Recap of Canto 14 of Dante’s “Inferno”, Alexander Aciman. Priamo della Quercia, Dante Meets the Sodomites, c. 15th century.
This winter, we’re recapping the Inferno. Read along! Dear Dante, I’ve received your manuscript for Canto 14 of the Inferno, and I have quite a few notes. The language and poetry of this passage is absolutely magical; a few passages in particular caught my attention, such as “The gloomy forest rings it like a garland,” (line ten), which is such a beautiful way of phrasing it. That said, certain parts left me wanting more, and they confused me enough to wonder if you were really trying your hardest. This canto focuses on those who have sinned against God. Virgil then yells at Capaneus—in fact, he’s downright nasty to Capaneus, which was a treat to read.
The two move on. Virgil tells Dante a story about some woman taking a baby into the mountain. But that’s not even the worst of it. I like what I’ve seen so far, and I hope we can do a playback on this Canto to get it back on track. Recapping Dante: Canto 16, or the Pilgrim’s Progress, Alexander Aciman. Giovanni Stradano, Canto XVI, 1587.
This winter, we’re recapping the Inferno. Read along! At this point in The Inferno, as Dante continues to test, stretch, and deplete Virgil’s patience, let us imagine for a moment what Virgil might say given the opportunity to write a performance review for the pilgrim. Performance Review Pilgrim name: Dante AlighieriOccupation: Poet/expert stalker/political commentator (fascist?) Supervisor’s notes: Dante has done well on this divine quest so far, especially considering the fact that I found him lost in a forest not long ago.
I still worry about him, however. He is prone to pity, and when we passed through the realm of the sodomites, I instructed him to treat the few sinners we would encounter with respect and kindness. Dante can be irritating, but he has strong interpersonal skills—they almost make me wish I were a Florentine myself. To catch up on our Dante series, click here. Recapping Dante: Canto 12, or A Concerned Parent Contacts the FCC, Alexander Aciman. Gustave Doré, Canto XII, lines 73, 74.
This winter, we’re recapping the Inferno. Read along! To whom it may concern: For the last several months my child has been watching the program The Inferno. Recapping Dante: Canto 3, or Abandon Hope, Alexander Aciman. Charon Carries Souls Across the River Styx, Alexander Dmitrievich Litovchenko, 1861, Russian Museum, St.
Petersburg. I am writing this from the lobby of the Ace Hotel in New York; as I ascend from the basement with Dante under my arm, I see the following text printed on the stairs: EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT. This inscription offers an appropriate contrast to the opening of the third canto, which gives us the famous line written above the gates of hell, a line so famous that many know it well without knowing exactly who wrote it: ABANDON ALL HOPE, YOU WHO ENTER HERE. And just like the inscription in hell, these words too are written in the hotel’s neo-Victorian “dark hue.”
But whether or not Dante knows it, he and I are essentially reading the same sentence—as chilling as the inscription is, the words in canto 3 ultimately do not apply to the man who travels beside Virgil. Canto 3 is our first real contact with hell. Recapping Dante: Canto 2, Alexander Aciman. William Blake, Dante and Virgil Penetrating the Forest (1824-7) This fall, we’re recapping the Inferno.
Read along! It’s called a remix. That’s how this segment begins. It’s a living pastiche, a breathing exercise in allusion and homage. This canto is all about due diligence. “O Muses, O lofty genius, aid me now!” Dante goes on to imply how excited he is to take the same journey as Aeneas, and says “I am not Aeneas, nor am I Paul. Virgil reveals that he was asked to help guide Dante to safety by a woman named Beatrice, who, as will be explained endlessly in the rest of the poem, is Dante’s beloved. In her conversation with Virgil, Beatrice says that Dante is “no friend of Fortune,” which is a polite way of comparing him to a clumsy, wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time Woody Allen character.
The passage ends as Virgil tells Dante, now aware of the forces invested in his safety, to chill out and have faith. To catch up on our Dante series, click here. Recapping Dante: Canto 18, or Beware the Bolognese, Alexander Aciman.