1. By Eric Larson & Julia Peacock
The Divine Comedy
By Eric Larson & Julia Peacock

2. Durante Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265.
Durante Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265.
Dante's epic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, is divided into three sections, correspondingly named the Inferno (Hell), the Purgatorio (Purgatory), and the Paradiso (Paradise). He began writing the work around 1307.

4. Canto I – Dante Astray in the Dusky Wood

5. Canto I – The Lion Suddenly Confronts Dante

6. Canto III – The Doomed Souls Embarking to Cross the Acheron

7. Canto V – Judgment of Sinners

8. Canto XXXIV – Dis, or Satan, King of Hell

9. The Journey Begins: The Dark Wood
Here, the depressed Dante meets Virgil, a spiritual guide for his descent through Hell
Dante is alive; Virgil, long dead, suffers in Limbo because he only believed in reason and intellect, not in God
Virgil is sent by the
unseen Beatrice, the true
love of the real-life Dante

10. The Vestibule: The Uncommitted
Abandon all hope ye who enter here
All here took no stand, kept no promise, honored no loyalty
The Punishment
Chase an ever-moving flag
Stung by bees and wasps
Once stung, maggots suck the pus from their festering sores

11. Circle One: Limbo Virtuous Pagans (like Virgil) and unbaptized babies.
The Punishment:
To never see
the face of God

12. Circle Two: The Lustful/Carnal
Sinners who let their passions control their lives
The Punishment
They are swept away in a dirty, smelly, hurricane-like wind for eternity, just as they were swept away with their lusts in life
Dante meets Francesca and Paolo here

13. Circle Three: The Gluttons
People who “pigged out” in life – too much was never enough for them
The Punishment
Sinners live in a giant garbage
heap, never to leave
If they try to escape, Cerberus,
a three-headed dog, grabs them
in his huge jaws and throws
them back in

14. Circle Four: The Hoarders/Wasters
Greedy hoarders and immoderate, excessive wasters
The Punishment
Condemned to roll great
boulders uphill toward each
other
When they meet, sinners
must roll the boulders back
and start again

15. Circle Five: The Wrathful and Sullen
Wrathful were always angry in life and the sullen were always sulky and morose
The Punishment
Wrathful fight
amongst themselves
in a horrible pit of
slime
Sullen reside under
the river Styx,
constantly complain-
ing about their fate

16. Circle Six: The Heretics
Those outside of the Church who said they spoke for or to God (think Joan of Arc)
The Punishment
Fiery tombs

17. Circle Seven - Round 1: Violent Against Neighbors
Tyrants like Attila the Hun, and murderers
The Punishment
Thrash about in the boiling blood of the Phlegethon River; blood they caused to shed
Centaurs monitor the
banks and force back
sinners with arrows

18. Circle Seven – Round 2: The Violent Against Themselves
Suicides
The Punishment
Turned into trees
Harpies, feeding
on the trees, peck at their
fatal wounds, causing them
to bleed profusely

19. Circle Seven – Round 3: The Violent Against God, Nature & Art
Blasphemers, sodomites and others
The Punishment
Tormented on a burning plain
Arid sands represents
the fruitless nature of
their sins

20. Circle Eight: Malebolge
Malebolge loosely translates as “evil pockets” or “evil pouches”
Ten pouches of hell, all with different sinners and punishments
Sins of fraud

21. Malebolge’s Pouches POUCH ONE The Punishment POUCH TWO
Panderers and seducers (pimps, etc.)
The Punishment
Demons whip them incessantly
POUCH TWO
Flatterers
Sunk to their necks in excrement

22. Malebolge’s Pouches, cont.
POUCH THREE
Simoniacs (sellers of church favors)
The Punishment
Think “human candles”: sinners
are upside down over baptismal
fonts; their feet are on fire
POUCH FOUR
Fortunetellers
Heads are on backwards so these future-lookers may only look back at the past

23. Malebolge’s Pouches, cont.
POUCH FIVE
Grafters (conmen, etc.)
The Punishment
Immersed in a sticky tar pitch; demons with hooks and claws keep them in the hot liquid

24. Malebolge’s Pouches, cont.
POUCH SIX
Hypocrites, false piety, didn’t practice what they preached
The Punishment
Wear heavy cloaks that
are bright on the outside,
but heavy with lead on
the inside

25. Malebolge’s Pouches, cont.
POUCH SEVEN
Thieves
The Punishment
Surrounded by snakes
that coil around their hands
Another snake darts out to cut their throat
Explode into flame
Rise up from the ashes only to experience their punishment again.

26. Malebolge’s Pouches, cont.
POUCH EIGHT
Evil counselors: people who lied to others to gain power, riches, etc. (Ulysses & Diomede)
The Punishment
Hidden in great cups
of flame to symbolize
their guilty consciences

27. Malebolge’s Pouches, cont.
POUCH NINE
Sowers of religious, political and family discord: ripped apart peace and tranquility (Mahomet, or Mohammed of Islam, is here)
The Punishment
Ripped apart physically:
headless men, gaping flesh
wounds, etc.

28. Malebolge’s Pouches, cont.
POUCH TEN (last pouch)
Alchemists, evil impersonators, false witnesses, counterfeiters: they corrupted all in life
The Punishment
Made to endure every sort of corruption and pain. Darkness, filth, hunger, disease, thirst and noise – never-ending and ever surrounding them.

29. Circle Nine: Hell (Cocytus)
Betrayers.
Spread before Dante and Virgil is “a lake so frozen / it seemed to be made of glass”
The Punishment
Here, Hell is a vast, frozen wasteland. Sinners are frozen in the ice for eternity, farthest away from the warmth of God’s love

30. Hell: Treacherous against Kin
Named Caina, after the first murderer of a family member, the biblical Cain

31. Hell: Traitors to Country
Known as Antenora after a Trojan prince who conspired with the Greeks to destroy Troy
Here Dante sees Ugolino and Ruggieri
Ugolino and Ruggieri conspired in life to overthrow their city/state
Ruggieri betrayed Ugolino, who was placed in the Tower of Hunger with his sons and grandsons. Ugolino had to watch his family die
In death, Ugolino, still a sinner, is permitted to take his hatred out on Ruggieri's brains as he munches on them for eternity

32. Ugolino & Ruggieri in Antenora

33. Hell: Treacherous to Guests and Hosts
Called Ptolomea after Ptolemy, who honored his father-in-law and two of his sons with a feast and then murdered them
Also after Ptolemy XII who granted refuge to Pompey after a great battle, only to murder him when he set foot upon the shore
These sinners’ souls descend to hell and their living bodies possessed by demons as soon as they commit their heinous acts

34. Hell: Treacherous to their Masters
Called Judecca after the ultimate betrayer, the betrayer of Christ, Judas
Here is Dis, or Satan
Satan was sent to Hell for his own betrayal of God – was an angel before he was a demon
Frozen in ice as his giant wings spread the cold through the deepest of the levels of hell
Satan’s three mouths chomp at the ultimate betrayers: Cassius and Brutus, betrayers of Caesar, and Judas, betrayer of Christ
Remember, this is Hell according to Dante!

35. Satan (Dis) or the person that keeps pulling the fire alarm!

36. The Journey Ends
Dante and Virgil scale Satan’s head to climb out of the rings of Hell
They pass through Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, to wash away the horrors they have witnessed
Dante does not, however, forget that he has had a chance to change his life for the better to avoid Hell
Virgil will guide Dante through Purgatory, but that is another story…

37. Symbol
A person, place, object, or activity that represents something beyond itself.
Common symbols
Journey to represent life
Night to represent death
Other symbols acquire meaning from text.
Example: The “dark woods” represent Dante’s spiritual condition.

38. Allegory This is a literary work filled with symbols.
It has two levels of meaning-a literal level and a symbolic one.
To explore the symbolic meaning, pay attention to details about characters, objects, events, and settings.
Example: She-wolf in Canto I of the “Inferno” represents greed.

39. Medieval Allegory
Tells of a spiritual quest through an eternal place where the wicked are punished for their evil deeds on earth.
Dante who goes on this journey represents all humans, who is a prisoner of sin and is in danger of losing his soul.

40. Genre Allegorical Poem Cantos (songs) Verse Teza Rima Comedy
3 line stanza, which Dante created.
Comedy
Because it ends happily in Heaven.

41. Literary Devices Flashback Allegory Symbol Imagery Mood Irony
Characterization
Simile/Metaphor
Allusion
Personification