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Dante in Translation

Yale,, Fall 2008 , Prof. Giuseppe Mazzotta

Updated On 02 Feb, 19

Overview

(ITAL 310) The course is an introduction to Dante and his cultural milieu through a critical reading of The Divine Comedy and selected minor works (Vita nuova, Convivio, De vulgari eloquentia, Epistle to Cangrande). An analysis of Dante's autobiography, the Vita nuova, establishes the poetic and political circumstances of the Comedy's composition. Readings of Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso seek to situate Dante's work within the intellectual and social context of the late Middle Ages, with special attention paid to political, philosophical and theological concerns. Topics in The Divine Comedy explored over the course of the semester include the relationship between ethics and aesthetics; love and knowledge; and exile and history.

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Lecture 4: Inferno V, VI, VII

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Lecture Details

Dante in Translation (ITAL 310)

This lecture examines Inferno IV -VII. Dantes Limbo, modeled on the classical locus amoenus, is identified as a place of repose and vulnerability. Here, in fact, among the poets of antiquity, the pilgrim falls prey to poetic hubris by joining in their ranks. The pilgrim is faced with the consequences of his poetic vocation when he descends to the circle of lust (Inferno V), where Francesca da Rimini, in her failure to distinguish romance from reality, testifies to the dangers inherent to the act of reading. From the destructive power of lust within the private world of the court, Dante moves on to the effects of its sister sin, gluttony, on the public sphere of the city. The relationship posited in Inferno VI between Ciacco and his native Florence is read as a critique of the "body politic." In conclusion, Virgils discourse on Fortune in the circle of avarice and prodigality (Inferno VII) is situated within the Christian world of divine providence.

0000 - Chapter 1. The Ambiguities of Gardens
0410 - Chapter 2. Canto V The Second Circle
1314 - Chapter 3. The Lustful in the Second Circle
1940 - Chapter 4. Overwhelmed by Pity, Dante Faints Like a Dead Body
3234 - Chapter 5. A Story of Reading; References to Time
4029 - Chapter 6. Canto VI The Third Circle; Ciacco
5747 - Chapter 7. Dantes Political Understanding
010305 - Chapter 8. Canto VII The Avaricious in the Fourth Circle
010817 - Chapter 9. Question and Answer

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website httpopen.yale.educourses

This course was recorded in Fall 2008.