TASK 1. Read the Courtly Love Study Guide
To-do date: 29 Mar at 23:59
TASK 1. Read the Courtly Love Study Guide located below, which will give you background information on Medieval ideas about love, courtly and otherwise.
WORLD LITERATURE I
Task 1, Unit 4: Courtly Love Study Guide
By Dr. Diane Thompson, NVCC, ELI
DEVELOPMENT OF COURTLY LOVE
Courtly Love as a concept, if not as a practice, developed out of a mixture of Arab Love Poetry and Troubadour Poetry. The Cult of the Virgin Mary got mixed in a bit later.
11th century
Arab Love Poetry; lady worship; joi (sexual)
12th century Troubadour Poetry; fin'amors–adultery (Bernart de Ventadorn); Conjugal Courtly Love (Marie de France)
13th century EVE & MARY: Marian Cult and Love Poetry; mixture of love and religion (Laura, Beatrice)
Although today the notion of whether or not there ever was a cult or practice of Courtly Love has come under much attack, one can find poetry that clearly used its concepts, especially in the 12th and 13th centuries.
There are three unique aspects of Courtly Love:
the ennobling force of human love
the elevation of the beloved above the lover
love as ever unsatisfied, ever increasing desire
(Following Denomy, The Heresy of Courtly Love (1947), 20-21)
This power of transformation, of ennobling the character of the lover, is the distinguishing characteristic of Courtly Love. Courtly love is something entirely new in Europe, and the major source of our modern ideas about romantic love.
Courtly love is not very popular currently, especially not in serious literature and film. Why? Maybe there's a relation between the woman's movement and the decline of courtly love? An interesting question to think about.
TROUBADOURS
Troubadours: They flourished between 1100 and 1350 and were attached to various courts in the south of France. The troubadours wrote almost entirely about sexual love and developed the concept and practice of courtly love
There was no tradition of passionate love literature in the European middle ages before the twelfth century, although there was such a tradition in Arabic-speaking Spain and Sicily. This Arab love poetry was readily accessible to Europeans living in Italy and Spain and was a major source of the Troubadour-developed cult of courtly love.
Troubadour love poetry, although conceptually adulterous, inspired the man (and perhaps the woman) and ennobled the lover's character.
THE MAIN FEATURES OF TROUBADOUR POETRY:
an attitude of subservience and fidelity to a cold and cruel mistress
an exorbitant and quasi-religious praise of the lady's beauty
the requirement that love be extramarital
"Though [this]…love was sensual, their ideal of "pure" love prohibited sexual intercourse between the lovers at least in theory." Of course, in fact, people probably did what they always have done.
(following: Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 871)
EVE & MARY – WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES
Feudal nobility arranged marriage to suit families' advantages, often while the children were still infants.
A married woman was the ward of her husband, had limited legal rights and was subject to the will of her husband, who had the power to punish her physically.
Pregnancy and childbirth were frequent and risky.
The middle ages produced a great deal of misogynic literature expressing the traditional church position:
women were inferior: from Adam's rib
women were sinful: story of the Fall
Not only were women inferior, but they had characters like that of the serpent, cursed by God like the Genesis serpent to a lowly life of servitude and pain
However,
There was Mary as well as Eve to provide images of medieval womanhood. Mary was not only praiseworthy for her holiness, but for her embodiment of ideal feminine traits. Mary's primary virtues centered on her freedom from sexuality. She was conceived by divine intervention and she conceived Jesus immaculately. The "good" feminine was thus divorced from sexuality, although not from motherhood.
During the 13th century, Mary increased in importance as the divine feminine mediator between human beings and God. She interceded for human beings seeking salvation, as Beatrice did for Dante.
The exaltation of the beatified Virgin Mary climaxed in the Marian cult or cult of the Virgin Mary, which influenced the literature, music and art of the high and late Middle Ages.
Consequently, at the same time that people were praying to the Virgin Mary for salvation, they were condemning Eve for the Fall of Man. This Eve/Mary dualism allowed and even encouraged conflicting attitudes toward medieval women.
On the one hand, women held a high position in the system of Christian redemption, yet on the other hand, they were responsible for the wretched, sinful, corrupt state of fallen humanity.
This dualistic religious attitude towards women offers us some insight into the curious mixture of love and religion, sex and purity we find in the courtly love poetry and stories of the Middle Ages.
(The above section is based on the Introduction to Three Medieval Views of Women, translated and edited by Fiero, Pfeffer, & Allain)
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF COURTLY LOVE
Neither the Greeks nor the Romans thought that passionate love between the sexes could improve or transform the lovers. Rather, they thought of passionate love as either a punishment inflicted on men by the Gods, akin to madness, or as mere sensual gratification, not to be taken very seriously.
While antiquity did not approve of passionate love between the sexes, Christianity absolutely deplored it.
Even passionate love between spouses was considered theologically sinful, if unavoidable, until the thirteenth century when the Church began to modify its attitudes on this issue.
So, when a medieval passionate lover obediently subjects himself to the will of his beloved lady, he grants her a status, which women did not enjoy either in Antiquity or in the Middle Ages.
COURTS OF LOVE
Eleanor of Aquitaine was queen of the Court at Poitiers, France, in the late 12th c. Here she and her daughter, Marie, Countess of Champagne, set up a court controlled by women, which aimed at "civilizing" the rather rough society of the area. Many gifted poets and scholars came to her court at Poitiers. A unique situation where wealthy powerful women were able to create their own environment.
The doctrine of Courtly Love was designed to teach courtiers how to be lovely, charming and delightful. Its basic premise was that being in love would teach you how to be loveable and pleasing; so love taught courtesy.
This kind of love is a social phenomenon, designed for communal living at a wealthy court where people had plentiful leisure and desired to entertain and be entertained delightfully.
This ideal of courtly love which developed in Poitiers helped to free women from the role of inferior, destructive Eve and take on some of the status and elevation of the beatified Mary. Here, a woman instead of being the property of man, which was the case in feudal Europe, is the mistress of a man who is her creature and property.
Marie and Eleanor had a court of perhaps 60 elegant noble ladies who would hold a Court of Love where they would dispute, jury and judge questions of love according to their code of courtly love.
Of course, all of these Court of Love judgments are based on a code and ideals that have little to do with the realities of woman's position in the feudal society. This was a social court, not a legal one.
(The above section is based on Kelly, Eleanor of Aquitaine.)
ANDREW THE CHAPLAIN — THE CODE OF COURTLY LOVE
Marie had Andrew the Chaplain, a cleric at the Court of Poitiers; write a formal code of love, which would instruct people in the proper behavior of lovers as part of her attempts to civilize Poitiers.
Ovid's Ars Amatoria or Art of Loving was the source for Andrew's Art of Courtly Love. Ovid had written a cynical spoof on the fine art of seduction reduced to a set of rules. However, when Andrew, under Marie's direction, adapted Ovid to the 12th c. Court of Poitiers, a major shift occurred:
Ovid presents the man as the master who seduces women for his pleasure
Art of Courtly Love presents woman as mistress and the man is her vassal who serves her.
THE ART (AND RULES) OF COURTLY LOVE
(The following quotes and information are from Andreas Cappelanus: The Art of Courtly Love. Ed.Locke)
Love "Love is a certain inborn suffering derived from the sight of and excessive meditation upon the beauty of the opposite sex, which causes each one to wish above all things the embraces of the other."
Effect of love " O what a wonderful thing is love, which makes a man shine with so many virtues and teaches everyone, no matter who he is, so many good traits of character!"
Who may love "everyone of sound mind who is capable of doing the work of Venus may be wounded by one of love's arrows unless prevented by age, or blindness, or excess of passion."
Love and class if you love a peasant woman, praise her and force her–peasants don't respond to gentle wooing
How Love May be Retained
keep it secret
be wise and restrained in conduct
be generous and charitable
be humble, not proud
offer service to all ladies
do what is pleasing to your loved one
associate with good men; avoid the wicked
jealousy increases love
How Love Decreases
too much exposure to the beloved
too much privacy for love
uncouth behavior
sudden loss of property
blasphemy and anti-religious behavior
How Love Ends
if one of the lovers breaks faith
if one of the lovers strays from the Catholic religion
The First Five Rules of Love According to Andrew
1 Marriage is no real excuse for not loving
2 He who is not jealous cannot love
3 No one can be bound by a double love
4 It is well known that love is always increasing or decreasing
5 That which a lover takes against his will of his beloved has no relish
(There are a total of 31 "rules.")
Andrew's Rejection of Love (Book III of The Art of Courtly Love)
This doctrine of courtly adulterous love evidently did not sit well with Andrew in the end, so he wrote a third book refuting the first two. This may show the conflict he felt between the pagan naturalism of courtly love and his clerical training in Christian self-control. Or, as some suspect, the entire Art of Courtly Love may be a spoof on the ungodly, unchristian love religion. At any rate, Andrew sums up his attitude toward Courtly Love in Book III thus:
"The mutual love which you seek in women you cannot find, for no woman ever loved a man or could bind herself to a lover in the mutual bonds of love."
This concept of women as deceitful and faithless is rather typical of medieval monkish misogyny.
ANDREW'S RULES OF LOVE APPLIED TO A POEM BY BERNART DE VENTADORN
Bernart de Ventadorn at court of Eleanor of Aquitaine, was an outstanding courtly love troubadour. Here is the second stanza of "When I See the Lark That Moves."
Alas! how much I knew of love,
I thought, but so little know of it!
For now I cannot check my love
For her, who'll give me little profit.
She has my heart and all of me,
Herself and all the world; and nothing
Leaves to me, when thus she takes me,
Except desire and heartfelt longing.
(In Medieval Age. Ed. and Intro. by Angel Flores. Laurel Masterpieces of World Literature. N.Y.: Dell, 1963. Trans. by Muriel Kittel, p. 178.)
How the Rules of Courtly Love Apply to "When I See the Lark That Moves"
lover cannot control his loving "I cannot check my love"
lady is in control of lover "she has my heart and all of me"
lady is cold, cruel and ungenerous "and nothing/ Leaves to me"
he suffers endless desire without consummation "except desire and heartfelt longing"
ANDREW'S RULES OF LOVE APPLIED TO MARIE DE FRANCE'S ELIDUC Note: If you want to read Eliduc, link here:
HYPERLINK "http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/eliduc_rickert.pdf" http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/eliduc_rickert.pdf
A happily married knight, Eliduc, is slandered to his king; Eliduc leaves for England until court politics simmer down; he volunteers to help a besieged king and is successful. The king's daughter, Guilliadun, invites him to her quarters to talk;
"She kept stealing looks at him…his face, his body, his every expression…and said to herself how attractive he was, how close to her ideal man. Love fires his arrow, she falls headlong in love." (Norton Anthology: World Masterpieces, expanded edition, V.1: 1683)
Rule 9: No one can love unless he [or she] is impelled by the persuasion of love
Eliduc also falls in love with her, although he had promised his wife not to look at another woman.
Rule 1: Marriage is no real excuse for not loving
Rule 17: A new love puts to flight an old one
The first king regrets Eliduc's departure and asks him to come back and help him. Eliduc agrees, but promises Guilliadun that he will return on the day she names. She names it and says he must then take her away with him. (He's never mentioned to her that he is married.)
Rule 26: Love can deny nothing to love
He returns on the appointed day and they steal away to sea. A storm at sea and a sailor says, "'My lord, it's the girl you've brought aboard who's going to drown us all. We'll ever reach land. You have a proper wife at home.'" Guilliadun hears this and faints. She stays in a coma as if dead.
Eliduc brings her body to shore and places her in a chapel near his land where he intends to bury her. Then he goes home to his wife who notices that he's very unhappy.
Rule 3: No one can be bound by a double love
The wife has a servant spy on Eliduc and finds out about the chapel. She goes there and realizes the truth about her husband's sadness.
Rule 31: Nothing forbids one woman being loved by two men or one man by two women
While the wife is watching the seemingly dead Guilliadun, a weasel darts out from beneath the altar and the servant kills it with a stick. Then its weasel mate discovers it, runs outside and picks a red flower which it puts into the dead weasel's mouth, reviving it. So Eliduc's wife takes the flower and puts it into Guilliadun's mouth and she revives.
Eliduc's wife consoles and sympathizes with Guilliadun and brings her home to see Eliduc. They are overjoyed to be reunited; the wife takes vows to become a nun, and Eliduc marries Guilliadun.
Rule 8: No one should be deprived of love without the very best of reasons
Rule 14: The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment makes it prized
After many happy years, Guilliadun and Eliduc also take vows and Guilliadun goes to live in the convent with Eliduc's first wife, while he also takes vows and lives as a religious for the rest of his life.
Consider Book Three of the Art of Courtly Love, which rejects physical love for spiritual love and Christian behavior.
Love and Romance in Eliduc
Courtly love motifs:
love for a married person
seemingly unattainable
love strikes like an arrow through the eye
exquisite behavior by all lovers
total self- sacrifice of wife
Romance motifs:
adventures
travels
battles
miracle of weasel-flower (re: moly in Odyssey)
ANDREW'S RULES OF LOVE APPLIED TO BOCCACCIO'S DECAMERON
The Ninth Tale of the Fifth Day:
Frederigo, a young gentleman, falls in love with Monna Giovanna, a beautiful, charming, married Florentine lady.
Rule 1: Marriage is no real excuse for not loving
Frederigo spent all his money on tournaments, jousting, hosting feasts and other extravagances, to win Monna Giovanna's love."
Rule 10: Love is always a stranger in the home of avarice
Rule 14: The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment makes it prized
She did not care for him or his spendthrift ways. He lost his wealth, retaining only one little farm and one falcon, "among the best in the world."
Monna's husband died and she and her son went to live for a year in the country near Frederigo's farm. The son became friendly with Frederigo and loved his falcon.
The son fell very ill and asked his mother to get Frederigo's falcon for him, which he thought would surely make him get well. She hated to ask Frederigo for his last dear possession, but fear for her son's health led her to do it.
She visits Frederigo's farm and tells him "'I have come to compensate you for the harm you have suffered on my account by loving me more than you needed to; and the compensation is this: I, along with this companion of mine, intend to dine with you–a simple meal–this very day.'" (Norton Anthology: World Masterpieces, expanded edition, V.1: 1890)
He is super-courteous, and invites her to wait in the garden while he sets the table. There is no food in his house, so he kills the falcon to make a meal.
Rule 24: Every act of a lover ends in the thought of his beloved
Rule 25: A true lover considers nothing good except what he thinks will please his beloved
Rule 26: Love can deny nothing to love
They eat and then she explains about her sick son and requests the falcon. Frederigo weeps and gives a super-courteous speech and shows her the falcon's beak and feathers and feet. She praised his gracious spirit but reproached his killing the falcon for her meal. She went home; her son died a few days later.
Eventually, her brothers wanted her to remarry, since she was young and rich; she said she would only marry Frederigo, which she did, and he was more prudent after that.
Frederigo and Monna Giovanna as Courtly Lovers
the epitome of courtly lovers
love from a distance
love for an unattainable married lady
the lover gives up his all for love
the lover receives the final reward of the lady for such great courtesy
UNCOURTLY LOVE IN BOCCACCIO'S DECAMERON
The Second Tale of the Fourth Day
A wicked priest, Brother Alberto has been such a successful hypocrite that he became trusted and influential.
A foolish woman, Madonna Lisetta da Ca'Quirino, whose husband is out of town, goes to him for confession.
Brother Alberto wants to have sex with her and develops a scam to achieve his goal. He tells her that a divinely handsome man (the Angel Gabriel) beat him, because he was harsh on her during confession, and if she does not pardon him, he will be beaten again.
She pardons him and he tells her that the Angel Gabriel would like to spend the night with her. She likes the idea and Brother Alberto tells her that the Angel Gabriel will use his (Alberto's) body for the encounter.
She agrees and he shows up disguised as an angel and spends the night with her. Alberto is supposedly in heaven while Gabriel uses his body.
But Lisetta foolishly boasts to a neighbor and soon everyone knows about her angel. Her in-laws decide to get involved and try to catch him in the act; leaving his wings behind, he dives in the canal, and a neighbor gives him refuge.
His "rescuer" discovers who the man he rescued really is, and tricks Brother Alberto into dressing in honey and feathers as a wild man. The "rescuer" chains Brother Alberto in the town square and tells everyone who he is. Alberto is led away by the friars and locked up until he dies.
Uncourtly elements in Boccaccio's Tale of Brother Alberto
Love as deceit and lust; nothing courtly here
Parody of some courtly love elements.
Instead of earthly love leading to divine love as in Dante and Petrarch, here fraudulent divine love (Alberto wears wings while having sex) leads to sex.
This love is sexual, not longing for an unattainable lady.
The lady is tricked, not adored.
No secrecy; the lover is found out, ridiculed and punished.
Instead of pining for his lady he is locked up by the friars.
The Middle Ages, like today, had every variety of love, from the sacred to the profane.
TASK 2. Read "Lanval" and "Laustic," by Marie de France; selections from the Decameron, and "The Story of Ying Ying."
TASK 2. Read "Lanval" and "Laustic," by Marie de France; selections from the Decameron, and "The Story of Ying Ying."
The Decameron, Day 1, and "The Story of Ying Ying." If you are using the etexts, pay extra close attention to the Courtly Love Study Guide. Note that some of the readings are different), but don't worry. Either way you will have plenty to read and write about.
Use the links to download the etexts
1) "Lanval" and "Eliduc" by Marie de France,
Eliduc:
Lanval:
Laustic:
2) The Story of Ying Ying."
The Story of Ying Ying:
3) Selections from the Decameron
The Decameron, Day One:
TASK 4. Read through the Dante's Inferno Study Guide
TASK 4. Read through the Dante's Inferno Study Guide below. This will give you background information on Dante and his poetry.
WORLD LITERATURE I
TASK 4, Unit 4: Dante's Inferno Study Guide
INTRODUCTION:
Why Dante is difficult:
his rigid view of good and evil
his idea of damnation for any non-Christian (this bothered medieval folks too–they developed the legend of harrowing of hell to rescue virtuous old testament patriarchs; the middle ages also developed the idea of limbo for those who were not Christian, but not evil
Why Dante is worth studying:
The Commedia is the greatest European medieval poem.
It is near the end of the line of this kind of thinking and art– The Renaissance was developing in Italy as Dante wrote.
It's a splendid poem (if shocking to modern sensibilities).
It's one of the best and most serious works dealing with good and evil and God's justice in Western culture.
There are many excellent translations. Dante's language is direct, clear, powerful, and lends itself well to translation.
DANTE'S LIFE
Born in Florence, Italy, in 1265; well-educated in arts and sciences of the time he was betrothed by the age of 12 met Beatrice when he was nine, she eight love for life; first spoke to her nine years later Beatrice married about 1287 and died in 1290 at 25 Dante wrote many poems praising her and was devastated by her death Dante became involved in the bitter politics of his city and country; he was especially opposed to the pope interfering in secular affairs; in 1301 he was permanently exiled from Florence He spent the rest of his life wandering in exile, supported the unsuccessful movement to crown a new emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and died in exile in 1321.
ALLEGORY
A method of expressing ideas by using a parallel story or images; Examples: Dante wandering in the woods in the midpoint of his life; the situation is an allegory for his personal confusion and lack of direction, his mid-life spiritual crisis The leopard, wolf and lion are allegorical beasts; each represents a vice which keeps Dante from getting to heaven.
VERNACULAR
The use of the local (Tuscan) dialect of Italian rather than Latin was a daring gamble at the time; most serious writing was done in Latin because the vernacular languages kept changing and people were afraid that no one would be able to read them in a few years. Some dialects lasted better than others and luckily, Tuscan did pretty well that way.
COMEDY
Although it may not seem "funny" to us, the The Divine Comedy is just that, a mixed narrative, some epic, some tragedy, some melodrama, but with a happy ending (Paradise). This was the old definition of comedy, as opposed to our current notion that a comedy should keep us laughing. The Inferno, of course, is not a happy place, but since the Narrator (and presumably his readers) will learn from the Inferno to obey God and be virtuous, all these folks will have an improved chance to end up in Heaven, a definitively happy ending.
CHURCH (POPE) VS STATE (HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE)
After the collapse of the Roman Empire, there were attempts to recreate the "Holy Roman Empire." Charlemagne was crowned emperor of the Romans in St. Peter's church at Rome on Christmas Day, A.D. 800. Conflicts between various Popes and emperors continued for hundreds of years and were based at least partly on the "essentially theological problem of divining the right relationship between spiritual power and the temporal order as such, understood as the whole of material creation. Christ and the apostles had been poor in material possessions. The medieval church was rich–too rich, many thought" (Tierney 4). Dante wanted to separate these two forms of authority and have the church only deal with spiritual powers, while the empire dealt with temporal ones.
CITY-STATES: CONFLICTS AND FACTIONS
Guelphs and Ghibellines; Blacks and Whites; factions based on local, papal, national and imperial politics; people were killing one another over these issues Just know that there were a lot of conflicts between political factions in Italy; Dante was exiled from his native Florence because of political conflict.
VISION LITERATURE
Vision literature describes life after death in terms of other worlds, heaven and hell for medieval Christians. For medieval Christians, the soul was separated from the body at death and then judged based on the life it lived in the body while on earth. The soul was then sent to its proper place in heaven, hell or purgatory until the Last Judgment, at which time if will be will go to its permanent final place forever. "Until the mid-twelfth century there was no distinct place known as purgatory. The Christian other-world included only heaven and hell. Purgation was, however, a part of the afterlife, and the place of purgation occupied the outer reaches of either hell or heaven, depending on whether the soul was "good but not totally good" or "bad but not totally bad" (Gardiner xii-xiii).
Common Elements of Vision Literature:
one individual visionary, almost always male
soul separated from the body
visionary usually lies as if dead for three days while his soul views heaven and hell
a guide, usually an interested guardian angel or saint
guide interprets and protects
the vision is a profound religious experience – purges & illuminates
Following Gardiner xv-xxiii
PUNISHMENT FITS THE CRIME: JUST RETRIBUTION IN HELL
"One large and important group of punishments in the tours of hell consists of those based on the principle of measure-for-measure. The principle appears in many ancient legal systems. The biblical formulation, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" is part of a wider ancient Near Eastern pattern." Example: Fortunetellers pretend to know future; in hell their heads are fastened on backwards so they must always look behind themselves (Himmelfarb 75-76).
GEOGRAPHY OF HELL: NINE CIRCLES OF INFERNO
1. Limbo
2. Lustful
3. Gluttonous
4. Misers & Spendthrifts
5. Wrathful & Sullen
6. Heretics
7. Violent
8. Fraudulent
9. Traitors
ENTRY TO HELL
Leopard, Lion and Wolf – Canto 1: 31-33 (worldly pleasure/lust; lion – ambition, wolf – avarice); these creatures turn Dante from his true path.
Beatrice and Virgil – Canto 2: 70 – Virgil stands for human reason; he is sent by Beatrice, who stands for divine love
Gate to Hell: "Abandon all hope ye who enter here." Dante's hell is a place where sinners deliberately chose their sins and did not repent; now they are unable to repent forever; each vice is personified in the Inferno; the soul IS the vice; it retains those qualities which sent it to hell in the first place. Consequently, there is no possible hope of change or salvation for these sinners.
TOUR OF HELL
VESTIBULE – UNCOMMITTED race endlessly after a blank banner; they would not shed blood or tears in life for any cause; now they shed it endlessly for nothing; feed worms. Includes fallen angels who took no stand for or against the rebellious angels.
CHARON & RIVER ACHERON – Canto 3: 82-84.
CIRCLE 1: LIMBO – INNOCENT SOULS - Canto 4: 41, 42 – blameless but unbaptized; old testament patriarchs rescued by Christ; great pagan poets and philosophers comfortable but separate forever from God.
CIRCLES 2 – 5: INCONTINENCE (SINS WITHOUT MALICE):
2. Lustful
3. Gluttonous
4. Spendthrifts and Misers
5. Wrathful (in Styx) & Sullen (under Styx) These sins do not hurt others.
CIRCLE 2 – LUSTFUL
The second circle is the real beginning of hell. Here we see the principle of retribution: sinners tossed and whirled by winds as in life they were helpless in tempests of passion. Paolo and Francesca go swirling by in Canto 5. They were murdered before they could repent carnal courtly love as sin.
CIRCLE 3 – GLUTTONS
This circle is guarded by Cerberus with three hungry heads that are appeased with clumps of mud; gluttons who feasted away their lives now lie like pigs in the mire.
CIRCLE 4 – MISERS AND SPENDTHRIFTS
Pluto, god of riches, guards the entrance to the fourth circle. Misers and Spendthrifts – Canto 7: 64 – 66 – roll stones to crash against one another; opposites in life and in death; they abused material goods.
CIRCLE 5 – WRATHFUL
Styx (river of hate) forms a marsh holding the openly wrathful who strike and bite one another; sullen lie under the surface of the marsh, just as their silent anger lay hidden during their lives.
AN ANGEL COMES TO OPEN GATES TO DIS – Canto 9: 89, 90 – DIS (SINS WITH MALICE). The abyss of the rest of hell is included within the walls of the city of Dis.
CIRCLE 6 – HERETICS
Heretics chose their own opinions instead of following the teachings of the Church.
Farinata, an epicurean – Canto 10: 40 – 42 – epicureans believed there was no soul, that pleasure was the primary goal of life, and that everything dies with the body, so they get to spend eternity with their bodies in burning graves.
CIRCLE 7 – VIOLENCE
1. Violent against Neighbors
2. Violent against Self
3. Violent against God
First Ring: Violent against others; includes murderers and robbers – NOTE: Dante does not really distinguish between lives and property; submerged in Phlegethon – river of blood.
Chiron – Canto 12: 77,78 – warrior-centaurs patrol this circle; another man/beast combination; easily angered; they patrol & torture those who killed others violently.
Second Ring: Violent against themselves – suicides (wasted their bodies) and squanderers (wasted their goods) NOTE: Dante does not differentiate much between the values of life and property.
Suicides – Dante plucks a branch – Canto 13: 31 – 33 – this recalls Polydorus in the Aeneid.
Suicides (with harpy) – Canto 13: 115 – 117 – Harpies stole anything, so here they symbolize stealing away of the souls by suicides.
Third Ring: Violent against God – blasphemy and denial; the worst kind of violence in Dante's world-view
CIRCLE 8 FRAUD: MALEBOLGE OF FRAUD (ten pockets or pouches for the ten kinds of malicious fraud)
1. Panderers, Seducers
2. Flatterers
3. Simoniacs (sell church favor)
4. Fortunetellers
5. Grafters (sell political favor)
6. Hypocrites
7. Thieves
8. Evil Counselors
9. Sowers of Discord
10. Falsifiers (Alchemists & Counterfeiters)
Fraud starts at base of an abyss, so Dante and Virgil must descend on the back of the Fraud Monster, Geryon – Canto 17: 115, 116. Geryon has a pleasant face, a snaky body, to symbolize the pleasant first appearance of fraud and its twisted snaky dealings.
Bolge 1 Panderers and Seducers (Jason)
Bolge 2 Flatterers are sunk in excrement
Bolge 3 Simonists trade the grace and favor of the church for money – Canto 19: 47, 48. Their punishment is a kind of reverse baptism; they are upside-down in fonts (holes) and baptised by fire, not water; several popes here; NOTE: Dante criticizes popes BECAUSE he is a devout Catholic.
Bolge 4 Fortunetellers – they tried to foretell the future, so now their heads are on backwards.
Bolge 5 Grafters – Canto 22 – (grafters or barrators trade the powers and favors of their political office for money).
Bolge 6 Hypocrites – they wear gorgeous cloaks lined with lead; pretty outside, awful inside; heavy cloaks force them to behave sedately, although seething within (inner anger); cloak true character in false appearance.
Bolge 7 Thieves turning into snakes and snakes turning into thieves – Canto 24: 91, 92. Thieves steal other people's possessions; they cannot keep their own bodies.
Bolge 8 Evil Counselors – Ulysses and Diomedes helped to destroy Troy with the Trojan horse scam. Ulysses cut loose from all human ties (home, family, etc.) to sail to the edge of the world. Deceit and pride, virtues in Homer's Odysseus, have become Ulysses' sins in the Christian middle ages.
Bolge 9 Sowers of Discord – Mahomet, disembowelled. Dante thinks of Mohammed as a sinner whose religious beliefs led to discord and schism. Note the total intolerence for another religion; this is typical of the Christian middle ages and later; it led to many wars against those who believed differently (including different sects of Christians) and massacres of unbelievers as well as Christian heretics Another sower of discord was Bertram de Born, a Provencal troubadour poet – Canto 28: 121 – 123. He carries his head like a lantern because he used vicious scandals to separate Henry II of England from his eldest son. Therefore, his head is separated from his body.
Bolge 10 Falsifiers (alchemists and counterfeiters) – Canto 29: 79 – 81. Falsifiers include Sinon, the Greek in the Aeneid who let himself be captured by the Trojans and gave them a story about the Trojan Horse, which tricked them into bringing it into Troy. How far we've come from Greek heroes!
ANTAEUS hand-carries Virgil and Dante down to the last circle – Canto 31: 142,143] (Antaeus was a giant from Greek myth who accosted passing strangers and wrestled them to death, because he was invulnerable while touching earth. Hercules killed him by holding him in the air to weaken him and then crushed him.
CIRCLE 9 – TRAITORS IN COCYTUS
1. To Kindred – Caina
2. To Country – Antenora
3. To Guests – Ptolemea
4. To Masters – Judecca
Cocytus is a frozen lake of ice; Satan is immobilized at the center. Cocytus includes four kinds of traitors.
Traitors to Kindred – Caina named after Cain, the first murderer of a kinsman
Traitors to Country – Antenora; named after the Trojan Antenor who in the Middle Ages was believed to have betrayed Troy to the Greeks
Bocca degli Abati – Canto 32: 97 – 99 was a noble Guelph from Florence. He betrayed his party by cutting off the Guelph standard bearer's hand during the battle against Manfred's troops at Montaperti in 1260, which caused the Guelphs to panic and lose the battle.
Traitors to Guests – Ptolomea, named after Ptolomey, a captain of Jericho who invited guests to a banquet and then murdered them while they were his guests.
Traitors to Masters (or benefactors)- Judecca is where Satan is munching on Judas, Cassius and Brutus) – Canto 34: 20, 21. The Judecca is named for Judas Iscariot who betrayed Christ. Also includes Cassius and Brutus who betrayed Julius Caesar. This puts together the betrayal of masters of Church and State Frozen center contains Satan – total absence of goodness; absolute distance from God; Virgil and Dante climb down Satan's side to the center of the earth; turn around and start climbing up toward Purgatory, but that's another story.
ISSUES: GENDER
Francesca & Paolo; Dido; Helen; Cleopatra; are all women in hell there for sexual behavior? It seems that way. "The sins in the [pre-Dantean Jewish and Christian] tours of hell range from murder to idle chatter in church or synagogue, but the two most common kinds of sins are sexual sins and sins of speech [e.g. breaking vows and blaspheming]" (Himmelfarb 69). In early Jewish and Christian vision tours of hell, "Adultery/fornication is the most widely diffused category of sexual sin…It appears almost everywhere. Loss of virginity before marriage and abortion/infanticide… appear almost exclusively in Christian texts….
"Sexual sins also play a part in texts of the Hellenistic and Roman period that are neither Jewish nor Christian, although they do not seem to have rated among the major sins of archaic and classical Greece… Sexual wrongdoing and even the tendency to such wrongdoing, a lustful disposition, are found in pagan lists of vices" (Himmelfarb 71).
Courtly love and the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic: Love as both a positive and a negative force – Beatrice and Francesca. This makes an interesting contrast to other pairs of lovers, such as Dido and Aeneas or Odysseus and Penelope, or Adam and Eve.
ISSUES: UNDERWORLD
Look at how Dante's Inferno is similar to and different from Virgil's Underworld: Virgil's underworld is not forever; temporal recycled souls; concerned with destiny destiny and future Dante focuses on punishment for timeless sins instead of possibilities eternity No future except Last Judgment which will fix current hell forever (heaven too) Fate is forever after moment of death; if a person dies unrepentant, he/she is fixed forever in that part of hell based on his/her dominant vice.
ISSUES: RESPONSIBILITY, FATE AND FREE WILL
Look at concept of just retribution: the punishment fits the crime and all crimes are known and punished. Concept of free will, the ability to choose to sin or not to sin, was central to medieval Catholicism, although they had difficulty explaining exactly how this worked (so do we). A very interesting concept to compare/contrast with Aeneas' devotion to will of Destiny and the gods in the Aeneid.
ISSUES: HERO/KING'S CHARACTER
Pilgrim (Dante) as flawed, seeking knowledge as means to salvation Virgil (poet) as hero a far cry from the armored warriors of the Greeks. Ulysses is now seen as an evil hero – his ability to lie and manipulate now seen as evil Also, Troy understood as the homeland of Europe, so anyone who harmed Troy was evil. This makes a fascinating contrast to Homer's Odysseus.
ISSUES: HERETICS AND MONSTERS
Monsters: Geryon, Cerberus & Satan (both three headed), Demons, Centaurs, all creatures in hell Heretics: Mohammad & Epicureans; Dante full of anger against those who were not "true believers;" both religiously and politically. Dante's monsters can be compared to the raging monsters such as Allecto (and Juno…) in the Aeneid, and hungry monsters, such as Polyphemos and Skylla in the Odyssey.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gardiner, Eileen, Ed. Visions of Heaven & Hell Before Dante. N.Y.: Italica Press, 1989.
Himmelfarb, Martha. Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature. Philadelphia: U. of Penn. Press, 1983.
Le Goff, Jacques. The Birth of Purgatory. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1984.
Tierney, Brian. The Crisis of the Church & State: 1050-1300. A Spectrum Book. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1964.
TASK 5. Read the selection from Inferno and Popul Vuh.
TASK 5. Read the selection from Inferno and Popul Vuh.
Use the links to the etexts of Dante's Inferno, and Popul Vuh. If you are using the etexts, pay extra close attention to the Dante's Inferno Study Guide. Note that some of the selections are different (the Popul Vuh etext is complete), but don't worry. Either way you will have plenty to read and write about.
Inferno:
Popul Vuh: