Dante’s Commedia

• it is a work of Italian medieval literature, named the Divine Commedia by another Italian poet, Boccaccio, to emphasize the subject matter of the work, the realms of the afterlife: hell, purgatory and paradise, but also to signal the elevated style in which it is written.
• Dante claims that he is directly inspired by God, and the visionary experience of the poet is taken at face value by the early commentators.
• the three realms of the Commedia‘s three parts are as follows: down in the depths of Hell in the Inferno, up the mountain of Purgatory in the Purgatorio, and through the ever-higher spheres of Heaven in the Paradiso.
• the Commedia is made up of one hundred chapters that Dante calls cantos(literally, “songs”), divided into three groups of thirty-three; the extra is added to the Inferno, which opens with an introductory canto. The numerological structure of the poem is also revealed in the landscape of each part. Hell is divided into nine circles, each containing a different category of sinners receiving their own proper form of punishment. (taken from the Norton edition)
• the Roman poet Virgil is the pilgrim’s guide, as well as the poet’s, (literally and metaphorically) because of his Aeneid.
• In keeping with Christian doctrine, the souls in the underworld (of theInferno) have no material bodies, yet their shades retain the appearance of the bodies they had while alive. The punishments they suffer in Hell leave marks on their immaterial flesh.

The Vestibule of Hell and the Souls Mustering to Cross the Acheron (1847)

by William Blake

Sandro Botticelli’s depiction of Dante’s Inferno

Salvador Dalí’s paintings of Dante’s Inferno

Canto I in Italian

Norton’s Map of the Inferno

Here is a link to the group comics on Flickr, which are all rights reserved:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/140084523@N08/albums/72157663276302323/with/24971089014/

Please come prepared to discuss them on Wednesday. And thank you for your work. They’re all mini-masterpieces in their own right.

Portrait of Lucrezia de’ Medici (16th c.)

by Agnolo Bronzini

My Last Duchess (1842)

by Robert Browning

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands

Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Will ‘t please you sit and look at her? I said

‘Frà Pandolf’ by design, for never read

Strangers like you that pictured countenance,

The depth and passion of its earnest glance,

But to myself they turned (since none puts by

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,

How such a glance came there; so, not the first

Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ‘t was not

Her husband’s presence only, called that spot

Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps

Frà Pandolf chanced to say, ‘Her mantle laps

Over my lady’s wrist too much,’ or ‘Paint

Must never hope to reproduce the faint

Half-flush that dies along her throat:’ such stuff

Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough

For calling up that spot of joy. She had

A heart — how shall I say? — too soon made glad,

Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

Sir, ‘t was all one! My favour at her breast,

The dropping of the daylight in the West,

The bough of cherries some officious fool

Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

She rode with round the terrace — all and each

Would draw from her alike the approving speech,

Or blush, at least. She thanked men, — good! but thanked

Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name

With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame

This sort of trifling? Even had you skill

In speech — (which I have not) — to make your will

Quite clear to such an one, and say, ‘Just this

Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,

Or there exceed the mark’ — and if she let

Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,

— E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose

Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,

Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands

As if alive. Will ‘t please you rise? We’ll meet

The company below then. I repeat,

The Count your master’s known munificence

Is ample warrant that no just pretence

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;

Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed

At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go

Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,

Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

Making Paradise Lost Graphic

comics:

Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.

From Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics

Satan from Paradise Lost (1866)

By Gustave Doré

The first thing the reader needs to know about Paradise Lost is what Milton meant it to be. This need is specially urgent in the present age because the kind of poem Milton meant to write is unfamiliar to many readers. He is writing epic poetry which is a species of narrative poetry, and neither the species nor the genus is very well understood at present.

(From A Preface to Paradise Lost, C. S. Lewis)

Paradise Lost at the Morgan Library

Some features of epic poetry:

• an opening invocation to the muse or God
• an epic hero who possesses a serious character flaw or physical weakness and must overcome several trials and tribulations
• a moral or cultural lesson to be learned
• it begins in medias res
• it contains long lists and long speeches
• it involves relationships between humans and supernatural or divine creatures
• it takes place in multiple locations, occurrences in several episodes, and may include long formal speeches by the main characters
• it deals with important historical, religious or legendary events that relate to the development or identity of the nation

Some specific features of Milton’s epic:

• it opens with the purpose to “justify the ways of God to men”
• it begins in medias res with Satan and fellow rebels residing in Hell after their Fall
• it contains long catalogues, such as when Satan recounts the war in great detail
• it includes several locations, such as Hell, Heaven, and Eden
• it recounts several events over the course of its twelve books
• characters make long-winded rhetorical arguments, such as when Satan and other primary devils recount the Angelic War and debate how to destroy mankind

Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth (1889)

by John Singer Sargent

Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Act 5, sc. 5)

MACBETH:

She should have died hereafter.

There would have been a time for such a word.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Orson Welles

Ian McKellen

Patrick Stewart

Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man (1943)

by Salvador Dalí

Literary character before Shakespeare is relatively unchanging; women and men are represented as aging and dying, but not as changing because their relationship to themselves, rather than to the gods or God, has changed. In Shakespeare, characters develop rather than unfold, and they develop because they reconceive themselves. Sometimes this comes about because they overhear themselves talking, whether to themselves or to others. Self-overhearing is their royal road to individuation, and no other writer, before or since Shakespeare, has accomplished so well the virtual miracle of creating utterly different yet self-consistent voices for his more than one hundred major characters and many hundreds of highly distinctive minor personages. (xix)

From Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human

The Ancient Greek Theatre

Skene is the building that functions as background to the stage.

Parodos is the side entrance for the actors and chorus; it is also the name of the first song the chorus sings as they come on stage.

Orchestra is the center spot where the chorus stands.

Theatron is where the audience sits.

FROM ARISTOTLE’S POETICS:

For tragedy is not an imitation of men but of actions and of life … it is not for the purpose of presenting their characters that the agents engage in action, but rather it is for the sake of their actions that they take on the characters they have. Thus, what happens—that is, the plot—is the end for which a tragedy exists, and the end or purpose is the most important thing of all.

Thus, Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and possessing magnitude; in embellished language, each kind of which is used separately in the different parts; in the mode of action and not narrated; and effecting through pity and fear [what we call] the catharsis of such emotions. By “embellished language” I mean language having rhythm and melody, and by “separately in different parts” I mean that some parts of a play are carried on solely in metrical speech while others again are sung.

Oedipus the King in film

IMPORTANT TERMS RELATED TO GREEK TRAGEDY

Tragic irony is the incongruity (disharmony) created when the (tragic) significance of a character’s speech or actions is revealed to the audience but unknown to the character concerned. For example when Oedipus vows to find the murderer and curses him for the plague that he has caused, not knowing that he himself is the murderer.

Peripeteia (Reversal) is a change from one state of affairs to its exact opposite. For example when the Messenger comes to relieve Oedipus’s fear with regard to his mother and it has the opposite effect because he reveals his true identity.

Anagnorisis (Recognition) is a change from ignorance to knowledge, leading either to friendship or to hostility on the part of those persons who are marked for good or bad fortune.

Hamartia is a mistake or error of judgment, sometimes translated as “tragic flaw” – for Aristotle, it is not a moral defect.

Katharsis is the process of releasing repressed emotions, and is an uplifting of the spectators “through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.”

THE DELPHIC ORACLE

Priestess of Delphi (1891) by John Collier

Video of Delphic Oracle on YouTube

Harry Clarke (1919)

While the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation.

Forging Fate

1. To Forge (v.)

• make or shape (a metal object) by heating it in a fire or furnace and beating or hammering it.
• create (a relationship or new conditions)
• produce a copy or imitation of (a document, signature, banknote, or work or art) for the purpose of deception.

2. To Forge (v.)

• move forward gradually or steadily

Our course theme, “Forging Fate,” will explore the idea of fate as fluid, as something that man shapes into being and works toward as he moves freely through life. Do the characters in the selected works make their own destiny? Or is destiny something thrust upon them?

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON