Dante

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Dantes Inferno
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Dantes background

• Italy in Dantes time
• North Italian city-states largely independent
• Strong papal influence rivaled imperial authority
• Each city had factions favoring either emperor or
  Pope
• Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
• Minor noble family, extremely well educated
• One of the rulers of Florence in 1300
• Picked the emperors side over the Popes oops
• Spent his life in exile after 1302
• Started Comedy in 1309

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(No Transcript)
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Time For Me To Fly
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Smoking Popes
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Conga Line in Hell
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Dantes Background

• Italy in Dantes time
• North Italian city-states largely independent
• Strong papal influence rivaled imperial authority
• Each city had factions favoring either emperor or
  Pope
• Durante Dante degli Alighieri (1265-1321)
• Minor noble family, extremely well educated
• One of the rulers of Florence in 1300
• Picked the emperors side over the Popes oops
• Spent his life in exile after 1302
• Started Comedy in 1309

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Dantes Italy
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Dante and PUBLIC AFFAIRS

• CULTURAL COMPETENCE Dante was highly educated in
  both Latin (the high language) and in Italian
  (the vernacular). As an ambassador, he had to be
  very aware of each city-states particular
  culture
• COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Dante was highly involved
  in political life, risking his life in military
  service and on political embassies.
• ETHICAL LEADERSHIP Dante chose exile and an in
  absentia death sentence rather than compromise
  his principles. He also chose to write his master
  work, The Comedy, in Italian.

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Why comedy?

• Dante thought of his work as Commedia.
• The divine part was a value judgment courtesy
  of his readers
• Commedia vernacular language, not Latin
• Commedia happy ending (Paradiso)
• Disgust with existing power structures in Italy
• Disgust with the corruption of the Church
• Trying to achieve a serene outlook on life as
  Six-Fingered Jake would put it

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Dantes KATABASIS

• Midway on his journey through life, Dante
  realizes he has taken the wrong path.
• The Roman poet Virgil searches for the lost Dante
  at the request of Beatrice (Dantes teenage crush
  and all-around muse)
• He finds Dante in the woods on the evening of
  Good Friday in the year 1300 and serves as a
  guide as Dante begins his religious pilgrimage to
  find God.
• To reach his goal, Dante passes through Hell,
  Purgatory, and Paradise.

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Dante and Beatrice
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Beatrice Portinari (1266-1290)

• Born to a wealthy Florentine banking family
• Met Dante at a May Day party in 1274
• They met again in the streets of Florence in 1283
• Dante married Gemma Donati in 1285
• Beatrice married Simone dei Bardi in 1287
• Dante admired her from afar courtly love
• Died at the age of 24 in 1290
• Obviously Dante could not have known her at all!
• His Beatrice is obviously an idealized creation

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Dantes KATABASIS

• In the middle of our life's way 
• I found myself in a wood so dark
• That I couldn't tell where the straight path lay.
• Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
• mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
• chè la diritta via era smarrita.

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Classical figures

• Poets (IV) Vergil, Homer, Horace, Ovid, Lucan
• Heroes (IV) Hector, Aeneas, Caesar
• Philosophers (IV) Socrates, Plato, Cicero,
  Seneca
• Lustful (V) Dido, Cleopatra, Achilles
• Heretics (X) Tombs of the Epicureans
• Pagan Prophets (XX) Tiresias with his head on
  backward
• Evil Counselors (XXVI) Ulysses (Odysseus) and
  Diomedes

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Dantes cosmogony
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Beatrices Tomb
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Real Map of Hell
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Questions

• How is Dantes katabasis a PUBLIC AFFAIRS
  katabasis?
• What sort of sins does Dante consider
  particularly evil, and why? Does Dante have a
  system? Where does it come from?
• What similarities does Dantes underworld have
  with Vergils, and what differences?
• What is Dantes opinion of Odysseus/Ulysses, and
  what are his reasons for feeling that way?

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The Harrowing of Hell
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I Wanna Get Liminal
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Charon the ferryman
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Can We Talk?
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Farinata degli Uberti
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Reunited