Dante's Inferno, The Indiana Critical Edition

by Dante Alighieri, Mark Musa (Editor)

Overview

This new critical edition, including Mark Musa's classic translation, provides students with a clear, readable verse translation accompanied by ten innovative interpretations of Dante's masterpiece.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253012401
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	06/06/2024
Series:	Indiana Masterpiece Editions
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	420
Sales rank:	714,473
File size:	882 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Dante Alighieri, or simply Dante, is the penname of Italian poet Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Read It and (Don't) Weep: Textual Irony in the Inferno

LAWRENCE BALDASSARO

Readers approaching the Inferno for the first time will face any number of questions regarding both the poem itself (theme, structure, language, imagery) and its cultural context (medieval history, theology, politics, even astronomy). Among the many questions raised by the text, one of the first to confront readers head-on at the outset is that of the identity of the protagonist of the poem; whose voice is it that we hear narrating the journey? The question of narrative voice must be addressed in reading any work of fiction, but it is of particular significance in an autobiographical narrative such as the Divine Comedy.

On the literal level. the Comedy is the story of Dante's journey through the afterlife, a journey that leads him from the brink of despair to enlightened awareness culminating in a direct vision of God. But the voice that speaks in the past tense — "I woke to find myself in some dark woods" (Inf I. 2) — tells the story of a journey already completed. The poet who recalls and transcribes the events of that journey is somehow different from the protagonist, or pilgrim, who experiences the journey firsthand. In other words. the fiction of the poem asks us to accept a diachronic distinction between the experience and its representation. But the poem, of necessity, creates a oneness out of the fictional duality, and therein lies the dilemma for the poem's readers.

The distinction between author and protagonist is made more complex by the autobiographical nature of the Comedy; in some ways the poet and pilgrim are obviously one and the same Dante Alighieri. Even in a retrospective narrative such as the Divine Comedy, which recounts the protagonist's conversion from a former self to a new, different self, the protagonist cannot be completely "other" than the author. Whatever corrective vision the author applies to his past, the duality of writer and protagonist remains relative, not absolute. Be that as it may, we as readers need to keep in mind that the protagonist is a character in a work of fiction, and therefore we must listen carefully to the voice of the poet who does establish a difference between his perspective and that of his less informed protagonist. Unless we are aware that there are two voices speaking in the poem, and unless we pay attention to the difference, we are likely to confuse fiction and biography. In so doing we confuse the voice of the protagonist, who is caught up in the immediate drama of his journey, with that of the poet, who creates and orders the whole with specific aesthetic and structural strategies that lead the pilgrim, and perhaps the reader, to the desired end.

Dante would have us believe that the protagonist is what he, the poet, once was but no longer is, thanks to the redemptive journey depicted in the poem. The poet has been to the mountain top and has been shown the truth; his vision has been clarified by knowledge and divine grace. What, then, is the nature of the protagonist as created by the poet? What is the starting point, or ground zero, that necessitates the pilgrim's difficult journey through Hell?

A narrative of conversion and redemption such as the Divine Comedy obviously requires a protagonist in need of radical transformation. Such is the nature of Dante's pilgrim at the beginning of the poem. Lost and alone in a dark wood, he finds temporary hope when he emerges to see a hill whose summit is bathed in the rays of the sun. But he sinks back into hopelessness when three beasts block his attempt to ascend the hill and drive him back to the bottom of the slope. The pilgrim's startling situation in a mysterious setting begs for interpretation, setting the tone for a poem which will challenge its readers throughout to come to terms with its meaning.

The universality of Dante's poem becomes evident in this opening scene. At the outset we find a terrified man who is without direction in his life, somehow cut off from the path that leads to truth and serenity. In the terminology of contemporary psychology, we might define his condition as a mid-life crisis; the story takes place when Dante is "midway upon the journey of our life" (Inf. I, 1). A Jungian archetypal analysis might see the pilgrim's condition as suggestive of the individual's struggle to come to grips with the dark side of his consciousness. But in terms of the poet's medieval cultural context, the figure we encounter in the first canto of the Inferno is in a state of sin which threatens to cut him off forever from the possibility of salvation. The gravity of his condition is made clear by Beatrice when she attempts to convince Virgil to go to the aid of her desperate friend:

I fear he may have gone so far astray,
from what report has come to me in Heaven,
that I may have started to his aid too late.

(Inf. II, 64–66)

The resolution of the pilgrim's crisis will be a moral and religious regeneration expressed in terms of a rebirth that takes the form of a journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. But we learn from the very first lines of the poem that Dante's drama of redemption is meant to be exemplary as well as confessional. The personal dimension of the protagonist's identity as Dante Alighieri, Florentine poet, unfolds gradually over the course of the poem. The allegorical dimension of the protagonist is introduced, instead, at the beginning. The pilgrim's journey is somehow analogous to the readers' experience; the drama of the poem takes place in the midst of "the journey of our life" (emphasis mine).

The exemplary function of Dante's protagonist is logically cast in terms of the poem's cultural context. His pilgrim is a deliberately Christian "Everyman," meaning that he carries with him, according to Dante's theological framework, the dangerous consequences of original sin. Because of the Fall, human nature, which had originally been created in perfect harmony with the will of God, was forever corrupted. As Beatrice will tell the pilgrim in the seventh canto of Paradiso, human nature "sinned once and for all / in its first root" (vv. 85–86). The price for that transgression was exile from the original state of perfect harmony, not only for the first parents but for all their descendants. The subsequent stain, which St. Thomas termed the vulneratio naturae (the "wound of nature"), left all humans susceptible to the inclination to sin. The dire consequence of original sin, Beatrice explains, was that Adam, "damning himself, damned all his progeny" (Par. VII, 27).

In the opening scene of the Inferno, the pilgrim embodies the fallen human condition. Like all humans since the Fall, he is removed from that original union with the creator that was known only by Adam and Eve. If he is to regain that oneness, he must make the difficult journey back from the state of exile in which we find him at the beginning of the poem. In the prologue scene of the first canto, marked by its vague allegorical landscape so unlike the realistic landscape of Hell itself, we see a physical manifestation of the pilgrim's contaminated soul. In his effort to climb the hill that seems to promise liberation from the terror of the dark wood, the pilgrim is hindered not only by the three beasts that block his path, but also by the "stronger foot" (v. 30) that causes him to limp awkwardly up the hillside. We need not be concerned here with the many possible interpretations of both the hill and the "stronger foot"; in broad terms, it seems clear that the pilgrim's physical impediment suggests the "wound of nature" that he shares with all humans and which makes everyone on "the journey of our life" susceptible to sin, thus impeding their return to the God from which they were alienated by the sin of the first parents.

The pilgrim will succeed in his attempt to climb a hill, that of Purgatory, but not until he has first completed his journey down through the depths of Hell, where he will come face to face with the darkness of his own soul. His futile attempt to climb the hill in Inferno I is an ingenuous act of self-reliance motivated by pride and ignorance. The pride implicit in that act is the antithesis of the humility he must acquire if he is to return to God. His abortive attempt must fail because, according to Dante, it is an attempt to do what the Christian pilgrim cannot do on his own. Liberation from the contamination of sin can come only as a gift of divine grace, represented by the intervention, in Canto II, of the three heavenly ladies and the subsequent guidance of Virgil. The journey to redemption begins only when the pilgrim opens himself to accepting that intervention.

The humility required for the successful ascent to God will be attained through the pilgrim's descent into Hell, and it will be earned through the awareness gained on that descent of his own sinful inclination. At the outset the pilgrim is ignorant not only of the path that leads to truth but also of the terms of his human condition. He must first understand the inherent weakness of that human condition before he can hope to understand the God that created him. The first step toward acquiring the strength that will guide him away from sin and toward redemption must be an acknowledgment of his susceptibility to sin that defines him as a fallen human being.

The impediments that block his initial ascent — the three beasts and the "stronger foot" that figure the pilgrim's flawed condition — will not be overcome until the pilgrim reaches the top of the mountain of Purgatory. It is only then, after he has not only recognized but turned his back on sin, that Virgil will pronounce him free:

Now is your will upright, wholesome and free,
and not to heed its pleasure would be wrong:
I crown and miter you lord of yourself.
– (Purg. XXVII, 140–142)

During his ascent of the purgatorial mountain, the pilgrim bears visible signs of his inclination to sin. When he is about to pass through the gate of Purgatory, an angel inscribes on his forehead seven p's, representing the seven capital vices to be purged, and admonishes the pilgrim to purify himself:

Then with his sword he traced upon my brow the scars of seven P's. "Once entered here,
be sure you cleanse away these wounds," he said.

(Purg. IX, 112–114)

One by one, the seven p's will be erased as the pilgrim leaves each of the seven terraces of Purgatory.

If the pilgrim's initial condition in the prologue scene of Inferno I is a manifestation of the universal susceptibility to sin, and if his inclination to sin is visibly portrayed by the inscription and subsequent erasure of the seven p's in Purgatory, it is logical to ask how, or if. his susceptibility to sin is exhibited in his journey in the Inferno. Given the pilgrim's explicit participation in the process of purgation, is there a similar manifestation of his sinful nature as he makes his way through Hell? In other words, does the poet sustain the portrayal of his flawed protagonist once the narrative proper begins in Canto III of the Inferno?

Within the Inferno no visible sign comparable to the seven p's of the Purgatorio is borne by the pilgrim. The "stronger foot" that hinders him in the opening scene disappears along with the other allegorical markers of the first canto, such as the dark wood and the three beasts. That symbolic limp may be deemed by the poet to be inappropriate once the protagonist enters the concrete geographical reality of Hell, yet the moral and spiritual limitations indicated by the "stronger foot" cannot be left behind. Those limitations are, after all, the reason the journey is necessary.

The journey through Hell is at once a chronicle of the disorder and chaos loose in the world and an acknowledgment that the same disorder and chaos exist, in potentiality if not actuality, within the protagonist. His journey is, figuratively, a descent into the depths of his own soul, an encounter with the darkest reality of his own fallibility. Were it not so, were the pilgrim not to acknowledge his own weakness, his journey through Hell would be informative but not redemptive. Objective knowledge of sin might lead to a sense of moral righteousness in the pilgrim, but subjective awareness of his own capacity for wrongdoing is the necessary first step toward repentance.

The manner in which the poet depicts the pilgrim's acknowledgment of his fallibility and potential to sin is consistent with his portrayal of the sinners throughout the Inferno. One of the obvious marks of Dante's poetic genius is his ability to depict his sinners not as awkward allegorical representations of specific sins, but as compelling human beings. Dante's sinners engage the attention of the pilgrim, and of the reader, by their immediacy and believability; they act out their sins, they do not merely "represent" them. Similarly, the poet depicts the pilgrim's vulnerability to sin dramatically, not didactically, in the form of the pilgrim's mimetic response to the sinners he encounters. Beyond the gates of Hell. the vague sense of confusion and sinfulness suggested by the image of the dark wood in the opening scene becomes articulated in the specific sins encountered in the nine circles. What was, in the prologue scene, depicted as potentiality — the pilgrim's limp as a sign of wounded human nature — is, within Hell proper, portrayed as the fulfillment of that negative potentiality. The condemned are in Hell because they refused to find the way out of their own dark woods, succumbing instead to their vulnerability to sin as children of Adam.

The souls in Hell have chosen to turn away from the option of pursuing the Highest Good and by so doing have isolated themselves from God, shutting themselves off forever, because of their limited vision, from the possibilities of the infinite. While he is in this realm of limited vision, the pilgrim himself is contaminated by its atmosphere. Faced with the immediate drama of the sinful disposition of the shades in Hell, he temporarily shares in their contamination. It is in this way that the poet depicts the pilgrim's recognition of his own potentiality to sin, wherein lies his acquisition of humility.

This mimetic behavior will be evident in the Purgatorio as well. There, in addition to having the seven p's inscribed on his forehead, the pilgrim will imitate, in varying ways, the purgative process acted out by the penitent shades. Like the souls in the Antepurgatory, he is inclined to procrastinate; he is lulled by Casella's song (Canto II), captivated by Manfred's story (Canto III), and, like the indolent in Canto V, he is weary and sluggish. Like the proud, he walks with his head lowered; like the wrathful, he is deprived of his eyesight. In the Inferno, with its much greater variety of sin and punishment, the pilgrim's symbolic involvement in sin is more varied; it is at times verbal, at times visual, at times obvious, at times subtle. A few brief examples will have to suffice here to illustrate the nature of the pilgrim's mimetic behavior.

In Limbo (Canto IV) the pilgrim is greeted by the great classical poets — Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan — who, together with Virgil, accept him as one of them: "Greater honor still they deigned to grant me: / they welcomed me as one of their own group" (vv. 100–101). The pilgrim, here clearly functioning in his biographical role as the Florentine poet, is logically delighted by this honor, as he and his fellow poets walk and talk of "things that here are best kept silent" (v. 104). The privileged zone of Limbo that these poets and their fellow shades inhabit represents the most perfect human condition they could imagine. But as the pilgrim shares his thoughts with these great minds, for whom reason was the key to knowledge, he is forgetting that they will spend eternity in Limbo "cut off from hope" (v. 42), knowing as they now do that there is a higher truth that their rationality failed to comprehend. The pilgrim, unlike these shades, will move on, but for the moment he shares with them their limited vision of human existence.

(Continues…)

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Table of Contents

Preface, ix,
The INFERNO, translated by Mark Musa, 3,
Critical Essays,
Read It and (Don't) Weep: Textual Irony in the Inferno, BY LAWRENCE BALDASSARO, 253,
Dante's Beloved Yet Damned Virgil, BY GUY P. RAFFA, 266,
Inferno I: Breaking the Silence, BY DENISE HEILBRONN-GAINES, 286,
Dante's Inferno, Canto IV, BY AMILCARE A. IANNUCCI, 299,
Behold Francesca Who Speaks So Well (Inferno V), BY MARK MUSA, 310,
Iconographic Parody in Inferno XXI, BY CHRISTOPHER KLEINHENZ, 325,
Virgil and Dante as Mind-Readers (Inferno XXI and XXIII), BY ROBERT HOLLANDER, 340,
The Plot-Line of Myth in Dante's Inferno, BY RICARDO J. QUINONES, 353,
Hell as the Mirror Image of Paradise, BY JOAN M. FERRANTE, 367,
Dante in the Cinematic Mode: An Historical Survey of Dante Movies, BY JOHN P. WELLE, 381,
Selected Bibliography: Inferno, 397,
Contributors, 399,
Index, 401,