The Divine Comedy

Originally posted by Paintbucket
I've only read the Inferno, but I'd love to hear some thoughts on the deeper meaning of the story. I understand (sort of) the levels and who goes there, but are there any deeper ideas?

What are you confused about specifically? The symbolism? Possible allegorical interpretations? There's just so much to the Comedy that it's hard to answer such a broad question.

Starting Monday I'm going to post a summary of a canto a week to mark where we are, and discussion can flow freely around that. When I had journeyed half of our life's way...

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Starting Monday I'm going to post a summary of a canto a week to mark where we are, and discussion can flow freely around that. When I had journeyed half of our life's way...

So we've got till then to read the first one yes?

Originally posted by Starrman
So we've got till then to read the first one yes?

Yeah...read it a few times...it's only a few pages long...I plan to read more than one a week, but they're quite rich, so discussing one a week is fine for me...

Make sure you read a translation that has endnotes, otherwise you're not going to be able to understand what's going on in a lot of places. Dante uses lots of references to obscure Greek and Italian people (real or mythical); he also explains many phenomena with the science of his day, which is tough (especially in poetry form) to follow since it is wrong.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
OK. Let this not be another Apology, everyone. (Mandelbaum's a much better translator than whoever translated that text, and Dante is, to me at least, much more interesting than Plato).

Plato?

Originally posted by Nargaguna
Plato?

He's this Greek philosopher dude who dressed up in hilarious garb and pontificated on various matters -- I don't think the two of you would have met.

Originally posted by Nargaguna
Plato?

Yes, Plato wrote the Apology. While Socrates is the main character in nearly all of Plato's writing, he never actually wrote anything down himself; that was Plato's job. Socratic dialogues were also a style of philosophical writing, and thus Socrates may or may not have actually said any of these things. For example, Plato was not present for either the Phaedo or the Crito, and while he claims his sources gave him the exact words spoken, Plato almost certainly made a lot of the dialogue up on his own.

Here are Gustave Dore's famous illustrations of Dante's work.

http://bulfinch.englishatheist.org/dante/hell/hellindex.htm

Canto 1.

The voyager-narrator astray by night in a dark forest. Morning and the sunlit hill. Three beasts that impede his ascent. The encounter with Virgil, who offers his guidance and an alternative path through two of the three realms the voyager must visit.

Supposedly the long dark night in question is Maundy Thursday (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10068a.htm). Had Dante washed his feet?

Originally posted by catfoodtim
What's the significance of Virgil as a guide?

Virgil is to lead Dante through Hell and Purgatory but not Paradise.

Dante, who didn't read Greek, revered the epic Latin poet as a literary mentor. Since Dante was the first (as far as I know) to write truly substantial poetry in Italian (he wrote a long Latin treatise in praise of the vernacular) Virgil could also be passing the torch of Latin poetry on to him, so to speak.

A Link: http://users.erols.com/antos/dante/divine_com.html (worth clicking on if only for the Fuseli painting)