At the heart of Dante's poem is humanity's recognition of its sins and ascent to spiritual life and to God. According to the poet, in order to find peace of mind, it is necessary to go through all the circles of hell and renounce blessings, and atone for sins with suffering. Each of the three chapters of the poem includes 33 songs. “Hell”, “Purgatory” and “Paradise” are eloquent names of the parts that make up “ The Divine Comedy" A summary makes it possible to comprehend the main idea of the poem.
Dante Alighieri created the poem during the years of exile, shortly before his death. It is recognized in world literature as a brilliant creation. The author himself gave it the name “Comedy”. In those days it was customary to call any work that had a happy ending. Boccaccio called it “Divine”, thus giving it the highest rating.
Dante's poem "The Divine Comedy", a summary of which schoolchildren study in the 9th grade, is difficult to comprehend modern teenagers. A detailed analysis of some songs cannot give a complete picture of the work, especially taking into account today’s attitude towards religion and human sins. However, acquaintance, albeit only a review, with Dante’s work is necessary to create a complete understanding of world fiction.
"The Divine Comedy". Summary of the chapter "Hell"
The main character of the work is Dante himself, to whom the shadow appears famous poet Virgil’s proposal to travel through Dante is at first doubtful, but agrees after Virgil informs him that Beatrice (the author’s beloved, long dead by that time) asked the poet to become his guide.
Path characters starts from hell. Before entering it there are pitiful souls who during their lifetime did neither good nor evil. The Acheron River flows outside the gates, through which Charon transports the dead. The heroes are approaching the circles of hell:
Having gone through all the circles of hell, Dante and his companion went up and saw the stars.
"The Divine Comedy". Brief summary of the part "Purgatory"
The main character and his guide end up in purgatory. Here they are met by the guard Cato, who sends them to the sea to wash themselves. The companions go to the water, where Virgil washes the soot of the underworld from Dante’s face. At this time, a boat sails up to the travelers, ruled by an angel. He lands on shore the souls of the dead who did not go to hell. With them, the heroes travel to the mountain of purgatory. On the way, they meet Virgil's fellow countryman, the poet Sordello, who joins them.
Dante falls asleep and in his sleep is transported to the gates of purgatory. Here the angel writes seven letters on the poet’s forehead, indicating the Hero goes through all the circles of purgatory, cleansing himself of sins. After completing each circle, the angel erases the letter of the overcome sin from Dante’s forehead. On the last lap, the poet must pass through the flames of fire. Dante is afraid, but Virgil convinces him. The poet passes the test by fire and goes to heaven, where Beatrice is waiting for him. Virgil falls silent and disappears forever. The beloved washes Dante in the sacred river, and the poet feels strength pouring into his body.
"The Divine Comedy". Summary of the part "Paradise"
Beloved ones ascend to heaven. To the surprise of the main character, he was able to take off. Beatrice explained to him that souls not burdened with sins are light. Lovers pass through all the heavenly skies:
- the first sky of the Moon, where the souls of nuns are located;
- the second - Mercury for ambitious righteous people;
- third - Venus, here the souls of the loving rest;
- the fourth - the Sun, intended for sages;
- fifth - Mars, which receives warriors;
- sixth - Jupiter, for just souls;
- the seventh is Saturn, where the souls of contemplators are located;
- the eighth - for the spirits of the great righteous;
- ninth - here are angels and archangels, seraphim and cherubim.
After ascending to the last heaven, the hero sees the Virgin Mary. She is among the shining rays. Dante raises his head up into the bright and blinding light and finds the highest truth. He sees divinity in its trinity.
In two greatest creations Dante Alighieri - “New Life” and in “The Divine Comedy” (see its summary) - carried out the same idea. Both of them are connected by the idea that pure love ennobles human nature, and knowledge of the frailty of sensory bliss brings a person closer to God. But “New Life” is only a series of lyrical poems, and “The Divine Comedy” presents a whole poem in three parts, containing up to one hundred songs, each of which contains about one hundred and forty verses.
In his early youth, Dante experienced passionate love for Beatrice, daughter of Fulco Portinari. He saved it until last days life, although he never managed to unite with Beatrice. Dante's love was tragic: Beatrice died at a young age, and after her death the great poet saw in her a transformed angel.
Dante Alighieri. Drawing by Giotto, 14th century
In his mature years, love for Beatrice began to gradually lose its sensual connotation for Dante, moving into a purely spiritual dimension. Healing from sensual passion was spiritual baptism for the poet. The Divine Comedy reflects this mental healing of Dante, his view of the present and the past, of his life and the lives of his friends, of art, science, poetry, Guelphs and Ghibellines, on political parties"black" and "white". In The Divine Comedy, Dante expressed how he looks at all this comparatively and in relation to the eternal moral principle of things. In “Hell” and “Purgatory” (he often calls the second “Mountain of Mercy”) Dante considers all phenomena only from the side of their external manifestation, from the point of view of state wisdom, personified by him in his “guide” - Virgil, i.e. points of view of law, order and law. In "Paradise" all the phenomena of heaven and earth are presented in the spirit of contemplation of the deity or the gradual transformation of the soul, by which the finite spirit merges with the infinite nature of things. Beatrice transformed, symbol divine love, eternal mercy and true knowledge of God, leads him from one sphere to another and leads him to God, where there is no more limited space.
Such poetry might seem like a purely theological treatise if Dante had not peppered his journey through the world of ideas with living images. The meaning of the “Divine Comedy”, where the world and all its phenomena are described and depicted, and the allegory carried out is only slightly indicated, was very often reinterpreted when analyzing the poem. Under clearly allegorical images They understood either the struggle between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, or politics, the vices of the Roman Church, or in general the events of modern history. This best proves how far Dante was from the empty play of fantasy and how careful he was to drown out poetry under allegory. It is desirable that his commentators be as careful as he himself when analyzing the Divine Comedy.
Monument to Dante in Piazza Santa Croce in Florence
Dante's Inferno - analysis
“I think that for your own good you should follow me. I will show the way and lead you through the lands of eternity, where you will hear cries of despair, see mournful shadows that lived on earth before you, calling for the death of the soul after the death of the body. Then you will also see others rejoicing in the midst of the purifying flame, because they hope to gain access to the dwelling of the blessed. If you wish to ascend to this dwelling, then a soul that is more worthy than mine will lead you there. It will remain with you when I leave. By the will of the supreme ruler, I, who never knew his laws, was not allowed to show the way to his city. The whole universe obeys him, even his kingdom is there. There is his chosen city (sua città), there stands his throne above the clouds. Oh, blessed are those who are sought by him!
According to Virgil, Dante will have to experience in “Hell”, not in words, but in deeds, all the misery of a person who has fallen away from God, and see all the futility of earthly greatness and ambition. To do this, the poet depicts in the “Divine Comedy” an underground kingdom, where he combines everything he knows from mythology, history and his own experience about man’s violation of the moral law. Dante populates this kingdom with people who have never strived to achieve through labor and struggle a pure and spiritual existence, and divides them into circles, showing by their relative distance from each other various degrees sins. These circles of Hell, as he himself says in the eleventh canto, personify Aristotle’s moral teaching (ethics) about man’s deviation from the divine law.
The Mystery of Time: When Dante's Famous Journey Began
Dante timed his journey to the afterlife to coincide with 1300. This is evidenced by several clues left by the poet in the text. Let's start with the obvious: the first line of The Divine Comedy - "Having crossed the border of mature years ..." - means that the author is 35 years old.
Dante believed that human life lasts only 70 years, as written in the 89th Psalm (“The days of our years are seventy years, and with great strength, eighty years”), and it was important for the poet to indicate that half of his life path he passed. And since he was born in 1265, the year of his journey to Hell can easily be calculated.
The exact month of this campaign is suggested to researchers by astronomical data scattered throughout the poem. So, already in the first song we learn about “constellations with uneven, gentle light.” This is the constellation "Aries", in which the sun is located in the spring. Further clarifications give every reason to assert that the lyrical hero ends up in the “dark forest” on the night from Holy Thursday to Friday (April 7 to 8) in 1300. On the evening of Good Friday he descends into Hell.
The mystery of the fallen: pagan gods, heroes and monsters in Christian Hell
In the underworld, Dante often meets mythological creatures: in Limbo, the mediator and carrier is Charon, the guard of the second circle is the legendary King Minos, the gluttons in the third circle are guarded by Cerberus, the stingy are guarded by Plutos, and the angry and despondent are Phlegias, the son of Ares. Electra, Hector and Aeneas, Helen the Beautiful, Achilles and Paris are tormented in different circles of Dante's Hell. Among the pimps and seducers, Dante sees Jason, and among the ranks of crafty advisers - Ulysses.
Why does the poet need all of them? The simplest explanation is that in Christian culture former gods turned into demons, which means their place is in Hell. The tradition of associating paganism with evil spirits has taken hold not only in Italy. The Catholic Church had to convince the people of the inconsistency of the previous religion, and preachers from all countries actively convinced people that all the ancient gods and heroes were adherents of Lucifer.
However, there is also a more complex implication. In the seventh circle of Hell, where rapists suffer torment, Dante meets the Minotaur, harpies and centaurs. The dual nature of these creatures is an allegory of sin, for which the inhabitants of the seventh circle suffer, the bestial nature in their character. Associations with animals in The Divine Comedy very rarely have a positive connotation.
Encrypted biography: what can you learn about the poet by reading “Hell”?
Quite a lot, actually. Despite the monumentality of the work, on the pages of which famous historical figures, Christian saints and legendary heroes appear, Dante did not forget about himself. To begin with, he fulfilled the promise made in his first book, “New Life,” where he promised to say about Beatrice “something that has never been said about anyone else.” By creating The Divine Comedy, he truly made his beloved a symbol of love and light.
The presence in the text of Saint Lucia, the patroness of people suffering from eye disease, says something about the poet. Having experienced vision problems early on, Dante prayed to Lucia, which explains the appearance of the saint along with the Virgin Mary and Beatrice. By the way, note that Mary's name is not mentioned in "Hell", it appears only in "Purgatory".
The poem also contains references to individual episodes from the life of its author. In the fifth song, the lyrical hero meets a certain Chacko, a glutton who is in a stinking swamp. The poet sympathizes with the unfortunate man, for which he reveals the future to him and talks about his exile. Dante began working on The Divine Comedy in 1307, after the “Black Guelphs” came to power and were expelled from their native Florence. In fairness, we note that Chacko talks not only about the misfortunes awaiting him personally, but also about the entire political fate of the city-republic.
A very little-known episode is mentioned in the nineteenth song, when the author talks about a broken jug:
Everywhere, along the riverbed and along the slopes,
I saw an innumerable series
Round holes in grayish stone.
<...>
I, saving a boy from suffering,
Recently, one of them was broken...
Perhaps with this digression Dante wanted to explain his actions, which may have led to a scandal, because the vessel he broke was filled with holy water!
TO biographical facts It can also be attributed to the fact that Dante placed his personal enemies in “Hell”, even though some of them were still alive in 1300. So, among the sinners, there was Venedico dei Caccianemichi - the famous political figure, leader of the Bolognese Guelphs. Dante neglected chronology only in order to take revenge on his enemy, at least in a poem.
Among the sinners clinging to Phlegius' boat is Filippo Argenti, a wealthy Florentine who also belongs to the family of the "Black Guelphs" party, an arrogant and wasteful man. In addition to the Divine Comedy, Argenti is also mentioned in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron.
The poet did not spare his father best friend Guido - Cavalcante dei Cavalcanti, Epicurean and Atheist. For his convictions, he was sent to the sixth circle.
The riddle of numbers: the structure of the poem as a reflection of the medieval worldview
If we ignore the text and look at the structure of the entire “Divine Comedy”, we will see that much in its structure is connected with the number “three”: three chapters - “cantics”, thirty-three songs in each of them (added to “Hell” another prologue), the entire poem is written in three-line stanzas - terzas. Such a strict composition is due to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the special meaning of this number in Christian culture.
Dante Alighieri Add to favorites Add to favorites
The Divine Comedy, Dante's crowning work, began to emerge when the great poet had just experienced his exile from Florence. "Hell" was conceived around 1307 and was created during three years of wandering. This was followed by the composition “Purgatory,” in which Beatrice occupied a special place (the poet’s entire work is dedicated to her).
And in last years life of the creator, when Dante lived in Verona and Ravenna, “Paradise” was written. The plot basis of the vision poem was the afterlife journey - a favorite motif of medieval literature, which received its artistic transformation under the pen of Dante.
Once upon a time, the ancient Roman poet Virgil depicted the descent of the mythological 3ney into the underworld, and now Dante takes the author of the famous “Aeneid” as his guide through hell and purgatory. The poem is called a “comedy”, and unlike the tragedy, it begins anxiously and gloomily, but ends with a happy ending.
In one of the songs of "Paradise" Dante called his creation " sacred poem”, and after the death of its author, descendants gave it the name “Divine Comedy”.
In this article we will not outline the content of the poem, but will dwell on some features of its artistic originality and poetics.
It is written in terzas, that is, three-line stanzas in which the first verse rhymes with the third, and the second with the first and third lines of the next terza. The poet relies on Christian eschatology and the doctrine of hell and heaven, but with his creation he significantly enriches these ideas.
In collaboration with Virgil, Dante steps beyond the threshold of a deep abyss, above the gates of which he reads the ominous inscription: “Abandon hope, all who enter here.” But despite this grim warning, the satellites continue their march. They will soon be surrounded by crowds of shadows, which will be especially interesting for Dante, since they were once people. And for a creator born of a new time, man is the most fascinating object of knowledge.
Having crossed the hellish river Acheron in Heron's boat, the companions end up in Limbo, where the shadows of the great pagan poets count Dante among their circle, declaring him sixth after Homer, Virgil, Horace, Ovid and Lucan.
One of the remarkable signs of the poetics of a great creation is the rare recreation artistic space, and within its limits - the poetic landscape, that component that did not exist in European literature before Dante. Under the pen of the creator of The Divine Comedy, the forest, the swampy steppe, the icy lake, and steep cliffs were recreated.
Dante's landscapes are characterized, firstly, by bright depiction, secondly, permeation with light, thirdly, their lyrical coloring, and fourthly, natural variability.
If we compare the description of the forest in “Hell” and “Purgatory”, we will see how the terrible, frightening picture of it in the first songs is replaced by a joyful, bright image, permeated with the green of the trees and the blue of the air. The landscape in the poem is extremely laconic: “The day was passing, And the dark air of the sky / The earthly creatures were led to sleep.” He reminds me a lot earthly pictures, which is facilitated by detailed comparisons:
Like a peasant, resting on a hill, -
When he hides his gaze for a while
The one by whom the earthly country is illuminated,
and mosquitoes, replacing flies, circle, -
Sees the valley full of fireflies
Where he reaps, where he cuts grapes.
This landscape is usually inhabited by people, shadows, animals or insects, as in this example.
Another significant component in Dante is the portrait. Thanks to the portrait, people or their shadows turn out to be alive, colorful, vividly conveyed, and full of drama. We see the faces and figures of giants sitting chained in stone wells, we peer into facial expressions, gestures and movements former people who came to the afterlife from ancient world; we contemplate both mythological characters and Dante’s contemporaries from his native Florence.
The portraits sketched by the poet are distinguished by their plasticity, which means they are tactile. Here is one of the memorable images:
He carried me to Minos, who, entwining me
The tail eight times around the mighty back,
Even biting him out of anger,
Said …
The spiritual movement reflected in the self-portrait of Dante himself is also distinguished by great expressiveness and vital truth:
So I rose up, with the courage of grief;
The fear in my heart was decisively crushed,
And I answered, boldly saying...
In the external appearance of Virgil and Beatrice there is less drama and dynamics, but the attitude of Dante himself towards them, who worships them and loves them passionately, is full of expression.
One of the features of the poetics of the Divine Comedy is the abundance and significance of numbers in it, which have a symbolic meaning. A symbol is a special kind of sign, which already in its external form contains the content of the representation it reveals. Like allegory and metaphor, a symbol forms a transference of meaning, but unlike these tropes, it is endowed with a huge variety of meanings.
A symbol, according to A.F. Losev, has meaning not in itself, but as an arena for the meeting of known constructions of consciousness with one or another possible object of this consciousness. The above also applies to the symbolism of numbers with their frequent repetition and variation. Researchers of literature of the Middle Ages (S.S. Mokulsky, M.N. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, N.G. Elina, G.V. Stadnikov, O.I. Fetodov, etc.) noted the huge role of number as a measure of things in the “Divine Comedy” » Dante. This is especially true for the numbers 3 and 9 and their derivatives.
However, when talking about these numbers, researchers usually see their meaning only in the composition, the architectonics of the poem and its stanza (three edges, 33 songs in each part, 99 songs in total, three times repetition of the word stelle, the role of the xxx song of “Purgatory” as a story about the poet's meeting with Beatrice, three-line stanzas).
Meanwhile, the entire system of images of the poem, its narration and descriptions, the disclosure of plot details and detailing, style and language are subordinated to mystical symbolism, in particular the trinity.
The trinity is revealed in the episode of Dante’s ascent to the hill of salvation, where he is prevented by three animals (the lynx is a symbol of voluptuousness; the lion is a symbol of power and pride; the she-wolf is the embodiment of greed and selfishness), while depicting the Limbo of Hell, where the creatures reside three kinds(the souls of the Old Testament righteous, the souls of infants who died without baptism, and the souls of all virtuous non-Christians).
Next we see three famous Trojans (Electra, Hector and Aeneas), a three-headed monster - Cerberus (having the features of a demon, a dog and a man). Lower Hell, consisting of three circles, is inhabited by three furies (Tisiphone, Megara and Electo), three gorgon sisters. 3 Here three ledges are shown - steps representing three vices (malice, violence and deception). The seventh circle is divided into three concentric zones: they are notable for their reproduction of three forms of violence.
In the next song, we, together with Dante, notice how “three shadows suddenly separated”: these are three Florentine sinners who “all three ran in a ring” when they found themselves on fire. Next, the poets see three instigators of bloody strife, the three-body and three-headed Geryon and the three-peaked Lucifer, from whose mouth three traitors (Judas, Brutus and Cassius) stick out. Even individual items in Dante's world they contain the number 3.
So, in one of the three coats of arms there are three black goats, in the florins there are 3 carats of copper mixed in. The tripartite pattern is observed even in the syntax of the phrase (“Hecuba, in grief, in distress, in captivity”).
We see a similar trinity in “Purgatory”, where the angels have three lights (wings, clothes and faces). Three holy virtues are mentioned here (Faith, Hope, Love), three stars, three bas-reliefs, three artists (Franco, Cimabue and Giotto), three types of love, three eyes of Wisdom, which looks at the past, present and future with them.
A similar phenomenon is observed in “Paradise”, where three virgins (Mary, Rachel and Beatrice) sit in the amphitheater, forming geometric triangle. The second song tells of three blessed wives (including Lucia) and speaks of three eternal creatures
(heaven, earth and angels).
Three generals of Rome are mentioned here, the victory of Scipio Africanus over Hannibal at the age of 33, the battle of “three against three” (three Horatii against three Curiatians), the third (after Caesar) Caesar, three angelic ranks, three lilies in the coat of arms of the French dynasty.
The named number becomes one of the complex adjective definitions (“triple-shaped” fruit,” “triune God”) and is included in the structure of metaphors and comparisons.
What explains this trinity? Firstly, the teaching of the Catholic Church about the existence of three forms of other existence (hell, purgatory and heaven). Secondly, the symbolization of the Trinity (with its three hypostases), the most important Christian teaching. Thirdly, the influence of the chapter of the Templar Order, where numerical symbolism was of paramount importance, had an impact. Fourthly, as the philosopher and mathematician P.A. Florensky showed in his works “The Pillar and Statement of Truth” and “Imaginary in Geometry”, trinity is the most general characteristic of being.
The number “three,” the thinker wrote. manifests itself everywhere as some basic category of life and thinking. These are, for example, the three main categories of time (past, present and future), the three-dimensionality of space, the presence of three grammatical persons, the minimum size of a complete family (father, mother and child), (thesis, antithesis and synthesis), the three main coordinates of the human psyche (mind , will and feelings), the simplest expression of asymmetry in integers (3 = 2 + 1).
There are three phases of development in a person’s life (childhood, adolescence and adolescence or youth, maturity and old age). Let us also recall the aesthetic pattern that encourages creators to create a triptych, a trilogy, three portals in a Gothic cathedral (for example, Notre Dame in Paris), build three tiers on the facade (ibid.), three parts of an arcade, divide the walls of the naves into three parts, etc. d. Dante took all this into account when creating his model of the universe in the poem.
But in the “Divine Comedy”, subordination is revealed not only to the number 3, but also to the number 7, another magical symbol in Christianity. Let us remember that the duration of Dante’s unusual journey is 7 days, they begin on the 7th and end on April 14 (14 = 7+7). Canto IV remembers Jacob serving Laban for 7 years and then another 7 years.
In the thirteenth song of “Hell,” Minos sends the soul to the “seventh abyss.” Song XIV mentions 7 kings who besieged Thebes, and song XX mentions Tiriseus, who experienced the transformation into a woman and then - after 7 years - the reverse metamorphosis from woman to man.
The week is most thoroughly reproduced in “Purgatory,” where 7 circles (“seven kingdoms”) and seven stripes are shown; here it talks about seven deadly sins (seven “R” on the forehead of the hero of the poem), seven choirs, seven sons and seven daughters of Niobe; a mystical procession with seven lamps is reproduced, 7 virtues are characterized.
And in “Paradise” the seventh radiance of the planet Saturn, the seven star of the Big Dipper, is conveyed; speaks of the seven heavens of the planets (Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) in accordance with the cosmogonic concepts of the era.
This preference for the week is explained by the prevailing ideas in Dante’s time about the presence of seven deadly sins (pride, envy, anger, despondency, avarice, gluttony and voluptuousness), about the desire for seven virtues, which are acquired through purification in the corresponding part of the afterlife.
Life observations of the seven colors of the rainbow and the seven stars of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the seven days of the week, etc. also had an impact.
Played an important role biblical stories, associated with the seven days of the creation of the world, Christian legends, for example, about the seven sleeping youths, ancient stories about the seven wonders of the world, seven wise men, seven cities arguing for the honor of being the birthplace of Homer, about seven fighting against Thebes. Images had an impact on consciousness and thinking
ancient folklore, numerous tales about seven heroes, proverbs such as “seven troubles - one answer”, “there is room for seven, but cramped space for two”, sayings like “seven spans in the forehead”, “sipping jelly seven miles away”, “a book with seven seals” ", "seven sweats came off."
All this is reflected in literary works. For comparison, let’s take later examples: playing with the number “seven”. In “The Legend of Ulenspiege” by S. de Coster and especially in Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” (with its seven wanderers,
seven eagle owls, seven big trees and etc.). We find a similar effect in the presentation of the magic and symbolism of the number 7 in the Divine Comedy.
The number 9 also acquires a symbolic meaning in the poem. After all, this is the number of the celestial spheres. In addition, at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, there was a cult of nine fearless ones: Hector, Caesar, Alexander, Joshua, David, Judah Maccabee, Arthur, Charlemagne and Godfrey of Bouillon.
It is no coincidence that there are 99 songs in the poem, before the pinnacle xxx song “Purgatory” there are 63 songs (6+3=9), and after it there are 36 songs (3+6=9). It is curious that the name Beatrice is mentioned 63 times in the poem. The addition of these two numbers (6+3) also forms 9. And this special name - Beatrice - rhymes 9 times. It is noteworthy that V. Favorsky, when creating a portrait of Dante, placed a huge number 9 above his manuscript, thereby emphasizing its symbolic and magical role in the “New Life” and “The Divine Comedy”.
As a result, numerical symbolism helps to consolidate the framework of the “Divine Comedy” with its multi-layered and multi-populated nature.
It contributes to the birth of poetic “discipline” and harmony, forms a rigid “mathematical structure”, saturated with the brightest imagery, ethical richness and deep philosophical meaning.
Dante's immortal creation amazes with its very frequently encountered metaphors. Their abundance is closely related to the peculiarities of the poet’s worldview and artistic thinking.
Starting from the concept of the Universe, which was based on the Ptolemaic system, from Christian eschatology and ideas about hell, purgatory and heaven, confronting the tragic darkness and the bright light of the afterlife, Dante had to broadly and at the same time succinctly recreate worlds full of acute contradictions, contrasts and antinomies, containing a grandiose encyclopedic knowledge, their comparisons, connections and their synthesis. Therefore, movements, transfers and rapprochements of compared objects and phenomena became natural and logical in the poetics of “comedy”.
To solve the given problems, a metaphor was best suited, connecting the concreteness of reality and the poetic imagination of man, bringing together the phenomena of the cosmic world, nature, objective world and the spiritual life of a person according to similarity and relatedness to each other. This is why the language of the poem is so powerfully based on metaphorization, which contributes to the knowledge of life.
The metaphors in the text of the three cantikas are unusually diverse. Being poetic paths, they often carry significant philosophical meaning, as, for example, “a hemisphere of darkness” And “enmity rages” (in “Hell”), “pleasure rings”, “souls rise” (in “Purgatory”) or “the morning flared up” and “the song rang” (in “Paradise” "). These metaphors combine different semantic plans, but at the same time each of them creates a single indissoluble image.
Showing the afterlife as a frequently encountered plot in medieval literature, using theological dogma and conversational style as necessary, Dante sometimes introduces commonly used linguistic metaphors into his text
(“the heart is warmed”, “his eyes are fixed”, “Mars is burning”, “the thirst to speak”, “the waves are beating”, “a golden ray”, “the day has passed”, etc.).
But much more often the author uses poetic metaphors, characterized by novelty and great expression, so essential in the poem. They reflect the variety of fresh impressions of the “first poet of the New Age” and are designed to awaken the reconstructive and creative imagination of readers.
These are the phrases “the depth howls”, “crying hit me”, “a roar broke in” (in “Hell”), “the firmament rejoices”, “the smile of the rays” (in “Purgatory”), “I want to ask for light”, “the labor of nature "(in "Paradise").
True, sometimes we encounter an amazing combination of old ideas and new views. In the juxtaposition of two judgments (“art... God’s grandson” and “art... follows nature”) we are faced with a paradoxical combination of traditional reference to the Divine principle and the interweaving of truths, previously learned and newly discovered, characteristic of “comedy”.
But it is important to emphasize that the above metaphors are distinguished by their ability to enrich concepts, enliven the text, compare similar phenomena, transfer names by analogy, contrast the direct and figurative meanings of the same word (“crying”, “smile”, “art”), identify the main, permanent feature of the characterized object.
In Dante’s metaphor, as in comparison, features (“overle” and “picks”) are compared or contrasted, but comparative connectives (conjunctions “as,” “as if,” “as if”) are absent in it. Instead of a binary comparison, a single, tightly fused image appears (“the light is silent,” “screams fly up,” “the prayer of the eyes,” “the sea beats,” “enter my chest,” “running in four circles”).
The metaphors found in the “Divine Comedy” can be divided into three main groups depending on the nature of the relationship between cosmic and natural objects and living beings. The first group includes personifying metaphors, in which cosmic and natural phenomena, objects and abstract concepts are likened to the properties of animate beings.
These are Dante’s “a welcoming spring ran,” “earthly flesh called,” “the sun will show,” “vanity will turn away,” “the sun lights up.” etc. The second group should include metaphors (for the author of the “comedy” these are “splashing hands”, “formation of towers”, “mountain shoulders”, “Virgil is a bottomless spring”, “beacon of love”, “sign of embarrassment”, “fetters”) evil").
In these cases, the properties of living beings are likened natural phenomena or objects. The third group consists of metaphors that unite multidirectional comparisons (“the face of truth”, “words bring help”, “the light shone through”, “a wave of hair”, “the thought will disappear”, “the evening has fallen”, “the distances are on fire”, etc.).
It is important for the reader to see that in the phrases of all groups there is often an author’s assessment, which allows one to see Dante’s attitude to the phenomena he captures. Everything that has to do with truth, freedom, honor, light, he certainly welcomes and approves (“he will taste honor”, “the shine has grown wonderfully”, “the light of truth”).
The metaphors of the author of the “Divine Comedy” convey various properties of the captured objects and phenomena: their shape (“the circle lies at the top”), color (“accumulated color,” “black air torments”), sounds (“a roar burst in,” “the chant will rise,” “the rays are silent”) the location of parts (“into the depths of my slumber”, “the heel of the cliff”) lighting (“the dawn has overcome”, “the gaze of the luminaries”, “the light calms the firmament”), the action of an object or phenomena (“the lamp rises”, “ the mind soars", "the story flows").
Dante uses metaphors of different designs and composition: simple, consisting of one word (“petrified”); forming phrases (the one who moves the universe, “a flame that fell from the clouds”): expanded (metaphor of the forest in the first song of “Hell”).
5 (100%) 2 votesWhen, in fact, the first songs of the Divine Comedy were written, it is impossible to determine exactly. Based on some evidence, it is believed that it was probably around 1313. The first two parts of the poem - “Hell” and “Purgatory” - were known to the public during the lifetime of their creator, and “Paradise” became known only after Dante’s death.
The name "Comedy" was given to his poem by Dante himself. This did not mean belonging to dramatic genre, in the time of Dante, a comedy was a work that begins tragically but ends happily. The epithet “Divine” - “Divina commedia” was added by admiring posterity later, in the 16th century, not because of the content of the poem, but as a designation of the highest degree of perfection of Dante’s great work. The Divine Comedy does not belong to any specific genre (although there is debate about its genre: it is considered a vision, a poem), it is a completely original, one-of-a-kind mixture of all elements various directions poetry.
Dante's contribution to the Divine Comedy and to the national written language of Italy is enormous. After all, this work was not written in living Italian, and not in Latin.
The Divine Comedy consists of one hundred songs and contains 14,230 verses.
In the middle of his life, that is, at the age of 35 (thus, the time of the vision is attributed by the poet to 1300, when he was a prior), Dante says, he got lost in the forest of life. The poet fell asleep and cannot explain to himself how he got into this wild, gloomy and impenetrable forest. Frightened, he decides to get out of there. In front of him is the base of a mountain, the top of which is illuminated by the rays of the rising sun. Dante prepares to climb the desert steepness and heads towards the mountain. The leopard, then the lion and finally the she-wolf, especially the last one, crossing his path, fill his heart with mortal fear, so that he hurries to return to the dark valley. Here someone appears before him in the form of a man, or rather, a light shadow: this is Virgil, that Virgil who was for Dante the greatest poet of antiquity, teacher and mentor. Dante turns to him with a prayer, and Virgil teaches him, tells him about harmful properties the she-wolf and about her evil disposition, that she will cause much more harm and misfortune to people until she appears hound dog, veltro, which will drive her back to Hell, from where Satan's envy unleashed her on the world. Then Virgil explains to the poet that to get out of these wilds he must choose another path, and promises to lead him through Hell and the land of repentance to the top of the sunny hill, “where a soul worthy of me will meet you; I’ll hand you over to her and leave,” he ends his speech. But Dante hesitates until Virgil tells him that he has been sent by Beatrice. Now the poet follows Virgil, his mentor and leader, to the threshold of the Earthly Paradise and descends with him to Hell, where he reads a terrible inscription above the gates: “Lasciate ogni speranza voi qu" entrate” (“Leave all hope for those who enter here”). Here, on the eve of Hell, in starless space, weeping and groaning are heard - here people suffer, “insignificant on earth”, those who have not sinned and were not virtuous - indifferent, that sad race that lived “without blasphemy and the glory of existence.”
Among them are Pope Celestine V, who “out of baseness rejected the great gift,” that is, renounced the papal tiara thanks to the machinations of his successor Boniface VIII, and “unworthy angels who, without betraying God, were not his faithful servants and thought only about to yourself." The torment of these “indifferent” people consists in the continuous torment of them by winged insects. But their main suffering is the consciousness of their own insignificance: they were rejected forever by “the Lord and the enemy, waging strife with Him.”
Having crossed the Acheron, Dante and his mentor enter into first circle of Hell. Here there is “deep sorrow without torment,” since here are people who are virtuous, but not enlightened by Christianity, who lived before the coming of Christ. They are condemned to "eternal desire, not refreshed by hope." Separately from them, behind a tower surrounded by seven walls and a beautiful river, into which seven gates lead, is the residence, among greenery and in the light of the sun, of famous poets, scientists and heroes of antiquity. Here is Virgil, and with him Homer, Horace, Ovid, Lucan, forming a special circle, and further, in a flowery meadow, Dante sees Aeneas, Caesar, Aristotle, Socrates, Plato...
Second the circle of Hell is a region where the air itself trembles. The entrance to it is guarded by Minos, “the knower of all sins”; he examines sins at the entrance and sends sinners, according to their offenses, to their proper circle. Here weeping is heard, here there is a complete absence of daylight, “as if struck by dumbness.” In this circle those who are carried away by sensual love are executed, and their torment is a continuous whirlwind in a hellish whirlwind. Dante sees Semiramis, Cleopatra, Helen, Achilles and others here. Here he meets Paolo and Francesca da Rimini, and the latter’s touching story about her love and misfortune amazes him so much that he falls unconscious.
The vortex of the second circle produces perpetual rain mixed with hail and snow; there is a stench in the air - it's third circle. Here the gluttons are punished, and in addition to everything, they are tormented by Cerberus, “a fierce, ugly beast,” who, “seizing the evil ones, tears off their skin.”
IN fourth spendthrifts, covetous people and misers are placed in a circle; they roll huge weights, collide, shower each other with abuse and again begin their hard work.
The shower of the third circle forms a stream, which in fifth circle spills into a lake of stagnant water and forms the stinking swamp of Styx, surrounding the hellish city of Dit. Here the angry suffer; they kick each other, head, chest and tear each other with their teeth, and the envious ones are immersed in swamp mud and constantly choke in it. At the edge of the swamp, there is a tower, on top of which three Furies appear and show Dante the head of Medusa in order to turn him into stone. But Virgil protects the poet, covering his eyes with his hand. Following this, thunder is heard: the messenger of heaven passes through the Styx with dry soles across the stinking swamp. The sight of him tames the demons, and they freely allow Virgil and Dante into the gates of the hellish city of Dita.
The surrounding area of this city is sixth circle. Here before us are vast fields, “full of sorrow and severe torment,” and everywhere there are open graves, from which flames snake. Materialists who preached the death of the spirit along with the body, who doubted the immortality of the soul, as well as heretics and spreaders of heresy are burning here in eternal fire.
Along a steep cliff, the poet and his leader approach an abyss from which unbearably foul fumes rush and which is guarded by the Minotaur. This seventh a circle designed to torture those responsible for violence; it consists of three belts. In the first, which is a wide ditch filled with blood, the “strong lands” languish, encroaching on the lives and property of people, tyrants and generally murderers, guilty of violence against their neighbors. Centaurs armed with bows run back and forth along the bank of the moat and shoot arrows at the one who rises from bloody waves more than the extent of his sins allows. In the second belt of the seventh circle, those guilty of violence against themselves, that is, suicides, are punished. They have been turned into poisonous and gnarled trees with leaves that are not green, but some gray, gloomy color. Disgusting harpies have built their nests in the branches of the trees, tearing and eating their leaves. This terrible forest, a forest of unspeakable sorrow, surrounds the steppe, covered with combustible and dry sands, the third belt of the seventh circle. Slowly but tirelessly the fiery rain is falling here. Here is the place of execution of sinners guilty of violence against God, who rejected His holy name in their hearts and insulted nature and its gifts. Some of the sinners lie prostrate, others sit crouched, others walk continuously, and without rest, “their poor hands rush here and there, throwing away the fiery drops that constantly fall on them.” Here the poet meets his teacher Brunetto Latini. Following this steppe, Dante and Virgil reach the Phlegethon River, the waves of which are terribly crimson, bloody in color, and the bottom and banks are completely petrified. It flows to the lower part of Hell, where it forms Cocytus, the icy lake of the Giudecca. Like other hellish rivers, the Phlegethon receives its origin from the tears of the statue of Time, erected from various metals and towering on the island of Crete.
But here it is eighth circle. Our travelers descend there on Geryon, the personification of deception and lies, a winged monster who, according to legend, attracted strangers to his house with friendly words and then killed them.
The eighth circle is called "Evil Ditches"; there are ten of them; Various types of deception are punished here. In the first of these ditches, horned demons (note that this is the only place where Dante’s devils are horned) mercilessly scourge the seducers. In the second, the flatterers scream and moan, hopelessly immersed in liquid, stinking mud. The third ditch is occupied by the Simonists, who traded in holy things, deceiving superstitiously ignorant people. Sinners in this category suffer terribly: they have their heads buried in disgusting pits, their legs stick up and are constantly burned by flames. The poet placed many popes here, including Nicholas III, and Boniface VIII was also given a place here. In the fourth ditch, people walk silently, in tears, each of whom has his face turned to his back, as a result of which they must back away because they cannot see anything in front of them. These are the magicians, soothsayers, etc.: “Because they want to look too far ahead, they now look back and move backwards.” Bribe-takers, corrupt people are placed in the fifth ditch, where they are immersed in a lake of boiling tar. In the sixth, hypocrites are executed. Shrouded in monastic robes, dazzling with gold on the outside and leaden and unbearably heavy on the inside, with the same hoods hanging over their eyes, they walk silently and weeping with quiet steps, as if in a procession. The seventh ditch, where thieves are tormented, is filled with a terrible number of snakes, between which sinners run back and forth in horror. Their hands are tied behind their backs with snakes; snakes bite into their thighs, swirl around their chests and subject them to various transformations. In the eighth trench, evil and crafty advisers rush about, imprisoned in tongues of fire that devour them. Ulysses, who was executed here, set off into the open ocean and penetrated far, but a storm destroyed his ship and sank him and all his comrades. In the ninth trench are placed the sowers of temptation, schism, and all kinds of discord, political and family. The demon, armed with a sharp sword, subjects them to terrible and varied cuts; but the wounds immediately heal, the bodies are subjected to new blows - and there is no end to these Promethean torments. But here is the last, tenth ditch of the eighth circle: here people who have encroached on various forgeries are tormented; they are covered with terrible ulcers, and nothing can reduce or calm the fury of their scabies. Hell ends. Virgil and Dante approached a dark, cramped well, the walls of which were supported by giants. This is the bottom of the universe and at the same time the last - ninth- the circle of Hell, where the highest human crime is punished - treason. This circle is an icy lake consisting of four parts: Caina, Antenora, Tolomei and Giudecca. Those who betrayed their loved ones and relatives and encroached on the lives of these latter are placed in Cain (from Cain). In Antenora, named after the Trojan Antenor, who advised the enemies to bring a wooden horse into Troy, traitors to the fatherland are tormented; among them is Ugolino, who was placed here for the treacherous surrender of the fortress; he gnaws the head of his enemy, Archbishop Ruggeri, who starved him and his children to death. In Tolomei (named after the Egyptian king Ptolemy, who allegedly once invited his friends to dinner and killed them), those who betrayed their friends are tormented. They have their heads buried in the ice; “The tears they shed close the outcome of other tears, and grief flows back and increases languor, because the first tears freeze and, like a crystal visor, cover the sockets of the eyes.” Finally, in the fourth zone of the ninth circle, in Giudecca, traitors to Christ and the highest state power are executed. Here is the residence of Satan, “the lord of the kingdom of sorrow,” the creation of “once so beautiful.” He is immersed in ice up to half his chest. He has three faces and six huge wings; moving the latter, he produces a wind that freezes the waters of the entire ninth circle. With each mouth of his three faces he crushes one sinner. Judas, who betrayed Christ, is executed most severely, then Brutus and Cassius, who killed Caesar.
Along Lucifer's wool, Virgil and Dante descend to the center of the earth, and from here they begin to climb up the crevice. A little more, and they are outside the terrible kingdom of darkness; the stars began to sparkle above them again. They are at the foot of Mount Purgatory.
“In order to sail from this moment on the best waters, the boat of my genius spreads its sails and leaves such a stormy sea behind it.” With these words the second part of the poem begins, and immediately follows a wonderful description of the dawn, which forms a striking contrast with the picture of darkness at the entrance to Hell.
Purgatory has the appearance of a mountain, rising higher and higher and surrounded by eleven ledges, or circles. The guardian of Purgatory is the majestic shadow of Cato of Utica, who, in the eyes of Dante, personifies freedom of spirit, inner human freedom. Virgil asks the stern old man, in the name of freedom, which was so precious to him that for the sake of it he “gave up life,” to show the way to Dante, who walks everywhere, looking for this freedom. An airboat, controlled by a bright angel, “on whose brow is bliss inscribed,” brings souls to the foot of the mountain. But before entering Purgatory itself, one must go through, as it were, the threshold of it - four preliminary steps, where the souls of the lazy and careless reside, who wanted to repent, who realized their errors, but who kept postponing repentance and never had time to complete it. The stairs leading from one step to another are narrow and steep, but the higher our travelers rise, the easier and easier it is for them to climb. The steps have been completed; Dante - in a wonderful valley, where purifying souls sing hymns of praise. Two angels descend from heaven with flaming swords, the tips of which are broken off - an indication that a life of mercy and forgiveness begins here. Their wings and clothes are green, the color of hope. After this, the fallen Dante wakes up at the gates of Purgatory, where an angel stands with a naked and shining sword. With the tip of this sword, he writes P (peccato - sin) seven times on Dante’s forehead, thus letting him into Purgatory no longer as a passive person, in Hell, but as an active person, who also needs purification. The door is open. Virgil and Dante enter at the sound of the hymn. “Oh, how different these gates are from hell! - Dante exclaims. “They enter here at the sound of singing, there at the sound of terrible screams.”
Purgatory itself consists of seven circles: in each one one of the seven deadly sins is expiated. The proud move, bending under a heavy stone burden. The envious ones, with a deathly complexion, lean on one another and are all leaning together against a high rock; they are dressed in rough hair shirts, their eyelids are sewn together with wire. The wrathful wander in impenetrable darkness and thick stinking smoke; Lazy people run around all the time. The stingy and wasteful, who had attachment only to earthly goods, lie prone on the ground, with hands tied. Gluttons, terribly thin, with colorless eyes, experience the torment of Tantalus: they walk near a tree laden with juicy fruits and spreading its branches over a fresh spring, the waters of which fall from high mountain, and at the same time suffer hunger and thirst, those carried away by sensual love atone for their sin in the flame, which, coming from the mountain, showers them with its tongues, is thrown back by the wind and again continuously returns. At each new step, Dante meets an angel who, with the end of his wing, erases one of the R’s imprinted on his forehead, because together with the proud he walked, bent under a heavy burden, and together with those carried away by sensual love, the flame passed through.
Dante and Virgil finally reached the top of the mountain, overshadowed by a beautiful, ever-green forest. This is Earthly Paradise. In the middle of the forest, two rivers flow from the same source, but heading in different directions. One flows to the left: this is Lethe, the river of oblivion of everything bad; the other is to the right: this is Eunoe, imprinting all that is good and good forever in the human soul. Virgil, having fulfilled his task, having brought the poet to the Earthly Paradise, to Eden, bids him farewell. Here, in Eden, where everything breathes truth, innocence and love, the poet meets Beatrice. He is bathed in Evnoe, from where he returns “like a new plant that has just changed its leaves,” clean and completely ready to ascend to the stars.
And the ascension begins: Dante is carried through the air after Beatrice; She looks up all the time, but he doesn’t take his eyes off her. That's Paradise.
Paradise (all according to the same Ptolemaic system) consists of ten spheres for Dante. First, seven planets inhabited by righteous people, also in a certain hierarchical order.
The first planet closest to Earth is Moon, where live the souls of persons who made a vow on earth to preserve a celibate, virgin state, but who violated it, in spite of at will, due to violent opposition from the outside.
Second planet - Mercury- the home of righteous and strong sovereigns who have gained great fame for their virtue, who have created the happiness of their subjects through good deeds and wise laws. Among them is Emperor Justinian, with whom the poet is having a conversation.
Third planet - Venus, where are the souls of people who loved with a higher, spiritual love, which inspired them on Earth to do good deeds.
The fourth planet - Sun- inhabited by those who explored the mysteries of faith and theology. Here are Francis of Assisi, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas and others.
On the fifth planet - Mars– live the souls of people who spread Christianity and sacrificed their lives for the faith and the church.
Sixth planet - Jupiter; here are the souls of those who on Earth were the true guardians of justice.
Seventh Planet - Saturn- the abode of souls who lived a contemplative life on Earth. Dante sees here a radiant golden staircase, the upper part of which is lost far in the sky and along which bright spirits ascend and descend.
Moving from one planet to another, Dante does not feel this transition, it is so easily accomplished, and he learns about it each time only because Beatrice’s beauty becomes more radiant, more and more divine as she approaches the source of eternal grace...
And so they climbed to the top of the stairs. At the direction of Beatrice, Dante looks down from here to the Earth, and she seems so pitiful to him that he smiles at the sight of her. “And I,” he adds pessimistically, “approve of those who despise this Earth, and consider truly wise those who direct their desires in another direction.”
Now the poet and his leader are in eighth sphere, - the sphere of the fixed stars.
Here Dante sees Beatrice’s full smile for the first time and is now able to bear its brilliance - able to bear it, but not express it in any human words. Marvelous visions delight the poet's vision: a luxurious garden is revealed, growing under the rays of the Divine, where he sees a mysterious rose surrounded by fragrant lilies, and above it a ray of light falling from Christ. After a test of faith, hope and love (tested by St. Peter, James and John), which Dante withstands completely satisfactorily, he is admitted to ninth a sphere called the crystal sky. Here, in the form of a brightly luminous point, without a specific image, the Glory of God is already present, still hidden by a curtain of nine fiery circles. And finally last sphere: Empyrean - the dwelling of God and blessed spirits. All around there is sweet singing, wonderful dancing, a river with sparkling waves, with eternally blooming banks; Bright sparks splash from it, rising into the air and turning into flowers, only to fall back into the river, “like rubies set in gold.” Dante wets his eyelids with water from the river, and his spiritual gaze receives complete enlightenment, so that he can now understand everything around him. Beatrice, having disappeared for a moment, appears already at the very top, on the throne, “crowning herself with a crown of eternal rays emanating from herself.” Dante turns to her with the following prayer: “O, who was not afraid to leave a trace of her steps in Hell for my salvation, I know that I owe to you, your power and your goodness the great things that I have seen. You led me from slavery to freedom by all the ways, by all the means that were in your power. Save your generosity to me, so that my soul, healed by you and worthy of your liking, can be separated from the body!..”
“Then the power of imagination left me,” Dante ends his poem, “but my desires, my will were already set in motion forever by love, which also moves the sun and stars,” that is, royally ruling the whole world.
The Divine Comedy is a great allegory of man, sin and redemption from a religious and moral perspective. Every person carries within himself his own hell and his own paradise. Hell is the death of the soul, the dominion of the body, the image of evil or vice; Paradise is an image of goodness or virtue, inner peace and happiness; Purgatory is a transition from one state to another through repentance. The lynx (in other translations - patera), the lion and the she-wolf, blocking the path to the sunny hill, depict the three dominant vices that were then considered prevalent in the world, namely: voluptuousness, pride and greed.
In addition to this moral and religious significance, the “Divine Comedy” also has political significance. The dark forest in which the poet got lost also means the anarchic state of the world and specifically Italy. The poet's election of Virgil as leader is also not without allegorical overtones. From a moral and religious point of view, the image of Virgil symbolizes earthly wisdom, and from a political point of view, the Ghibelline idea of a universal monarchy, which alone has the power to establish peace on earth. Beatrice symbolizes heavenly wisdom, and from a biographical point of view, Dante's love. etc.
The clear, well-thought-out composition of the “Divine Comedy” is also symbolic: it is divided into three parts (“edges”), each of which depicts one of the three parts of the afterlife, according to Catholic teaching - hell, purgatory or heaven. Each part consists of 33 songs, and another prologue song is added to the first cantika, so that in total there are 100 songs with ternary division: the entire poem is written in three-line stanzas - terzas. This dominance of the number 3 in the compositional and semantic structure of the poem goes back to the Christian idea of the Trinity and the mystical meaning of the number 3. The entire architectonics of the afterlife of the Divine Comedy, thought out by the poet to the smallest detail, is based on this number. The symbolization does not end there: each song ends with the same word “stars”; the name of Christ rhymes only with itself; in hell the name of Christ is not mentioned anywhere, nor is the name of Mary, etc.
Symbolism permeates the other two edges. In the mystical procession that meets Dante at the entrance to paradise, 12 lamps “are the seven spirits of God” (according to the Apocalypse), 12 elders - 24 books of the Old Testament, 4 beasts - 4 gospels, a cart - a Christian church, a griffin - the god-man Christ, 1 elder – Apocalypse, “the humble four” – “Epistle” of the apostles, etc.
For all its originality, Dante's poem has various medieval sources. The plot of the poem reproduces the scheme of the popular genre of “visions” or “walking through torment” in medieval literature - about the secrets of the afterlife. The theme of afterlife “visions” was developed in a similar direction in medieval literature and outside Western Europe (the ancient Russian apocrypha “The Virgin Mary’s Walk through the Torment”, 12th century, the Muslim legend about the vision of Mohammed, who contemplated in a prophetic dream the torment of sinners in hell and the heavenly bliss of the righteous) . The Arab mystic poet of the 12th century. Abenarabi is a work in which pictures of hell and heaven are given, similar to Dante’s, and their parallel independent emergence (for Dante did not know Arabic, and Abenarabi was not translated into languages known to him) testifies to general trend in the evolution of these representations in various regions remote from each other.
In constructing the picture of Hell, Dante proceeded from the Christian model of the world. According to Dante, Hell is a funnel-shaped abyss that, narrowing, reaches the center of the earth. Its slopes are surrounded by concentric ledges, the “circles” of Hell. Rivers of the underworld (Acheron, Styx, Phlegethon) - Lethe, the river of ablution and oblivion, stands apart, although its waters also flow to the center of the earth - this is, in essence, one stream penetrating into the bowels of the earth: at first it appears as Acheron (after -Greek, “river of sorrow”) and encircles the first circle of Hell, then, flowing down, forms the swamp of Styx (in Greek, “hated”), which washes the walls of the city of Dita, bordering the abyss of lower Hell; even lower it becomes Phlegethon (in Greek, “burning”), a ring-shaped river of boiling blood, then, in the form of a bloody stream, it crosses the forest of suicides and the desert, from where a noisy waterfall falls deep into the depths to turn into the icy Lake Cocytus in the center of the earth. Dante calls Lucifer (aka Beelzebub, the devil) Dit (Dis), this Latin name King Hades, or Pluto, son of Kronos and Rhea, brother of Zeus and Poseidon. In Latin, Lucifer means Light Bearer. The most beautiful of the angels, he was punished with ugliness for rebellion against God.
The origin of Hell according to Dante is as follows: An angel (Lucifer, Satan) who rebelled against God, together with his supporters (demons), was thrown from the ninth heaven to the Earth and, plunging into it, hollowed out a depression - a funnel to the very center - the center of the Earth, the Universe and universal gravity : There is nowhere to fall further. Stuck there in eternal ice:
Lord of the tormenting power
His chest made of ice heaved halfway;
And the giant is closer to me in height,
Than the hands of Lucifer are gigantic...;
And I became speechless from amazement,
When I saw three faces on it:
One is above the chest; its color was red;
And over one and over the other shoulder
Two adjacent to this side threatened,
Closing at the back of the head under the crest.
The face to the right was white and yellow;
The color on the left was
Like those who came from the Nile Falls,
Under each grew two large wings,
As should a bird so great in the world;
The mast did not carry such sails,
Without feathers, they looked like bats;
He fanned them, moving the ramen,
And three winds drove along the dark expanse,
The streams of Cocytus are freezing to the bottom.
Six eyes sharpened tears, and flowed down
Bloody saliva comes out of three mouths.
They tormented all three, like a torment,
According to the sinner...
(canto XXXIV)
In the three mouths of the three-faced Demon, the most vile, in Dante's opinion, traitors are executed: Judas, Brutus, Cassius.
In the description of the devil, the medieval unequivocally negative attitude towards the enemy of the human race prevails. Dante's Lucifer, half frozen in ice (a symbol of the coldness of dislike), reveals an ugly parody of the images of heaven: his three faces are a mockery of the trinity, of which red is anger as the opposite of love, pale yellow is powerlessness or laziness as the opposite of omnipotence, black is ignorance as the opposite of omniscience; The six wings of the bat correspond to the six wings of the cherub. It is not surprising that Chateaubriand and other romantics did not like Dante's Lucifer. He has nothing in common with the proud Satan of Milton, with the philosophizing Mephistopheles of Goethe, with the rebellious Demon of Lermontov. Lucifer in The Divine Comedy is a rebel who has hopelessly lost his cause. He became a part of the cosmic whole, subject to the highest indisputable laws.
The center of the universe, which coincides with the center of the earth, is bound by ice. Evil is in the concentration of gravity of the universe. The resulting funnel - the underground kingdom - is Hell, waiting for sinners who at that time had not yet been born, since the Earth was lifeless. The gaping wound of the Earth immediately healed. Shifted as a result of the collision caused by the fall of Lucifer, the earth's crust closed the base of the cone-shaped funnel, swelling in the middle of this base with Mount Golgotha, and on the opposite side of the funnel - Mount Purgatory. The entrance to the dungeon of Hell remained on the side, near the edge of the depression, on the territory of future Italy. As you can see, many images (the rivers of the underworld, the entrance to it, topology) were taken by Dante from ancient sources (Homer, Virgil).
Dante's appeal to ancient writers (and above all Virgil, whose figure is directly depicted in the poem as Dante's guide through hell) is one of the main symptoms of the preparation of the Renaissance in his work. Dante's "Divine Comedy" is not a divinely inspired text, but an attempt to express a certain experience, a revelation. And since it is the poet who discovers the way of expression upper world, then he is chosen as a guide to the other world. The influence of Virgil’s “Aeneid” was reflected in the borrowing from Virgil of certain plot details and images described in the scene of Aeneas’s descent into Tartarus in order to see his late father.
Renaissance elements are felt both in the very rethinking of the role and figure of the guide through the afterlife, and in rethinking the content and function of “visions”. Firstly, the pagan Virgil receives from Dante the role of the angel-guide of medieval “visions”. True, Virgil, as a result of the interpretation of his 4th eclogue as a prediction of the advent of a new “golden age of justice,” was ranked among the heralds of Christianity, so that he was not a completely pagan figure, but still such a step by Dante could be called quite bold at that time.
The second significant difference was that, unlike the medieval “visions”, which aimed to turn a person from worldly vanity to afterlife thoughts, Dante uses the story of the afterlife for the most total reflection real earthly life and, above all, for the judgment of human vices and crimes in the name of not denying earthly life, but correcting it. The purpose of the poem is to free those living on earth from the state of sinfulness and lead them on the path to bliss.
The third difference is the life-affirming principle that permeates the entire poem, optimism, bodily richness (materiality) of scenes and images. In fact, the entire “Comedy” was shaped by the desire for absolute harmony and the belief that it is practically achievable.
Dante often illustrates the described torment of sinners with pictures of nature, alien to medieval descriptions, and the dead element of hell itself with phenomena of the living world. For example, the Hellish whirlwind in the 5th song is compared to the flight of starlings:
And like starlings, their wings carry them away,
on cold days, in a thick and long formation,
there this storm swirls the spirits of evil,
there, here, down, up, in a huge swarm
The same interest characterizes Dante’s picturesque palette, rich in all kinds of colors. Each of the three edgings of the poem has its own colorful background: “Hell” has a gloomy coloring, thick ominous colors with a predominance of red and black: “And over the desert slowly fell / The rain of flames, in wide scarves / Like snow in the windless mountain rocks...” (canto XIV ), “So the fiery blizzard descended / And the dust burned like tinder under a flint…” (canto XIV), “The fire snaked over everyone’s feet...” (canto XIX); “Purgatory” – soft, pale and foggy colors characteristic of the living nature that appears there (sea, rocks, green meadows, trees): “The road here is not covered with carvings; / the wall of the slope and the ledge under it - / Solid gray-stone color” (“Purgatory”, canto XIII); “Paradise” – dazzling brilliance and transparency, radiant colors of the purest light. Similarly, each of the parts has its own musical edging: in hell there is growling, roaring, groaning, in heaven the music of the spheres sounds. The Renaissance vision is also distinguished by the plastic sculptural depiction of figures. Each image is presented in a memorable plastic pose, as if sculpted and at the same time full of movement.
Elements of the old and new worldviews are intertwined throughout the poem in a variety of scenes and layers. Carrying out the idea that earthly life is a preparation for the future, eternal life, Dante at the same time shows a keen interest in earthly life. Outwardly agreeing with the teaching of the church about the sinfulness of carnal love and placing the voluptuous in the second circle of hell:
then the hellish wind, knowing no rest,
rushes a host of souls among the surrounding darkness
and torments them, twisting and torturing
Dante listens with warm sympathy to Francesca's story about her sinful love for her husband's brother Paolo, which led them both, stabbed to death by the ugly Gianciotto Malatesta, to hell. Agreeing with church teaching about the vanity and sinfulness of the desire for fame and honor, through the lips of Virgil he praises the desire for glory. He also praises other human qualities condemned by the church, such as the thirst for knowledge, the inquisitiveness of the mind, the desire for the unknown, an example of which is the confession of Ulysses, who was executed among the crafty advisers for his desire to travel.
At the same time, the vices of the clergy and its very spirit are subject to criticism, and they are branded even in heaven. Dante's attacks on the greed of the churchmen are also the harbingers of a new worldview and will later become one of the main motives of anti-clerical literature of modern times.
Silver and gold are now a god for you;
and even those who pray to the idol,
honor one, you honor a hundred at once
(canto XIX)
Renaissance trends are especially strong in the third edging - “Paradise”. And this is due to the very nature of the subject being described.
At the end of Purgatory, when Dante enters the Earthly Paradise, a solemn triumphal procession approaches him; in the middle of it is a wondrous chariot, and on it is Beatrice herself, the charm of his childhood, the beloved of his youth, the guardian angel of his mature years. A moment in highest degree solemn. Dante stands in the shade of the trees of the Earthly Paradise, near the bank of the Lethe River, and opposite him, on the other side of the river, is a chariot; around her is a procession consisting of seven lamps sparkling with bright heavenly light, twenty-four patriarchs in white robes and wreaths of roses, four evangelists, seven virtues and a crowd of angels throwing flowers. And finally she herself, Beatrice, on a chariot, in a green dress and a fiery cloak:
How sometimes they are filled with crimson
At the beginning of the morning, the region of the east,
And the skies are beautiful and clear,
And the face of the sun, rising low,
So covered with the softness of the vapors,
That the eye calmly looks at him, -
So in a light cloud of angelic flowers,
Taking off and being overthrown by a collapse
On a wondrous cart and beyond its edges,
In a wreath of olives, under a white veil,
A woman appeared, dressed
In a green cloak and a fire flame dress.
And my spirit, even though times have flown away,
When he was thrown into a shudder
By her mere presence she
And here contemplation was incomplete, -
Before the secret power coming from her,
I have tasted the charm of former love.
(Purgatory", canto XXX)
The heavy supermateriality of Hell is opposed by transcendence, luminous lightness, and the elusive spiritual radiance of Paradise. And the rigid limitations of the constraining hellish geometry are the spatial multidimensionality of the celestial spheres with increasing degrees of freedom. In Hell, someone else's will reigns, man is forced, dependent, mute, and this alien will is clearly visible, and its manifestations are colorful; in Paradise - only your own, personal will; an extension arises, which Hell lacks: in space, consciousness, will, time. In Hell there is bare geometry, there is no time there, it is not eternity (that is, an infinite length of time), but time equal to zero, that is, nothing. Space divided into circles is flat and of the same type in each circle. It is dead, timeless and empty. Its artificial complexity is imaginary, apparent; it is the complexity (geometry) of emptiness. In Paradise it acquires volume, diversity, variability, pulsation, it spreads, imbued with heavenly twinkling, complemented, created by every will, and therefore incomprehensible.
After all, this is why our esse is blessed,
What God's will manages it
and ours and hers are not in opposition
("Paradise", canto III).
The Renaissance elements of the “Divine Comedy” allow us to consider Dante the forerunner of the New Age. In art history, the term “ducento” is adopted - the 12th century, called the proto-Renaissance, that is, the historical stage immediately followed by the Renaissance. Dante's work dates precisely to the beginning of this period.
