1. Medieval Christian Humanism I Dante’s Inferno from The Divine Comedy
Foster Chamberlin
December 17, 2018
HUM101- Cultural Encounters

2. Class Outline Backgound Context Form Interpretation Canto I Canto IV
Conclusion

3. 1000 Years in 5 Minutes

4. Dante Alighieri ( )

5. Beatrice

6. The Divine Comedy- Form
The vernacular
Comedy
The pilgrim (Dante)’s journey
Cantos
Terza rima form
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, ché la diritta via era smarrita. Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte che nel pensier rinova la paura!

7. Canto I
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, ché la diritta via era smarrita.
Midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path.

8. Canto I cont.
a bitter place! Death could scarce be bitterer. But if I would show the good that came of it I must talk about things other than the good. (p. 67, lines 7-9) I raised my head and saw the hilltop shawled in morning rays of light sent from the planet That leads men straight ahead on every road. (p. 68, lines 16-18)

10. Virgil as Tour Guide

12. Switching Guides
to whom, if you too wish to make the climb, a spirit, worthier than I, must take you; I shall go back, leaving you in her care because that Emperor dwelling on high will not let me lead any to His city, since I in life rebelled against His law. (p. 71, lines )

14. Canto IV- Limbo The First Circle of Hell
“they have not sinned. But their great worth alone was not enough, for they did not know Baptism, which is the gateway to the faith you follow, and if they came before the birth of Christ, they did not worship God the way one should; I myself am a member of this group. For this defect, and for no other guilt, we here are lost. In this alone we suffer: cut off from hope, we live on in desire.” (p. 98, lines 34-42)

15. Canto IV- Limbo The First Circle of Hell
“I was a novice in this place when I saw a mighty lord descend to us who wore the sign of victory as his crown” (p. 99, lines 52-54)
The poets: Homer, Horace, Ovid and Lucan
In the castle: Socrates, Plato, Heraclitus, Orpheus
Also Caesar, Aeneas, Thales, Avicenna, Averroës
“I come into a place where no light is.” (p. 102, line 151)

16. Conclusions