sins of the damned and decreeing where they belong in Hell. When delivering his sentence, Minos wraps his tail around himself a number of times corresponding to the circle to which the soul is doomed. Upon leaving Minos, Dante and Virgil come to a dark place ringing with wails of pain, where a host of souls are violently dragged along and knocked about by a “stormy blast of hell”: These are the lustful, who must now spend eternity buffeted by an endless tempest. Among them are the ancient queens Semiramis, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, and Dido. Swept away Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini embrace as the infernal wind tosses them about in a 19th-century engraving by Gustave Doré. White Images/Scala, Florence Please be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Among them, Dante notices two souls “together coming, and who seem so light before the wind.” They are Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini, famous lovers killed by Francesca’s jealous husband. Francesca’s story of suffering troubles Dante so much that he cries tears of pity before fainting. ( The true story of Semiramis, ancient queen of Babylon .) In the third circle (canto VI), under an eternal, icy rain, is Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guarded Hades in Greek myth. The beast howls at the souls of the gluttonous—mired in mud—before devouring them. A soul named Ciaccio rises from the sludge to introduce himself, and he and Dante discuss the political situation in Florence. As the descent into Hell is set in 1300, Ciaccio’s words form a prophecy: Following a brief rule by the White Guelphs, the Black faction will triumph thanks to the support of Pope Boniface VIII. The just in the city can be counted on one hand, he says, but no one listens to them, while pride, envy, and greed are the “three fatal sparks” that sow discord in the spirit of the Florentines. Going deeper Two other subhuman creatures guard the fourth and fifth circles (cantos VII and VIII): Pluto guards the greedy and the prodigal, and Phlegyas, the wrathful. The former are souls forced to push boulders in opposite directions and insult any others they crash into. Their sins were hoarding (the greedy) or the squandering of money (the prodigal); among them are several men of the church whose image is tarnished by their sin. The wrathful, meanwhile, are mired in the swampy waters of the River Styx, the wrathful viciously fighting each other. Encounters with the damned Please be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Please be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Please be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. 1 3 1 / 3 Dante uses the damned as a means to voice his opinions on the politics and society of his time. The encounters inspire a range of emotions in the poet: affection, pity, and even humor. The works of 19th-century artist Gustave Doré make these encounters all the more vivid. In this illustration, one of the damned, Pope Nicholas III, mistakes Dante's voice for that of the then-living Pope Boniface VIII. Nicholas thus prophesies he will join him in Hell after his death. Canto XIX Dante uses the damned as a means to voice his opinions on the politics and society of his time. The encounters inspire a range of emotions in the poet: affection, pity, and even humor. The works of 19th-century artist Gustave Doré make these encounters all the more vivid. In this illustration, one of the damned, Pope Nicholas III, mistakes Dante's voice for that of the then-living Pope Boniface VIII. Nicholas thus prophesies he will join him in Hell after his death. White Images/Scala, Florence As Dante and Virgil are swiftly ferried across the swamp by Phlegyas, a mud-covered sinner rudely asks Dante what he—being alive—is doing in the kingdom of the dead. The poet recognizes him as Filippo Argenti, a Black Guelph belonging to the prominent Florentine Adimari family, known at the time for his insolent, arrogant manner. Dante addresses him as “damned spirit” and, when the sinner tries to overturn the boat, Virgil thrusts him back into the mud, where other damned souls hurl themselves at Argenti, who starts tearing off his own flesh. This canto reveals a somewhat vindictive side to the narrator and has inspired a great deal of commentary by critics and scholars. ( The hellish history of the devil: Satan in the Middle Ages ) In the infernal city of Dis (canto X, sixth circle), the heretics burn in fiery tombs. The Florentine Farinata degli Uberti—a Ghibelline posthumously tried for heresy—rises from one. Despite being enemies, he and Dante converse politely. Farinata prophesies Dante will be exiled from Florence—but does not tell him for how long. Treachery is punished at the very depths of Hell in the ninth circle. Traitors are punished in a frozen lake produced by the icy wind emanating from Lucifer’s wings. From here, Virgil leads Dante to the lowest part of Hell, where they behold “the emperor of the kingdom dolorous”—Lucifer himself, who is trapped in ice from the waist down (canto XXXIV). “O, what a marvel it appeared to me, / When I beheld three faces on his head!” Dante exclaims in horror, watching Lucifer’s three mouths gnaw on Judas Iscariot, betrayer of Jesus, and , Brutus, and Cassius: “With six eyes did [Lucifer] weep, and down three chins / Trickled the tear-drops and the bloody drivel.” Treachery punished In this late 19th-century illustration by Gustave Doré, Lucifer, trapped in ice, devours the traitors Judas, Brutus, and Cassius. White Images/Scala, Florence Please be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. To the poet’s astonishment, Virgil is able to pass down below Lucifer. Dante follows, and the pair climb down the devil’s legs where they find a channel to the center of the earth that will lead them out of Hell to Mount Purgatory. It is there that Dante will finally be reunited with Beatrice in Purgatorio. Emerging on the other side of the world, Dante’s journey through the underworld, and the Inferno, has come to an end before the dawn on Easter Sunday: “Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars. ” Infinite inspiration Dante died in Ravenna 1321 in his mid-50s, without ever returning to his beloved Florence. The Divine Comedy found its first major champion in another Florentine writer, Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375). The Divine Comedy crowns not just Italian literature but Western culture as a whole, and its impact on English literature is colossal. Centuries after its publication, it was a principal inspiration for English poet John Milton’s epic 1667 work, Paradise Lost . In the 18th century Dante was placed on a par with Homer. The English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge described Dante’s work as “a total impression of infinity,” and the 20th-century author James Joyce declared: “I love Dante almost as much as the Bible. He is my spiritual food.” Share .