World Civilization
to 1550 C.E.

World Civilization
1550 to the present

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HIST 4130/5130
The Middle Ages

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Medieval Monasticism

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Intellectual and
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to 1500 C.E.

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Intellectual and
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since 1500 C.E.

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Georgia College &
State University

Dante Alighieri 1265-1321

OBJECTIVES:

  1. Be able to discuss in what ways Dante's Comedia represents innovations in style and language.
  2. Be able to discuss examples of Dante's critique of the medieval Church in the Inferno.
  3. Be able to discuss the interaction between human reason and mystical spirituality in the Comedia, and the symbols used to explicate this interaction.
  4. Be able to explain the role of Virgil in the Inferno.
  5. Be able to explain the role of Beatrice in the Comedia.
  6. Be able to explain the numerology of the Inferno as it relates to medieval spirituality and theology.
  7. Be able to discuss Dante's treatment of virtuous pagans in the Inferno and to relate this treatment to Burckhardt's thesis about the role of Greco-Roman culture in the Renaissance and the character of Renaissance humanism.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

In the dark wood on the she-wolf (Church):
"...a she-wolf drove upon me a starved horror ravening and wasted beyond all belief. She seemed a rack for avarice, gaunt and craving. Oh the many souls she has brought to endless grief!

She brought such heaviness upon my spirit at the sight of her savagery and desperation, I died from every hope on that high summit...

...He must go another way who would escape this wilderness, for that mad beast that flees before you there, suffers no man to pass. She tracks down all, kills all, and knows no glut, but, feeding, she grows hungrier than she was.

She mates with any beast, and will mate with more before the Greyhound comes to hunt her down..."

At the gates of Hell:
"Abandon all hope ye who enter here!"

On the pagans in Limbo:
"These were sinless and still their merits fail..."

In Circle IX:
"What the hell's the matter?"

OUTLINE

    I. Biographical details
      A. Marriage
      B. The Guelphs and Ghibellines
        i. Origins in Ottonian period
        ii. Blacks and Whites
      C. Mission to Boniface
      D. Exile
      E. Death
    II. The Comedia
      A. Duality of Dante's Life
      B. Thrust of the Comedia
      C. Meaning of the word "Comedia" in the Middle Ages
      D. Numerology:
        i. 3's
          a) Trinitarian thought: numbers 1 and 2
          b) When the story takes place
          C) terza rima
        ii. 9's
        iii. 10's
        iv. 4's
        v. 7's
          I) virtues and vices
      E. The Dark Forest
        I) The Three Beasts
        ii) portrayal of the Church
        iii) Virgil
          a) Aeneas
          b) Prophets of Empire
          c) as forerunner of Peter and Paul
        iv) Beatrice
          a) 9's
      F. Pagans in limbo
        I) Dante as sixth of prophets and Ages of Man
      G. Circle VI
        I. Three furies and Medusa
          a) power of sin
        ii. Role of reason and angelic being
        iii. The Epicureans
      H. Circle IX
        I. Three giants
        ii. Number five
        iii. Cardinal Ugolino
        iv. Satan: Parodies of Trinity
          a) Three faces
          b) Three heretics
          c) parodies of 9
        v. Triumph of reason
        vi. The Stars