Welcome to Danteworlds: danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321): Life and Legacy
        Allegory is a literary representation of an abstract concept or value. Throughout his epic narrative, Dante develops an
          extended allegory using a literal description that has secondary, symbolic meanings. For example, the opening tercet in Canto 1--
          "[M]idway in our life's journey, I went astray / from the straight road and woke to find myself / alone in a dark wood"-- uses 
           such diction as "midway," "journey," "astray," "the straight road," and "dark wood." These literal descriptors help set the                         allegorical stage on which a world-weary reader raises his eyes heavenward and embarks on the spiritual journey through the
           netherworld and afterlife along with Dante.   

        Terza rima is a stanzaic unit of a poem invented by Dante in his Divine Comedy, which uses a chain rhyme, the second line              of each stanza rhymes with the first and the third line of the next stanza (aba bcb cdc etc.) 
          John Ciardi, in his English translation of The Divine Comedy, uses a more fluid form of a tercet (aba cdc efe etc.) whereas the
          last two lines of each canto form a rhyming couplet, creating a more empathic closure and transition. 

Florence and Florentine Tuscan: the Invention of the Vernacular Italian​

Dante has penned his Commedia (the epithet "Divine" is a posthumous addition to the original title given by Dante) in his native tongue, Florentine Tuscan, a bold departure from the elite mode of writing, Latin.

The immediate popularity of The Divine Comedy imbued readership with zeal to learn and use Tuscan; both Petrarch and Boccaccio chose Dante's vernacular as their literary mode of delivery. The mother tongue that Dante carried with him throughout his exile has formed the foundation of modern Italian. 

The Invention of the First-person Narrator: the Fountainhead of the Renaissance
Dante, the poet, invents Dante, the allegorical persona, using first-person narration. 

Mashing up Greco-Roman with Judeo-Christian: You Know Dante Even If You Do Not
Dante interjects Florentine politics and personal grievances into the Christian universe whose heaven, hell, and purgatory he is vividly inscribing with the pigments drawn from Greco-Roman mythology and historical references. In a way, he is carving the imaginary cities of sinners and of God into the flat surface of the Ptolemaic universe. 

The Inferno

Cantos 1-34
Canto I: Introduction--Dante meets Virgil in Dark Wood  
Why does Dante have to travel through Hell in order to reach the shining Mount of Joy?

Canto II: The Descent 
Why does the poet use an invocation in the first three tercets?
Why does Virgil volunteer to lead Dante through Inferno?

​Canto III: The Gate of Hell--Crossing the Acheron
Why according to Dante are the opportunists condemned to chase the elusive banner?
Why does Dante swoon while entering Hell?

Canto IV: Limbo--the Virtuous Pagans  
Who are those condemned to linger in Limbo, Circle One?

Canto V: Circle 2--the Carnals 
What literary device does the poet use in describing the amorous sinners?
        As cranes go over sounding their harsh cry,
            leaving the long streak of t heir flight in air,
            so come these spirits, wailing as they fly.

       And watching their shadows lashed by wind, I cried:
          "Master, what souls are these the very air
          lashes with its black whips from side to side?" (46-51)

Canto VI: Circle 3--Cerberus--the Gluttons 
Ciacco's political prophesies: through Ciacco's mouth, Dante retrospectively foretells the Florentine infightings that caused his lifelong banishment from his native land. 
In what ways does Cerberus reflect the gluttons' sins? 

Canto VII: Circles 4 and 5--Plutus--the Hoarders and the Wasteful; the Wrathful and the Sullen 
Why does Plutus guard the clerical sinners? 
Why are the avaricious and the profligates condemned when Dame Fortune has favored them? 

Canto VIII: from Circle 5 to Circle 6 via the Styx--Phlegyas--the Fallen Angels 
The entrance of Dis

Canto IX: Circle 6--the Heretics 
The Furies and Medusa

Canto X: Circle 6--the Heretics and the Epicureans 
Farinata and Cavalcanti the elder
Heretics (skeptics) are unable to know the present while given the foreknowledge of the future 
Farinata's love of Florence and its dialect (Tuscan) is juxtaposed with Cavalcanti's fierce love for his son, Guido.

Canto XI: Circle 6
Dante and Virgil rest by the tomb of Anastasius the Pope
Why is violence against self a condemnable sin?
​According to the Old Testament (especially Genesis) why is usury a sin? 

Canto XII: Circle 7--the Minotaur--the Centaurs--the Violent against Neighbors
What is the sin Alexander the Great and Attila have committed? 
​
Canto XIII: Circle 7: Round 2--Harpies--the Violent against Themselves (Suicides)
What mode of punishment do suicides face? 
Why does Dante gather  scattered leaves and return them to the plant?

Canto XIV: Circle 7: Round 3--the Violent against God, Nature, and Art 
How does Dante define blasphemy in this canto?
Why and how are the blasphemers scorched from below and above?
According to Dante, what is the origin story of the Acheron, Phlegethon, Styx, and Cocytus?
 
Canto XV: Circle 7: Round 3--the Violent against Nature
It is the night before Good Friday in 1300 when the persona Dante embarks his allegorical journey. What does Brunetto prophesize about Dante's future?
What "unnatural" sin did Brunetto Latini allegedly commit? 
​
Canto XVI: Circle 7: Round 3--the Violent against Nature and Art 
How does Dante summon the beast Geryon? 

Canto XVII: Circle 7: Round 3--Geryon--the Violent against Art
Why does each of wraiths in this round carry an enormous purse?

Canto XVIII: Circle 8: Bolgias 1 and 2--the Panderers and Seducers
What sin did Jason, the leader of the Argonauts, commit and what is his punishment?


Canto XIX: MNS

Canto XX: JKH

Canto XXI: MNS

Canto XXII: JKH

Canto XXIII: MNS

Canto XXIV: JKH

Canto XXV

Cando XXVI

Canto XXVII

Canto XXVIII

Canto XXIX: Circle 8--Bolgia 10--the Falsifiers 

Canto XXX: Circle 8--Bolgia 10--The Falsifiers (Evil Impersonators, Counterfeiters, and False Witnesses) 

Canto XXXI: the Central Pit of Malebolge--the Giants 
Single out one epic simile and discuss its function in vivifying the central pit and the giants.

Canto XXXII: Circle 9--Cocytus (Caina and Antenora)--Compound Fraud, the Treacherous to Kin and to Country 
How are brother killers punished?
How are traitors punished?
​
Canto XXXIII: Circle 9--Cocytus (Antenora and Ptolomea)--Compound Fraud, the Treacherous to Country and to Hospitality 
​
Canto XXXIV: Circle 9--Cocytus (Judecca and the Center)--the Treacherous to Their Masters 
Why do you think Lucifer gnaws Brutus and Cassius alongside Judas? 
According to Dante, why is Inferno located in the center of the earth? 

The Purgatorio

Cantos 1-33
Canto I
Canto II
Canto III
Canto IV

Canto V
Canto VI
Canto VII
Canto VIII
Canto IX
Canto X

Canto XI
Canto XII
Cando XIII
Canto XIV
Canto XV
Canto XVI

Canto XVII
Canto XVIII
Canto XIX
Canto XX
Canto XXI
Canto XXII

​Canto XXIII
Canto XXIV
Canto XXV
Canto XXVI
Canto XXVII
Canto XXVIII

Canto XXIX
Canto XXX
Canto XXXI
Canto XXXII
Canto XXXIII
​

The Paradiso

Cantos 1-33
Canto I

Canto II
Canto III
Canto IV
Canto V
Canto VI
Canto VII

Canto VIII
Canto IX
Canto X
Canto XI
Canto XII
Cando XIII

Canto XIV
Canto XV
Canto XVI
Canto XVII
Canto XVIII
Canto XIX

Canto XX
Canto XXI
Canto XXII
Canto XXIII
Canto XXIV
Canto XXV

Canto XXVI
Canto XXVII
Canto XXVIII
Canto XXIX
Canto XXX
Canto XXXI

​Canto XXXII
Canto XXXIII
​