Great Works of Literature I (Fall 2016)

1. Creative Writing Approach: Write a paper where you put the characters, or the author or yourself, into a conversation with one other (for example, you write could write a play or a piece where Antigone might be in a conversation with Dante addressing their notions of death). The dialogue should focus on specific issues/observations addressed in class or through your own personal reading. Perhaps Antigone argues with Shahrazad on who is true authority, and on how one should fight against authority. This is just an example, but there will have to be a thesis addressed in the dialogue/argument/story telling between the characters, (or the characters and yourself, if you choose to put yourself in the story), with textual evidence to support it.
   1. Be sure to describe location, time and place of the dialogue
2.  Active vs Passive: Compare the active character of Antigone toward the passive character of Dante: one character moves and works inside the plot/story, while Dante is led around inside his story, and is consistently recognized as “other” and outside of it. Why might this characterization be significant for each of their stories? What does it do?
   1. You could also choose to evaluate the idea of a hero, and if Antigone and Dante are both considered them with their very different characterizations, and why or why not. (What makes an epic hero? How does the text support or not support that?)

Law, Justice, and Punishment: Justice and punishment are themes in both Antigone and Dante’s Inferno. In both works, one or more characters receive punishments for crimes or sins which they have committed. In each work, what determines law and punishment? What does this say about justice? Is punishment deserved or undeserved, and how does that affect the integrity of the punishments, and hence, their effects on the reader? How do both Sophocles and Dante achieve these effects?

Diction, Imagery, and Feeling: In both Dante’s Inferno and the early Chinese poem “She Bore the Folk,” the writers use descriptive imagery to paint a picture of the events of the literature. What differences exist in the overall feeling of the two works? Are they inherent, or do the authors utilize particular literary devices to create these differences? How do the writers craft the specific characteristics of their works, and why? What effects do these characteristics have on the readers?

Story-telling: In Dante’s Inferno and The Thousand and One Nights, it seems that story-telling functions for entirely different purposes. Explain the power and importance of story-telling within Dante’s Inferno and The Thousand and One Nights by analyzing the purpose/device of story-telling in these two works.

Morality: Antigone and Dante’s Inferno sheds light upon conflicts with morality. These works continually redefine the meaning of morality. How does the meaning of morality in Antigone differ from the meaning in Dante’s Inferno?

Perspective in Poetry and Prose: When you read a story or poem, one of the first elements you picks up on is the perspective used by the author. This affects what you know and you don’t know, and how you experience the action as it unfolds. Both Wang Wei and Li Bo use differing perspectives in their poems; sometimes, they use first or second person narration, other times, the third. The same is true of the elders’ chorus in Sophocles’ Antigone, as well as in the myriad stories of The Thousand and One Nights. Write an essay analyzing the type of the perspective used in a specific poem or passage from at least two of the above works, and determine the significance perspective plays in informing the reader’s understanding or experience of the work as a whole.

The Role of Comparison: Metaphors, similes and allegories are all comparative instruments that help illustrate or convey ideas. They are found throughout Dante’s Inferno, the Thousand and One Nights, and Sophocles’ Antigone. Explain one or two similes, allegories or metaphors (extensive, implied or otherwise) from at least two of the above works, and determine the role each plays in producing meaning to the work.

1) A devaluation of our existence: Dante’s Infernal vision of the afterlife makes the implication that the human Will, when exposed to the knowledge of non-being (death), is the foundational principle of morality. Sophocles expresses the same principle in his Antigone. Both Dante and Sophocles imply that there are worlds beyond and beneath the world our existence is in (the empirical world, the world of Life), which follows its’ own rules. They both implicitly show that this world of Life is directed by the human Will (sightless desire, either for power or for pleasure). Those who are suffering from the empirical world around them thus rely on a different world for order. The world Antigone relies on for justice is the world of the Gods, the world Dante relies on for justice is his Inferno. Both places are ordered, reasoned and fair. Both give a sense of balance. This world of Reason the souls live in opposes the injustice of the world of Will (the world of Life) that the body is in. But by doing this, both Dante and Sophocles imply that Life is just an endless, pointless, disarray of desires and human Will. For they forget that any conception of death is an inverted reflection of life. They gave life justice but in an illusory position outside of it. These otherworlds where justice and order persists seems to devalue our existence in this world, the world we presently live in with our plurality of Wills. In other words, injustice, insatiety, suffering and deception exist here, but justice and salvation exists somewhere beyond. Explain how Dante’s and Sophocles’ principle of morality has devalued our existence and how their conceptions of the afterlife implicitly uncovers their perspective on Life. Or, argue against this point and show how their principle has founded a well-formed sense of morality.

2) Telos: For a telos to exist on it’s own the end goal must be absolute, or else the goal is relative to something else, and if you take away that something else you also take away the telos, and thus meaning. In the stories of The Thousand and One Nights, they have a telos relative to a framework. Would it be true, if we take away that framework the telos itself will disappear and the stories will become meaningless? They would just be told for the sake of continuity? And could now also be enjoyed in isolation? Is this framework important? Why is Dante’s telos of going to paradise independent from the poem’s framework (or why isn’t it- and if it isn’t explain how Dante’s journey would be, or not be, meaningless if we take away that framework)?

1. Suicide: Antigone committed suicide in prison. In Dante’s Inferno people who die by taking their own life are exiled to the ‘Wood of Suicides’ in circle 7. Analyze Antigone’s life and death through Dante’s eyes. Would he look upon her life (and death) nobly or disgracefully? Do you think that he would place Antigone in the 7th Circle of Hell? If so, describe her afterlife in Hell.
2. Determination and self-sacrifice: Antigone and Shahrazad are determined almost to a fault. They put their lives at risk in order to do what they feel is just. It is their determination and self-sacrifice that ultimately drives the plot. Analyze their determination, respectively. Do you agree with their stance (and actions)? If not, how do you view their actions? Lastly, if put in their shoes, would you do the same?
3. Sexuality: Beatrice in the Inferno and Shahrazad in A Thousand and One Nights both hold integral roles in the respective texts. They act as guides to King Shahryar and Dante. How are they able to use their sexuality to further their agenda?  Describe and give examples of other strengths and qualities that they possess. Do you think that their roles would be less significant had they been portrayed as less ‘alluring’?

1. All’s fair in Hell and Hades: Justice features prominently in Antigone and the Inferno. In the former, Olympus’ law justifies Antigone’s crime against the state; in the latter, Heaven’s law justifies the punishments within the nine circles of Hell. In both cases, divine justice does not always sit right with the people involved. Write an analytical essay exploring the disparity between human justice and divine justice within Sophocles’ Antigone and Dante’s Inferno.
2. Repetition, Repetition, Repetition: Rhythm, structure, and emphasis—all valuable literary qualities achievable through repetition. The Thousand and One Nights exemplifies repetition at work in prose, while Tang poems provide many examples of repetition in poetry. Write an analytical essay arguing for or against the efficacy of repetition as a literary device.
3. Heroines with Style: Antigone, Shahrazad, and Penelope are all courageous in different ways. Is one more heroic than the others? Which woman is more in line with your image of heroism? Write an analytical essay contrasting the classical heroine with the modern heroine.

In the second ring of the seventh circle of hell, those who have committed suicide when they were alive are punished in a very unique way. Upon their descent into hell, they lose their physical form as a result of discarding it when they committed suicide. They then become trees, fixed in a position that cannot move like some of the other souls encountered in hell. The tree could also feel pain and bleed when one breaks off even a tiny twig.

While Pier della Vigna seemed to have lived a noble, morally upright life dedicated to serving Emperor Frederick, he took his own life to escape the pain and shame of the lies and rumors that were spread about him. This one moment in his life has come to determine his judgment and eternal punishment. His willingful weakness is what he is being punished for in hell. The current form of Pier’s soul is direct punishment for having taken his physical body for granted, and now he cannot enjoy life as a human would, having lost the human form and the faculty of movement.

Pier della Vigna tells his story to Dante so that Dante can go and tell the living when he returns from his journey. In a way, this will avenge Pier della Vigna against the liars when Dante tells people about how Pier was dedicated to Frederick and how the lies were false.

It is evident that the tree now feels remorse and regret for what he did:“Like the rest, we shall go for our husks on Judgment Day / But not that we may wear them, for it is not just / That a man be given what he throws away.” He knows that his soul will never again join his body. The suicidal trees deliberately abandoned their bodies, so they do not even deserve a chance at reclaiming them. Instead, when all the souls retrieve their bodies, the bodies of the suicidal tree souls “will dangle to the end of time.” This would further punish the suicidals by reminding them every day of their wrongdoing and the sight of their soul-less body would make them more regretful, wishing that their soul could fill the dead body hanging from their branch. This is a particularly cruel but just punishment for violence against one’s self.

In Canto XIII, Dante and Virgil enter into the Wood of Suicides, the second round of the seventh circle focusing on violence. The violence being punished in the second round is violence against the self. They hears wails and moans but sees nothing but dense black forest and harpies – half-women, half-beast, bird-like creatures- feeding on the branches. Dante stops out of confusing and believes Virgil know that he thinks that hidden spirits among the trees are the ones making the noises. With Virgil’s instructions, Dante breaks off a branch of one of the trees, which results in the tree bleeding and asking Dante if he has no sense of pity whatsoever.

“Men were we once, now we are changed to scrub” (XIII. 37) says the tree, who in life was Pier della Vigna, chief counselor of Frederick II of Sicily. Offering to repeat his story when he returns to Earth, the spirit tells them that he was faithful and honest throughout his life but because of the sorrow that came from the envy of the court (they couldn’t bribe him) he killed himself.

The spirit further explains that the souls of those that commit suicide are torn from the body and sent to Minos, who automatically sends them to the seventh circle where they are dropped, sprout and grow. They are forever stuck with the harpies eating their leaves, causing them great pain. Additionally, when they are called to the Last Judgment, they will claim their bodies but never “wear” them since “wrong it is/ for a man to have again what he once cast off” (XIII. 104-105).

The punishment for those that commit violence against themselves is perceived to be “worse” than those that commit violence against neighbors – since they are lower down/ closer to Satan. Additional to the constant pain cause by the harpies, their punishment is the deprivation of having a mortal form since on Earth they themselves got rid of their bodies. What is also evident in the example of Pier, is that even if one is faithful and honest for all of their lives, the one moment of “weakness” that results in committing suicide forever condemns them to damnation.

Something interesting that I noticed between Canto XIII and Canto V is that from those that were punished for their lust, Dido is said to have “killed herself for love” (V. 61) yet she is not condemned in the Wood of Suicides but rather in the Second Circle. Perhaps this is because she views her “worst” sin to have been infidelity and not taking her own life.

There is, in reality, a distinction between behavior which incites guilt and behavior which produces shame. Guilt is feeling badly about your behavior because of something external; you try to hide what you’ve done from the world around you. Shame, on the other hand, is more primitive and internal; you feel bad about yourself because you’ve acted contrary to yourself. In the world Dante is exploring, what happens when you do what you think is right, and therefore feel no shame? If it does not align with what God believes to be virtuous you either begin to feel guilty in your lifetime and hope to repent your sin, or you spend eternity being punished to make sure you feel absolute regret.

Justice in Dante’s Inferno appears, thus far, to be based on a very specific portrayal and direction of human passions. You are instructed to be human, but on God’s terms. As such, it is unfortunately easy to be damned for acting as you feel fitting. In Canto III, Virgil and Dante pass all of the damned souls who neither led remarkable or despicable lives. They are punished for remaining impartial, and never stirring the pot. I’ve always understood impartiality to be a virtue in itself in a world where even the smallest conflicts have waged war. (Ex: America once had a war with Britain over a pig.)

In this canto, a particular soul I feel is being wrongly punished is the pope Celestine V. He made the great refusal, abdicating his position as pope. He told the court at his time that they needed to elect a pope, and they chose him without even asking if he would consider it. By resigning, he was honest with himself and his people in admitting he was not fit for the position. He was not the person who should have had that power, and to carry on as if he was worthy would have been disgraceful to the Lord and his disciples. His action was praiseworthy.

Further, arguing that instead of noble he was simply a coward, shouldn’t the Lord have pity on a soul too weak to carry out his bidding? Apparently not. Rather, the poor soul is damned to experience his oddly inverted immortality suffering, running from insects.