I think my favourite moment in this canto is when Virgil places his hands over Dante's. It felt very tender, like the gesture of a parent who warns a child to take care but then feels compelled to make doubly sure. The imagery of the approach of the angel causing earthquake-like disturbance and then a hurricane of a wind is so dramatic. The angel is a magnificent force, as powerful as the most destructive natural phenomena. But then we get the bathos of the squirming frogs and the angel wiping or fanning his face. The hideous Styx full of ruined souls is trivial to him. He casually opens the door, has a bit of a moan about having to be bothered to deal with recalcitrance that was bound to fail and heads off to deal with more serious cares elsewhere. What a scene. I will carry on thinking about your last point about a different sense or boundary between fact and fiction in the medieval period. I suppose for Dante the existence of heaven and hell was a "fact" or certainty. He must have seen himself as trying to describe something he could not see but was sure existed, working up an imaginative recreation but not an invention.
Exactly, that’s what I think as well. In his mind, it was possible to conceive hell and heaven as “real afterlife”, but also at the same time as metaphors of what happens inside of us during our life. Hence the adjective “polysemic” he used in a letter where he himself was describing the Divine Comedy. Thanks for watching, Ros! There’s so much more greatness ahead!
That connection made with Dante agreeing with Franciscan doctrine in his action to wait for the arrival of the angels is strikingly clever. So many seemingly insignificant details actually tell so much about not only Dante's conviction, but the expectations he sets on his readers. And your final comments on it are absolutely true--for all texts written during a time so diverged from our own. This may be my favorite Canto you have done thus far--I will have to come back to it!
It’s one of my favorites too... I think part of the reason I love Dante so much is that his imagination is very visual, and mine is too. Thanks for watching!
I love the scene with the angel just wiping his face and then going his way as if he was full of other tasks to complete. A very straight forward and no nonsense angel.
I loved this canto. I can't get over how well Dante is able to make his characters so vividly physical in every aspect, and every scene. Whatever symbolism it may have, the moment where he addresses the reader helps bring us right down into the action with him, making the scene still more vivid and immediate. And that angel! I hate to stereotype, but--being a gay man myself--I couldn't help but think how fey and dandified he was. First, he's late. Second, he comes in wafting the stink away with his hand. Third (in Musa's translation) he has a look of scorn on his face, and then blithely leads them away. If it were a movie, I could imagine the British comedian Tom Allen playing the uppity, bitchy angel. And as far as meaning is concerned, perhaps the system of belief was more local, more concentrated, and more ingrained in Dante's than the one we live in today so there's less information, instruction, and common ground than that upon which Dante was able to draw. Wasn't Dante's world was completely Catholic? I think looking for meaning is easier when there's a communal well of thought. It's so much richer reading this along with your observations.
Hahaha this is one of the funniest comments I’ve seen so far ... you’re so right. And I love Tom Allen! I’ve seen his live show on youtube. Great point about the fact that it was probably easier to find meaning in a more cohesive (and not globalized) reality. Florence was a bit like the Wall Street of those times, mainly catholic but also with all sorts of people from muslim to jewish to anyone else. This would be a wonderful discussion to have, but obviously much longer. Where I’m coming from is that today’s mainstream attitude of “God is dead and only science can tell us the truth” wasn’t even imaginable in those times. Personally, I see this as a cultural and philosophical derailment. Buy my best friend is atheist and I like to think I keep a fairly open mind! Thanks so much for watching and for your comment 🙏🏻😀
This did make me laugh. The angel arrives as a figure of awesome power and then really does go a bit snarky about having to deal with this pointless obstruction by the demons.
This is great! It is so interesting and insightful to follow your comments. This is just a general comment: It is quite interesting that in Inferno you go down, while in Purgatory you go up. I think it reflects that giving in to your desires, satisfying yourself - sinning - is not something demanding, does not encounter any resistance; like going down a hill. On the other hand, being a good person, being moderate, showing compassion and charity, etc. is not just automatic, but demanding and hard; like climbing up a hill. Dante's Divine Comedy is so fascinating! I also listen to the book as an audiobook (Penguin classics with Jot Davies, Robin Kirkpatrick and Kristin Atherton). I love it. I look forward to hearing the rest of your comments, I find it very helpful. Thank you very much! Greetings from Norway. Best wishes.
@@halvorslemmen1 Thank you. You’re spot on about the spiritual significance of up and down. To put it simply, going up takes an effort. Going down is very easy because gravity (our sinful nature) always drags us down. If I’m lucky, one day I will visit your country! 🇳🇴
It's amazing the debates that medieval Christians had. I didn't know about this one discussing how angels moved and what they were composed of. Great discussion, I needed the help with this canto.
Thank you tom, for sharing thoughts to interpret the mystery lines, I haven't understood it before I see your video! Really helping my AP Lit class, by the way, I'm a senior. Anyway, you kind of save my GPA! lol
Really loved Virgil and Dante's vulnerability in this canto ..I could strongly identify with that sense of panic .....couldn't help but hear resonances of misogyny in the ultimate evil of the muses and Medusa and this notion that male Dante needs extra protection from this lure ...but I'm a modern reader so if course I'd see that ? Confess to being completely ignorant about the angel thing and your explanation was helpful ..
Definitely, just like the way in canto 5 Dante makes a list of famous lustful people and the majority are women. Thanks for watching, hope you have a good weekend.
You are right of course Hester about the female figures conforming to the saintly or harridan/whore stereotypes. It hasn't really bothered me so far. I love the Furies so much and am always delighted when they turn up in literature. I get a similar kick from the Fates and the Muses.
@@scallydandlingaboutthebooks I have to find an essay (if I do, I’ll let you know) where the author analysed Dante’s degree of male chauvinism vs. the culture he lived in, and concluded that despite being a child of his times (hence the Furies, lustful women etc.) , Dante went beyond what many of his contemporaries did, and in the Comedy he gave women more relevance and importance than what people were used to in his times. In particular, Paradiso is full of female saints, we have the “most powerful” guide of the epic poem as a woman, and the way Dante presents Mary is not as a secondary character. Interesting angle.
I very much enjoyed this (even without the text in hand. That's gonna change, soon) 😁 You really packed a lot of info, here! Yes, fear and the unconscious have been ongoing: awaking "in the dark woods," since the start. And, Virgil being a pagan, being in Purgatory, forever--dead before 301 etc--is unreliable, no?!? 😁😆😃 I'm really liking your videos on _The Comedy,_ Tom. Thanks.
I thought he belonged to the first circle, the limbo. The Purgatory is never a permanent place. It’s a kind of cleaning chamber before you get transferred to Paradise. I think that Catholic doctrine presently eliminated the concept of limbo. No first circle now. 😊
What an interesting digression about meaning/fiction/reality/symbolism - it reminds me of a friend who is immersed in astrology and to whom so many day-to-day occurrences have another level of meaning. Sort of like when you wake up from a dream and think deeply about it. I love the nature metaphors in this poem. I am probably going to recall the poem the next time I bend down to a shoreline to get a picture of one of the frogs and they all scatter! Same with the sight of murmurations of starlings as in an earlier canto. Enjoyed the discussion about angels. Is the the same debate that is sometimes referred to as the question of "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"?
The disdainful feeling that Dante has in the past canto against the furious Filippo is also justified here. The angel also looks the condemns with disdain. It is a way to justify this type of anger.
The timing and the situation of the divine intervention here is definitelly not the one of greek dramas. A deeper meaning than an Alexandrian cut, for sure. Could it be a pointer to the contemporary politics of Canto X? It is only the true members of the divine alliance that can fully understand the severity of the Epicurean sin...
Hi Dario, I think that could very well be. The inter- and intra-textual connections that he was able to disseminate throughout this work are absolutely endless, and I am aware that even after my third read I am catching maybe half of them. As you say, it would make sense for the divine intervention to be an “opening” or an anticipation of an what comes in the next canto in terms of political (and religious) concepts. I realized this canto is actually one of my favorite ones of Inferno.
I think my favourite moment in this canto is when Virgil places his hands over Dante's. It felt very tender, like the gesture of a parent who warns a child to take care but then feels compelled to make doubly sure.
The imagery of the approach of the angel causing earthquake-like disturbance and then a hurricane of a wind is so dramatic. The angel is a magnificent force, as powerful as the most destructive natural phenomena. But then we get the bathos of the squirming frogs and the angel wiping or fanning his face. The hideous Styx full of ruined souls is trivial to him. He casually opens the door, has a bit of a moan about having to be bothered to deal with recalcitrance that was bound to fail and heads off to deal with more serious cares elsewhere. What a scene.
I will carry on thinking about your last point about a different sense or boundary between fact and fiction in the medieval period. I suppose for Dante the existence of heaven and hell was a "fact" or certainty. He must have seen himself as trying to describe something he could not see but was sure existed, working up an imaginative recreation but not an invention.
Exactly, that’s what I think as well. In his mind, it was possible to conceive hell and heaven as “real afterlife”, but also at the same time as metaphors of what happens inside of us during our life. Hence the adjective “polysemic” he used in a letter where he himself was describing the Divine Comedy. Thanks for watching, Ros! There’s so much more greatness ahead!
That connection made with Dante agreeing with Franciscan doctrine in his action to wait for the arrival of the angels is strikingly clever. So many seemingly insignificant details actually tell so much about not only Dante's conviction, but the expectations he sets on his readers. And your final comments on it are absolutely true--for all texts written during a time so diverged from our own. This may be my favorite Canto you have done thus far--I will have to come back to it!
It’s one of my favorites too... I think part of the reason I love Dante so much is that his imagination is very visual, and mine is too. Thanks for watching!
I love the scene with the angel just wiping his face and then going his way as if he was full of other tasks to complete. A very straight forward and no nonsense angel.
Haha yes he KNOWS he is much more important than this petty task he's been given : )
I loved this canto. I can't get over how well Dante is able to make his characters so vividly physical in every aspect, and every scene. Whatever symbolism it may have, the moment where he addresses the reader helps bring us right down into the action with him, making the scene still more vivid and immediate. And that angel! I hate to stereotype, but--being a gay man myself--I couldn't help but think how fey and dandified he was. First, he's late. Second, he comes in wafting the stink away with his hand. Third (in Musa's translation) he has a look of scorn on his face, and then blithely leads them away. If it were a movie, I could imagine the British comedian Tom Allen playing the uppity, bitchy angel. And as far as meaning is concerned, perhaps the system of belief was more local, more concentrated, and more ingrained in Dante's than the one we live in today so there's less information, instruction, and common ground than that upon which Dante was able to draw. Wasn't Dante's world was completely Catholic? I think looking for meaning is easier when there's a communal well of thought. It's so much richer reading this along with your observations.
Hahaha this is one of the funniest comments I’ve seen so far ... you’re so right. And I love Tom Allen! I’ve seen his live show on youtube. Great point about the fact that it was probably easier to find meaning in a more cohesive (and not globalized) reality. Florence was a bit like the Wall Street of those times, mainly catholic but also with all sorts of people from muslim to jewish to anyone else. This would be a wonderful discussion to have, but obviously much longer. Where I’m coming from is that today’s mainstream attitude of “God is dead and only science can tell us the truth” wasn’t even imaginable in those times. Personally, I see this as a cultural and philosophical derailment. Buy my best friend is atheist and I like to think I keep a fairly open mind! Thanks so much for watching and for your comment 🙏🏻😀
This did make me laugh. The angel arrives as a figure of awesome power and then really does go a bit snarky about having to deal with this pointless obstruction by the demons.
This is great! It is so interesting and insightful to follow your comments.
This is just a general comment: It is quite interesting that in Inferno you go down, while in Purgatory you go up. I think it reflects that giving in to your desires, satisfying yourself - sinning - is not something demanding, does not encounter any resistance; like going down a hill. On the other hand, being a good person, being moderate, showing compassion and charity, etc. is not just automatic, but demanding and hard; like climbing up a hill.
Dante's Divine Comedy is so fascinating! I also listen to the book as an audiobook (Penguin classics with Jot Davies, Robin Kirkpatrick and Kristin Atherton). I love it.
I look forward to hearing the rest of your comments, I find it very helpful. Thank you very much! Greetings from Norway. Best wishes.
@@halvorslemmen1 Thank you. You’re spot on about the spiritual significance of up and down. To put it simply, going up takes an effort. Going down is very easy because gravity (our sinful nature) always drags us down. If I’m lucky, one day I will visit your country! 🇳🇴
It's amazing the debates that medieval Christians had. I didn't know about this one discussing how angels moved and what they were composed of. Great discussion, I needed the help with this canto.
Right, not something we would be found arguing about in a bar : ) Thanks John for watching.
Thank you tom, for sharing thoughts to interpret the mystery lines, I haven't understood it before I see your video! Really helping my AP Lit class, by the way, I'm a senior. Anyway, you kind of save my GPA! lol
Haha that’s great to hear - very best of luck with your studies.
Really loved Virgil and Dante's vulnerability in this canto ..I could strongly identify with that sense of panic .....couldn't help but hear resonances of misogyny in the ultimate evil of the muses and Medusa and this notion that male Dante needs extra protection from this lure ...but I'm a modern reader so if course I'd see that ? Confess to being completely ignorant about the angel thing and your explanation was helpful ..
Definitely, just like the way in canto 5 Dante makes a list of famous lustful people and the majority are women. Thanks for watching, hope you have a good weekend.
You are right of course Hester about the female figures conforming to the saintly or harridan/whore stereotypes. It hasn't really bothered me so far. I love the Furies so much and am always delighted when they turn up in literature. I get a similar kick from the Fates and the Muses.
@@scallydandlingaboutthebooks I have to find an essay (if I do, I’ll let you know) where the author analysed Dante’s degree of male chauvinism vs. the culture he lived in, and concluded that despite being a child of his times (hence the Furies, lustful women etc.) , Dante went beyond what many of his contemporaries did, and in the Comedy he gave women more relevance and importance than what people were used to in his times. In particular, Paradiso is full of female saints, we have the “most powerful” guide of the epic poem as a woman, and the way Dante presents Mary is not as a secondary character. Interesting angle.
I very much enjoyed this (even without the text in hand. That's gonna change, soon) 😁 You really packed a lot of info, here! Yes, fear and the unconscious have been ongoing: awaking "in the dark woods," since the start. And, Virgil being a pagan, being in Purgatory, forever--dead before 301 etc--is unreliable, no?!? 😁😆😃 I'm really liking your videos on _The Comedy,_ Tom. Thanks.
Thanks Allen , I hope your year started well - and that you’ll get your text soon!
@@tomlabooks3263 I might get the text again today 😃
I thought he belonged to the first circle, the limbo. The Purgatory is never a permanent place. It’s a kind of cleaning chamber before you get transferred to Paradise. I think that Catholic doctrine presently eliminated the concept of limbo. No first circle now. 😊
@@knittingbooksetc.2810 That is correct. Virgil is spending his afterlife in Limbo.
What an interesting digression about meaning/fiction/reality/symbolism - it reminds me of a friend who is immersed in astrology and to whom so many day-to-day occurrences have another level of meaning. Sort of like when you wake up from a dream and think deeply about it.
I love the nature metaphors in this poem. I am probably going to recall the poem the next time I bend down to a shoreline to get a picture of one of the frogs and they all scatter! Same with the sight of murmurations of starlings as in an earlier canto.
Enjoyed the discussion about angels. Is the the same debate that is sometimes referred to as the question of "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"?
Yes, you could say that … in Italy we refer to that concept as “discussing about the gender of angels” : )
The disdainful feeling that Dante has in the past canto against the furious Filippo is also justified here. The angel also looks the condemns with disdain. It is a way to justify this type of anger.
Yes, definitely. “Righteous” anger.
The timing and the situation of the divine intervention here is definitelly not the one of greek dramas. A deeper meaning than an Alexandrian cut, for sure. Could it be a pointer to the contemporary politics of Canto X? It is only the true members of the divine alliance that can fully understand the severity of the Epicurean sin...
Hi Dario, I think that could very well be. The inter- and intra-textual connections that he was able to disseminate throughout this work are absolutely endless, and I am aware that even after my third read I am catching maybe half of them. As you say, it would make sense for the divine intervention to be an “opening” or an anticipation of an what comes in the next canto in terms of political (and religious) concepts. I realized this canto is actually one of my favorite ones of Inferno.
'obviously' the franciscans are right!