Written for the Celebrity Death Match Review Tournament

(sung to the tune of "Minnie The Moocher")

Folks, here´s a story about Winnie the Pooh-cher
He was a chubby Pooh-chie-koocher
He was fat and loved his honey
but he was sweet and his heart was sunny

(chorus)
Hunny-Hunny-Hunny-hi
Hundee-hundee-hunndee-ho
Pigletee-pigletee-hee
Tiggery-Tiggery--Ho

He met a dude whose name was Virgil
who hung around in hellish circles.
He took the bear to hell for a match
where he planned to kick Pooh's ass.

{chorus)

Pooh saw things that curled his toes
Things that burned and things that glowed.
Pooh said, "Hey this isn't funny!
And I don't see one ounce of honey."

(chorus)

Virgil said, "Remember where you are.
This is hell not "Dancing with the Stars.
Where people pay for their mortal sins
And I wonder Pooh, where your sins' been."

Pooh now felt out of his league.
For he knew hoarding honey was Greed
And he wasn't the most energetic bloke
"Oh dear! Sloth's a sin! Is there no hope?"

(chorus)

Virgil laughed and was enjoying his victory.
When Beatrice descended and his win was history.
Beatrice squealed like a schoolgirl in joy.
"Oh, what a cutie! A little Pooh Toy!.

(chorus)

Beatrice grabbed Pooh, to heaven he was lifted
Where she cuddled him in eternal kisses
The moral of this tale is simple but clever
Being terminally cute beats all Lucifer's levels.

(chorus)

Yea Win! Yea Win, Yea Win.

(With apologies to Cab Calloway)

"Quien aquí entre, abandone toda esperanza. "

Símbolo inequívoco de su época, esta obra de arte inmortalizada en letras, es un legado universal que Dante nos dejó para siempre y que es un clásico de proporciones épicas que disfruté de principio a final.
Algunas consideraciones:
Mucha gente lee La Divina Comedia interesada solamente por el Infierno, y no es para menos.
Si alguien tiene la inmensa suerte de leer la edición ilustrada por Gustave Doré, llega al Paraíso como si acompañara a Dante buscando a Beatriz.
El Purgatorio es tan, pero tan bueno, que me atrapó. Dante describe los siete pecados capitales de forma tan maravillosa que no la va para nada en zaga al Infierno.
El Paraíso es el la parte que menos gusta. Muchos la consideran tediosa y de una carga teológica muy alta (bueno, estas eran las convicciones de Dante en la época).
Es cierto también que por la obra desfila una larga galería de personajes que no conocemos, por eso, es muy importante contar con una edición que contenga notas aclaratorias, sobre todo de orden histórico más que mitológicas o alegóricas.
La elección de Virgilio no está hecha para nada al azar. Sólo un poeta de ese calibre podría haber acompañado a Dante al Infierno. Recordemos la brillantez de Virgilio para retratar el descenso de Eneas, quien también baja a los infiernos para ir a buscar a su padre Anquises, en el sexto capítulo de "La Eneida".
Yo leí una interesante edición de La Divina Comedia, publicada por Editorial Losada en tres libros, con el agregado de aclaratorias notas adicionales.
Luego conseguí un hermoso volumen de 1946 traducido por quien fuera Presidente de la República Argentina, me refiero a Bartolomé Mitre y que sigue siendo una de las mejores hechas en español.
Por último y para esta reseña leí la Commedia en prosa en un hermoso libro que tiene el agregado del prólogo escrito por Stefan Zweig.
Es menester leer La Divina Comedia junto con el Fausto de Goethe y El Paraíso Perdido de Milton, cuando de clásicos de esta naturaleza se habla.

هو أنا قررت أن الريفيو المبدئي يكون عن دان براون
عارف يعني أيه مؤلف يعترف في أول روايته الأحدث أنه رغب أنه يكتب عن الأبداع في الأدب زي ماأمتعنا في معلوماته الرهيبة عن الفن في رواياته السابقة؟

عارف لما مؤلف يكون هدف روايته -اللي يمكن ليا ملاحظات عنها وانا في ربعها الأول الأن- أنك تقرأ في الأدب الحقيقي؟..ويشجعك للأطلاع علي روائع الأدب زي ماعمل في تحفيزنا للبحث عن روائع الفن

يشجعك للبحث والقراءة , وبالأخص تلك القطعة الأدبية الفريدة عن رحلة دانتي إلي الفردوس عبر الجحيم
قطعة أدبية شعرية تسببت في عودة الكثيرين من الخطاة والمذنبين إلي الكنيسة والأيمان
عارف يعني ايه لما يتسائل أزاي في ناس بيقولو علي نفسهم "مؤلفين" ولم يقرأوا عمل أدبي مستوحي عن اساطير يونانية وقصص دينية يهودية ومسيحية -حتي المعراج في الأسلام أيضا- أشاد بيه فنانين وأدباء وفلاسفة بحق؟

“After listing the vast array of famous composers, artists, and authors who had created works based on Dante’s epic poem, Langdon scanned the crowd. “So tell me, do we have any authors here tonight?” Nearly one-third of the hands went up. Langdon stared out in shock. Wow, either this is the most accomplished audience on earth, or this e-publishing thing is really taking off.”

حتي لو علي سبيل الأطلاع -لا أقول الأيمان المطلق بالطبع- كيف لم أقرأ حتي الأن مثل تلك التي يطلق عليها البعض "تحفة أدبية"؟

مبدئيا ترجمة حنا يعقوب -مترجم النسخة التي اقرأها - مختصر المعلومات والهوامش لأبسط حد بحيث انه يتيح لك متعة قراءة النص نفسه وفهم فكرته وروحه

إلي رحلتي إلي فردوس دانتي...فلأبدأ بجحيمه
في نفس وقت قراءتي للرائع, دان براون

الريفيو الكامل عند الأنتهاء ان شاء الله

I wanted to read “Divine Comedy” for quite a while, but was not sure how to approach it. My main problem was that it is written in verses and I do not know Italian to read it in original. At the end, I’ve picked up a classic middle of the 20th century translation into Russian in tercinas verse as well. And, I think I’ve made a good choice. After a while, I got used to the pace and the music and the poetry had become palpable. But I only could imagine how amazing it is to read it in in original.

Reading was not an easy work as I needed to flip to the notes at least a few times per page. But i got used to it and, at the end, the notes have started to act as as second meta- narrative. I would re-read all the notes related to a chapter before reading the chapter. It helped a lot to enjoy the verses and follow the story.

It seems that modern readers often prefer “The Inferno”. I liked it as well. Especially, I enjoyed the architecture of it - downward spiral. And of course, the stories. Francesca and Paolo were the big highlight. I repeat after Borges’s that Dante seemed to be a bit envious of their attachment to each other, that they could be together for eternity if only in Inferno. While his intimacy with Beatrice was possible only through divine love.

My modern sensibilities did not appreciate Dante’s treatment of the Prophet Muhammed, though I understand perfectly the historical context. He seems to be treated especially unfairly considering the hypothesis the Dante’s Paradiso is in many ways similar to the Isra and Mi'raj or night journey of Muhammad to heaven (According to Wiki and then initially raised in Miguel Asia Palacios. L’Eschatologle musulmane dans la Divine Comedie suiul de Histoire et critique d’une polemique. — Traduit de I’espagnol par B. Durant. — Arche Edidit,1992). But I guess, one could forget the man of his time.


The amount of historical details and Dante’s knowledge is totally striking. I did not know much about Italy in the 14th century. And after reading it, I think i have a good impression how people thought at that time. The Inferno Journey was not scary for me. It was like the journey of discovery. And Virgil was a great guide.

Moving on to Purgatory and Paradiso, I was not very much impressed by Beatrice as a guide, after Virgil. She seemed to be somewhat detached. And Dante’s dismay is palpable when she finally takes her place in Heaven (even if the feeling for her is replaced by the feeling of the divine love). But I absolutely admired the architecture of the both places he created. Specifically, I want to talk a bit about the role of mirrors and reflections. Now, for me Dante’s Paradiso will always be associated with the infinite reflections when everything is reflected and multiplied in the image of each other.

Apparently, Dante mentions mirrors at least 30 times in the poem. The role of a mirror is to reflect light. He uses mirror as an allegory for the angels who do not need the language as they reflect God. He mentions it first in Chapter XV of Purgatory:

Come quando da l’acqua o da lo specchio
salta lo raggio a l’opposita parte
salendo su per lo modo parecchio

a quel che scende, e tanto si diparte
dal cader de la pietra in igual tratta,
sì come mostraesperïenza e arte;

così mi parve da luce rifratta
quivi dinanzi a me esser percosso;
per che a fuggir la mia vista fu ratta.

[13, XV: 16–24]

He compares here the appearance of the angel to the reflection of the light from the mirror. And, in the process, he elegantly repeats the scientific law of light’s reflection.

The power of God is compared by Beatrice to the power creating many mirrors, reflecting in all them, while keeping unity:

Vedi l’eccelso omai e la larghezza de l’etterno valor, poscia che tanti speculi fatti s’ha in che si spezza,
uno manendo in sé come davanti.

In the final chapters of Paradiso, when he loses the ability to speak, he almost become a mirror himself focusing on reflecting the divine love. Although, Borges seemed to think that it indicates that Dante is simply asleep and dreaming of it all.

And I finish with the quote from an article I’ve read in Russian (since than, I’ve lost it so I cannot site it properly at the moment):

“We can suggest that the whole text of the poem was created like a huge “mirror” which reflected all intentions, all impressions learned by Dante-character in the process of his life and journey in the poem. All phenomena made by the Creator and multiplied by the love of the Poet are getting communicated to the past and future readers, like the light reflected in the universe of the Divine Comedy.”

Dante invented his own rhyme scheme, terza rima, for The Divine Comedy. It was adapted into English by Chaucer.

https://poets.org/glossary/terza-rima

George Steiner notes that likely it is only music and mathematics which can begin to reflect the expansive majesty of thought. Philosophy pursues such but an inclination to systems and other ordered orientation tempers the vigor. He then states that it is the aphoristic thinkers who come closest and it is from that vantage that one can revel in the grandeur of poetry. Valery and Heidegger understood this. It is a vision of the cosmos which likely extends back to the pre-socratics. I’m not sure if this exclusive project was the ambition of Dante, but who else could carry the torch from Virgil and Ovid, who else could synthesize the disparate of both Grace and what exists Beyond Good and Evil?

Predictably I loved the Inferno, liked Purgatory (especially Virgil and the poets) and pondered the implications of this Green Zone, I mean Paradise. Negotiating the strictures and commandments is tricky. I didn’t find any overt abatement of beer drinking. Unfortunately local politics mar this endeavor. History and Tom Eliot appear to have given the Florentine a pass.

This was an encouraging instance of literary fidelity, one where I read the Commedia from beginning to end, with no distraction, dalliance or pursuit of anything else.

I have travelled a goodly distance since I last read the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, and what a long strange trip its been. So, it was with an introspective bit of drollness that I embarked on this reread.

I was fascinated with Inferno as a teenager and between Dante Alighieri and Robert Smith/Rimbaud it is, frankly, nothing short of a miracle that I didn't put enough reasons together to wind-up as a fleshy tree with harpies perched in my branches somewhere in the lower circles of hell--if you catch my drift. Yeah, I was one tortured soul...

Now, I seem to have arrived in the dread "Existance Age" of my life. In evidence, I need only cite my thinning hair, second mortgage, life insurance, and All American guilt complex. This is also why it's taking me longer than necessary to read Richard Ford's Independence Day--each line just seems like something I'm thinking, and it's hard to be objective with the reading and view it simply as a book. And, it may very well explain why, as I listened to The Divine Comedy with this audiobook edition, I found Purgatorio so fascinating--when as a teenager I couldn't skim through it fast enough.

The Divine Comedy is more of a journey than a book, and as a journey it has stages and waypoints... also its not a trip everyone needs to take. I, for one, never plan on visiting Meca or for that matter, the Mormon General Conference; they're just not my kinds of trips. But, having grow-up in a Televangelist Supercult, The Divine Comedy is just the right kind of retrospective for me. Reasons are abundant but are typified by the way the book helps me look objectively at my spiritual life.

Here is the short list: First, according to Dante, pretty much everybody in hell is Italian and Catholic; second, my tattoo fantasies of the illustrations by Gustave Dore; third, the striking absense of a bathroom break; fourth the paragraph-long metaphores which fill each canto in the same way a bazaar of guillemots might fill something bigger than a breadbox but smaller than a dinghy if there was but some form of guillemot filling aparatus or perhaps a working decoy; fifth, placing people I dislike in different levels of hell--BTW I've decided Walter Kirn is my arch-enemy; and sixth (but hardly last) the unanswerable question of why Dante is obsessed with a woman who isn't his wife and figures her in the seat of grace while the woman he's married to is no doubt fixing his meals, cleaning his dishes, and caring for his kids, while he is writing the Divine Comedy (like some kind of Catholic Penthouse Forum Letter) and this is somehow OK because he still makes it to heaven.

I'll be honest, I've never been able to finish The Divine Comedy. I get to wandering around in Paradiso like a redneck in Walmart and keep on loosing my place due to profound boredom (unlike a redneck in Walmart). Afterall, "Heaven is a place," to quote David Byrne, "a place where nothing ever happens." Maybe someday Paradiso will be the part I just can't get enough of, but for now I'm content with my life in purgatory. I kind of like the idea that I can impress people just by casting a shadow and meeting old friends in really uncomfortable situations.

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"أنتم يا أصحاب العقول الراجحة
استشفّوا العقيدة التي تخفيها
هذه الأشعار الغريبة بمجازاتها."
-الجحيم 9: 61-63

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سمعت بـ "الكوميديا الإلهية" منذ أن كنت طالبة في المدرسة، وكانت إحدى الكتب التي نويت قراءتها عندما أكبر. وحين قرأت رواية الجحيم لدان براون أصبحت أريد بشدة قراءتها، وبالفعل اقتنيتها من إحدى معارض الكتب قبل ما يقارب 3 سنوات. ولكن لم يحن موعد قرائتها إلّا هذا العام بعد قراءة رواية الجحيم للمرة الثانية.

كنت متخوّفة من قراءة هذا العمل، ليس فقط لكبر حجمه وإنما لأنه ملحمة شعرية دينية تاريخية من العصور الوسطى. كنت مترددة أيضاً بشأن الترجمة، وهل عساي أفهم أم لا؟! لكن ما إن شرعت بقراءة مقدمة هذه النسخة الصادرة عن دار ورد، بقلم المترجم حنا عبود، حتى شعرت بالاطمئنان.

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"تقول دوروثي سايرز في مقدمة الجحيم: إن الطريقة المثلى لقراءة الكوميديا الإلهية هي أن يبدأ القارئ من أول بيت شعر فيها حتى آخر بيت، مأخوذا بقوة السرد وبالحركة الخاطفة للشعر، غير آبه بالتفسيرات التاريخية والشروح المنطقية التي لا تقع أصلا في قلب نص الكوميديا" (ص 9 من طبعة بنغوين 1977)

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مقدمة مليئة بالشروحات والتوضيحات، وحتى الأناشيد مترجمة بشكل رائع ومفهوم وواضح، وفي آخرها الكثير من التفاسير والهوامش، وكوني قارئة عادية دفعني الفضول الأدبي والمعرفي لقراءة هذا العمل، ولست متعمقة أو باحثة في هذا المجال، فإني لم أواجه صعوبة تذكر في قراءة الكوميديا، وكل الشكر والفضل في هذا للمترجم الأستاذ حنا عبود.

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"ما الوسائل التي يعتمد عليها قارئ الكوميديا؟... إن قارئ الكوميديا لا يحتاج إلى أي شيء سوى الدخول في القراءة مدخلا بريئا، لأن ما في الملاحظات والتعليقات التي تعقب كل نشيد من شروح تكفي القارئ إلى درجة كبيرة وتوفر له المتعة الأدبية والفنية."

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قد يقول قائل بأن دانتي استلهم أو سرق أو استوحى أو إلخ عمله هذا من رسالة الغفران لأبي العلاء المعري أو من الإسراء والمعراج أو من أي عمل أدبي آخر، وأنا أقول هنا، بأن كل ذلك لا يقلل من شأن كوميديا دانتي وخياله. اترك عنك عزيزي صاحب المقارنات تلك الاتهامات ومحاولات التبرئة وانطلق مع دانتي في رحلته الفريدة، وحرر عقلك ونفسك ورأيك من أي انطباعات وقيود مسبقة.

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"إننا هنا أمام أثر يقدم أعظم مخيلة توصل إليها الجنس البشري."

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-------------------------
الجحيم

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"ما هذا؟ إني أرى عذابات جديدة
ومعذبين جددا، أينما تحركت
أنتقل من ألم إلى ألم."
-الجحيم 6: 4-6

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تنطلق رحلتنا مع دانتي والشاعر الروماني الكبير، فيرجيل، من الغابة المظلمة وحتى آخر دوائر الجحيم. يصف دانتي عذابات من دخلوا الجحيم بسبب معاصيهم خلال حياتهم ويتعرّض إلى تفاصيل التعذيب والآلام التي ستصيبهم بسبب ما اقترفوا من خطايا على مدى 34 نشيداً. أهوال ما بعدها أهوال وعذابات مخيفة في دوائر الجحيم التسع الرهيبة.

كان "الجحيم" أفضل وأقوى وأكثر دهشة من "المطهر" و"الفردوس" بالنسبة لي. ويستحق منفرداً خمسة نجوم كاملة.

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"يا عدالة الله، من يستطيع وصف
هذا الألم المرير الذي يجري أمامي؟
لماذا تُنزِل فينا آثامنا مثل هذه الضربات؟"
-الجحيم 7: 19-21

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-------------
المطهر

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"عظيمة كانت خطاياي، ولكن
لا حدود لرحمة الألوهية التي تبسط
ذراعيها لكل الآتين إليها."
-المطهر 3: 121-123

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عندما يخرج دانتي وفيرجيل من الجحيم، يصلا إلى جبل المطهر ويبدأ صعودهما تدريجياً إلى شرفات المطهر، حيث يشاهد دانتي الموتى الذين وهبوا الخلاص وهم يبحثون عن الغفران من الخطايا التي اقترفوها على الأرض. ويملأ جو من الأمان والأمل ذلك المكان الخاص بالتطهر، على عكس المعاناة الكبيرة واليأس اللذين مرا بهما في الجحيم. يقع هذا الجزء في 33 نشيداً يتطهّر بها دانتي من خطاياه، ليستعد دخول الفردوس مع حبيبته بياتريس بعد اختفاء فيرجيل هنا.

أقيّم "المطهر" بـ 3 نجوم.
----------------

الفردوس

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"رغائبنا لم تعد ترغب في رغبة
إلّا في مسرّة الروح القدس الذي
يبهجه أن نكون حسب أوامره."
-الفردوس 3: 52-53

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يصل دانتي مع بياتريس إلى الجنة الأرضية على قمة جبل المطهر، ليبدأ معها رحلة الصعود إلى الفردوس السماوي المكتوبة على مدى 33 نشيداً. حيث تصور دانتي أن الفردوس سلسلة من تسع كرات تدور حول الأرض، وقد ثبت في كل كرة كوكب وعدد كبير من النجوم، كما تثبت الجواهر في التاج. وكلما تحركت هذه الأجرام السماوية، وقد وهبت كلها ذكاءً ربانياً متفاوت الدرجات، أخذت تتغنى ببهجة سعادتها وتسّبح بحمد خالقها، وتغمر السماوات بموسيقى تلك الكرات. ويقول دانتي إن النجوم هي أولياء السموات الصالحون، وأرواح الناجين، ويختلف ارتفاعها عن الأرض باختلاف ما كسبت في عمل صالح في حياتها على ظهر الأرض، وبقدر هذا الارتفاع تكون سعادتها، ويكون قربها من أعلى السموات التي يقوم عليها عرش الله.

لست أدري لماذا لم استمتع بهذا الجزء وشعرت بالملل أثناء قرائته، أقيّمه بنجمتين.
------------

قراءة ماراثونية استمرت لأكثر شهر. وهو بالتأكيد عمل يستحق القراءة.

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"هنا استراحت قواي من خيالها المحلّق
لكني شعرت كأن كياني - رغبتي وعقلي
معاً كما لو وضعا في عجلة دوارة

قد غيّره الحب الذي يحرك الشمس وسائر النجوم"
-الفردوس 33: 142-145

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...

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”THROUGH ME THE WAY INTO THE SUFFERING CITY,
THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE ETERNAL PAIN,
THROUGH ME THE WAY THAT RUNS AMONG THE LOST.
JUSTICE URGED ON MY HIGH ARTIFICER;
MY MAKER WAS DIVINE AUTHORITY,
THE HIGHEST WISDOM, AND THE PRIMAL LOVE.
BEFORE ME NOTHING BUT ETERNAL THINGS
WERE MADE, AND I ENDURE ETERNALLY.
ABANDON EVERY HOPE, WHO ENTER HERE.”

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Botticelli’s vision of Satan. There are 92 illustrations by Botticelli, inspired by The Divine Comedy, of which this edition contains a selection.

I read Inferno while in college and had always intended to go back and read Purgatorio and Paradiso, but somehow the years passed and I never returned to Dante’s masterpiece. When my son went off to college and asked to borrow some classics to read, I sent him, along with my copy of The Divine Comedy, Canterbury Tales, Utopia, Paradise Lost, and several other important works of literature. The rule with books, of course, is that there is no such thing as lending and returning. The lending part goes fine, but the returning is usually the tricky part. When I decided it was time to return to Dante, I didn’t ask for my copy back from my son, though he would be one of the few people who would return a book. I feel that giving a book to either of my children is an investment in all of our futures.

Since I decided to descend into hell with Dante, I was frequently glad to have Virgil as our guide. He explained the explainable. He provided a protective wing from the many monstrosities that we encounter.

n  ”Gross hailstones, water gray with filth, and snow
Come streaking down across the shadowed air;
The earth, as it receives that shower, stinks.
Over the souls of those submerged beneath
That mess, is an outlandish, vicious beast,
His three throats barking, doglike: Cerberus.
His eyes are bloodred; greasy, black, his beard;
His belly bugles, and his hands are claws;
His talons tear and flay and rend the shades.”n

As I was reading Dante’s descriptions of various horrendous beasts, it reminded me of the fantastical medieval expressions of imagination that I’ve encountered numerous times in the margins of holy books. These early monk illustrators displayed such a vivid creativity in how they depicted their fears. I can only wonder how terrifying their nightmares were and for them to believe that these terrors were real would only add wings and claws to their trepidation. They were infected with these fears by Christianity, while being dangled the balm and possibility of heaven.

How about this for a living nightmare?

”As I kept my eyes fixed upon those sinners,
A serpent with six feet springs out against
One of the three, and clutches him completely.
It gripped his belly with its middle feet,
And with its forefeet grappled his two arms;
And then it sank its teeth in both his cheeks;
It stretched its rear feet out along his thighs
And ran its tail along between the two,
Then straightened it again behind his loins.
No ivy ever gripped a tree so fast
As when that horrifying monster clasped
And intertwined the other’s limbs with its.
Then just as if their substance were warm wax,
They stuck together and they mixed their colors,
So neither seemed what he had been before.”

After seeing some of the horrors awaiting us in hell, which has proved to be a much better scare tactic for considering improving my heavenly resume than Death on the Highway or Red Asphalt II were for improving my driving skills, we encountered the pantheon of classical writers Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan. Dante was so proud (we will deal with pride in Purgatory) that they accepted him as a member of their club. I was starting to wonder if Dante may have already resigning himself to a life in hell. Are great writers who don’t use their gifts glorifying God doomed to hell?

One of the wonderful things about writing, to paraphrase Chaucer, is that you can eviscerate your enemies forever in print, and certainly the people who had most offended Dante in life were experiencing the tortures of everlasting hell. Writers do play God. Because of the fame of The Divine Comedy, their names will always be associated with a list of famous sinners. I would say that Dante’s revenge was served cold, but really it was rather warmly given.

We also meet some sinners who led pious lives worthy of heaven, but because they were never baptised for the reason they lived before Christianity existed, or fell under the catchall phrase ”did not worship God in fitting ways,” and were all, every one of them, consigned to hell. God does seem to be very particular about all of his children fearing him, loving him above all else, and most importantly of all worshipping him. So it wasn’t about whether these people were good people, but that they showed proper reverence to his worshipness. Later, when I visited heaven, I didn’t see any issues with overcrowding, so I’m not sure why a few get out of hell free cards couldn’t have been surreptitiously handed out to those bereft of sin who didn’t completely conform to his will. How about even just a leg up to purgatory, where eventually one might after thousands of years of suffering earn a pair of wings?

It was with some relief, my deodorant was starting to give way, we ascended to Purgatory and confronted the seven terraced mountain, representing the seven deadly sins. For those in need of a recap, there are the malicious uses of love, such as wrath, envy, and pride, and those where love is too strong, such as lust, gluttony, and greed. Sloth is the only sin not based on excesses, but on a lack of enough self-love or energy to be a contributing member of society. As I weigh myself on these scales, I can honestly say that sloth and greed have never been sins of mine. Pride, I will admit, was a struggle when I was younger, but life has a way of knocking the piss out of us and reminding us constantly that we are only half as smart as we think we are. I’ve had a few wrathful moments in my life, but being around human beings for too long will test the patience of the most sainted among us. Lust I will plead the fifth, and gluttony . . well, food has never been an issue, but one could make a case that I do suffer from a serious case of book gluttony.

I did check out some of the real estate pricing while in Purgatory. *sigh*

It was with some relief that we discovered some angels in purgatory, bedraggled ones to be sure, but still ones doing what we want angels to do, which is protect us from marauding beasts.

”I saw the company of noble spirits,
silent and looking upward, pale and humble,
as if in expectation; and I saw,
emerging and descending from above,
two angels bearing flaming swords, of which
the blades were broken off, without their tips.”

Angels are badass warriors, and there have been several television shows in recent years that has depicted them as soft and warm cuddle buddies, but really angels aren’t for clinking beers with, but for us to stand behind when winged, fire spitting beasts are attempting to turn us into crispy critters.

Dante shared an epiphany with me while in Purgatory that left me thinking about the creation of dreams and how important it is for all of us to continue to build new dreams as we leap the final hurdles of achieving a dream or find that other dreams may no longer suit us.

”A new thought arose inside of me and, from
that thought, still others--many and diverse--
were born: I was so drawn from random thought
to thought that, wandering in mind, I shut
my eyes, transforming thought on thought to dream.”

Virgil was replaced as our guide by Beatrice as we were about three-quarters of the way through Purgatory. I was sorry to see Virgil go, but I must admit I’ve always wanted to meet Beatrice, just to see what type of woman would inspire such a lifetime of devotion from a man like Dante. She was the daughter of a banker, married a banker, and with her premature death at 25 remained forever the very vision of beauty. According to Dante, he only met her twice, but those sightings must have been magical because they left him with a permanent love hangover. I wanted to ask Dante if he had ever even talked to the lass or if he just projected all of his visions of her from glimpses of her outer beauty, but then the fact that she is here in Paradise may answer that question for me.

”In ascent, her eyes--
All beauty’s living seals--gain force, and notes
that I had not yet turned to them in Mars,
can then excuse me--just as I accuse
myself , thus to excuse myself--and see
that I speak truly: here her holy beauty
is not denied--ascent makes it more perfect.”

Heaven light, as it turns out, is even better than bar light. We all look our best.

If you are considering reading Dante, I would recommend for sure reading Inferno. Most likely when you encounter Dante references appearing in your reading, they will probably be from the Inferno. This Allen Mandelbaum translation is wonderful and so easy to read, and there are copious notes in the back to help guide you if Virgil loses you in a flaming forest. This is one of the classic works which I have felt for some time I’ve needed to read. There will be many more this year, including but not limited to War and Peace, Magic Mountain, and Les Miserables.

If a bit of flayed skin flies out from between the pages once in a while, don’t be afraid; it’s just part of the adventure. A word of caution though, be sure to buy some SPF1000 before you take this scenic walk with Dante.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
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Inferno ---> *****+
Purgatorio ---> ****
Paradiso ---> ***1/2

Che posso dire su La Divina Commedia, alle scuole superiori mi aveva fatto penare e non poco, la parafrasi era il mio incubo quotidiano, semplicemente ne capivo poco o niente... Ora a molti anni di distanza ci riprovo, dopo una prova di una decina di anni fa, andata così così, il Paradiso lo avevo abbandonato.
Così, insieme ad un GdL, mi ci r'imbatto. Il viaggio è lungo e tortuoso, la selva mi è sempre stata "amica", l'avrò letta decine di volte, le porte dell'Inferno mi dicono (ancora) "lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate". Scendo con Dante e Virgilio attraverso i gironi infernali, il caldo incomincia ad esser soffocante. Fortunatamente dopo aver salutato Lucifero, arrivo...

L'inferno è sempre una scoperta, c'è tanto da scoprire, tanto da conoscere, tanto da riflettere. Ci troviamo molta mitologia e storia. Il Purgatorio è interessante, invece il Paradiso mi risulta troppo religioso (ma questo è un mio personale problema). Comunque è e rimane un'opera imponente e ineguagliabile!

For the Celebrity Death Match Review Tournament, The Divine Comedy versus 1984

Gabriel, Michael and Raphael
Celestial Architects
Eternity

Dear Mr. O'Brien,

Thank you for your response to our recent tender. After due deliberation, we must regretfully inform you that we have decided not to implement your interesting plan for restructuring and downsizing the afterlife.

Our accounting department confirms your statement that it would be more cost-effective only to retain Hell and wind up operations in Purgatory and Paradise. This would, however, directly conflict with our mission statement, which involves offering the chance of salvation to each and every soul. Our senior counsel, based on numerous precedents, contests your claim that this is in principle equivalent with "a boot grinding a human face, forever".

We appreciate your ingenious compromise suggestion that the "integrated afterlife experience", as you describe it, could be administered by a board chaired by the late Pope Boniface VIII, and accept that this offer was made in good faith. None the less, our feeling is that Signor Boniface is not in all respects a suitable person to fill this role.

The above notwithstanding, we are agreeable to implementing several of the specific points listed in Appendix C which concern improvements to the current structure of Hell. In particular, we will shortly be commencing an upgrade programme according to which the jaws of His Infernal Majesty will be substantially expanded. We are pleased to inform you that the work will be completed well before your own demise, according to our records scheduled for April 19, 1993, and we have already reserved a place for you next to Signor Cassius.

Yours sincerely,

Gabriel

THE DARING, somewhat COMIC, and also DIVINE, INVENTIO


It is very difficult not to be lured by the highly intelligent craft of Durante degli Aliguieri (DA). And may be it is not a coincidence that he was the exact contemporary of Giotto, his fellow Florentine. For if Giotto planted the seed for a pictorial representation of the world in which man, at the center, and through a window, delivers to us a naturalistic depiction of divine stories, Dante also used his writing to posit himself as the Author who through his fictional persona or Alter-Ego, gives us the viewpoint to contemplate the full cosmos. His cosmos, but for us to share.

Still, we modern readers, in spite of Modernist and PostModernist awareness, are still fooled by DA’s handling of illusion, and easily become pilgrims and start on a literary trip more than ready to absorb everything that DA wants us to see, and think, and believe.

POLITICS

So, for example, we will learn his political views. DA was exiled in 1301 and led a peripatetic life, outside Florence, until his death in 1321. He wrote the Commedia during the exile, from 1309 and finished it in time. By masterfully welding the fact and mythologized fiction of the world of Antiquity, he cloths himself with the full robes of Auctoritas, and presents us the complex development of European politics during the thirteenth century. He summons his views repeatedly either by the succession of visits to the traitors or in fully developed historical pageants.

Of course, Hell is populated by DA’s enemies, with the very pope responsible for his exile, Boniface VIII, holding stardom in Circle 8th. In this Inferno DA is the very Minos. He is the one who with his pen of many tails wraps around his enemies and throws them down the pit to the Circle that DA believes the chosen sinners deserve. Even if this spectacle horrifies his ingenuous Pilgrim.

The ranking of the Inferno Circles reflect also DA’s values. Lust is the least damaging while Treason, in particular political treason and the betrayal of friends, is the most despicable. In comparison even Lucifer, a rendition that remains faithful to the medieval tradition, is not much more than a grotesque, and not particularly hateful, monster.

Politics continue in Purgatory. DA’s audacity is again proved by the way he exploits to its fullest what was still a relatively new concept in Christian dogma (1274). If DA had been Minos in Inferno, he now is the discerning Cato of Purgatory. He is the one holding the Silver and Gold keys, and who claims to know the very intimate thought of those who had the luck to repent the instance just before dying. He awards then the transit ticket to Paradise. Can we be surprised if some of the awardees had some relation to those figures who had welcomed DA during his exile?

DA’s authorial knowledge is supplemented by the granting his protagonist with the role of Messenger of Hope. The Pilgrim, as the only human in Purgatory, can bid for more prayers to the still living relatives when he goes back to Earth. He can effect a change in the duration that any purging sinner is to spend in the transitional stage, the only one of the three realms in which the clock is ticking.

Could one expect DA to finally drop the political discourse in Heaven? No, of course not. There it even acquires greater strength since the discourse is cloaked with a divine mantle. In Paradiso it will be no other than Saint Peter himself who will denounce the path of degeneration that the Papacy had taken in recent years. And if Boniface VIII (died in 1303) had been repeatedly identified as the culprit for the evil in earth, now it is his succeeding popes, --and contemporary to the writing of Commedia--, who are selected by DA’s saintly mouthpiece. Pope Clement V was responsible for the transfer of the papacy to Avignon, and the cupidity of John XXII was for everyone to see.

Indeed, a secluded Apocalyptical 666 attests that politics forms a triptych in Commedia. In agreement with the intricate framework of parallels, symmetries and balances in this work, DA devoted the three chapters 6 in each book to political diatribes.

Apart from his relying on Ancient Auctoritas, DA also accorded the full weight of history to his views, and it is mostly in a couple of major pageants and in the Valley of the Kings that he exposes the political disaster that the withdrawal from the Italian peninsula by the Empire had on the various city states. It was left to the corrupt papacy and to the corrupt smaller kingdoms to spread crime along the full Europe. His solution was clear. The papacy had to govern only religious matters, and he extolled the Emperor Henry VII to hold the political reins of Europe. It is DA’s canonized Beatrice who has a reserved seat for this Emperor in God’s White Flower if he does succeed in exerting his salvific political role.






DOGMA

But the Commedia is not just about politics. This extremely complex work is also soaking in Christian Dogma. Of course politics and dogma were inextricably joined during the Middle Ages, and that was part of DA’s very complaint. And what is to me extraordinary about the immediate reception of Commedia, is that it was treated like Scripture. Even the early editions were illustrated like illuminated manuscripts—which in a way is most befitting if we remember that it is about the progress of a Pilgrim’s as he approaches Light and gains a 20/20 vision elevated tho the Trinitarian power.

In his appeal to religious dogma DA was extraordinarily successful, even if some of his claims were shockingly daring. He modified or added realms to the Christian Cosmos, with the peculiar understanding of the Limbo to accommodate revered figures from Ancient Antiquity, or added the Pre-Purgatory for the unabsolved Rulers. He designed his own ranking of the Sins, both for Hell and Purgatory. But most importantly he proposed his understanding of Free Will and its conflicting relationship to Predetermination and God’s vision. Not by chance did he place the discussion of Free Will at the very center of the work, in Canto 16 of Purgatory.

But the most dangerous proposition, for him, was his vehement defense of the limitations of the Papacy on Earth. He started writing in 1307 just a few years after the Papal Bull of Unam Sanctam the very controversial claim of papal infallibility. Not this book, but Dante’s Monarchia, in which he strongly attacked official tenet, was burned soon after Dante’s death and was included in the list of forbidden books during the 16th century.





NARRATIVE SCHEMES

To us, however, it is not his proclamations on Dogma, and not even his political views (except for historians), which offer the greatest interest. What is most remarkable for literature addicts is how DA, the author, develops all these themes, and succeeds in weighing with the gravest authority his poetic treatise. And this he does through his masterful manipulation of the power of fiction and the sophisticated uses of voices.

For a start, there is the protagonist: DA’s Alter Ego, and the only human in the full work. His humanity, and his being in the middle of the moral mess in which he has placed himself is the perfect mirror for the reader. But we can trust him to embody us because Virgil, the greatest Roman poet and chronologist of the foundation of Rome, will guide us. We can trust him also because Christian Divinity has selected him as the, temporary, guide. It is only when Virgil’s powers have reached his limits, two thirds into the full work, that the pilgrim’s identity is revealed to us. He is Dante himself, or Dante the Pilgrim (DP). With his revealed identity he can say goodbye to the pagan guide who cannot, alas, have a place in Heaven.


Dante, however, will.





The spoiler provided by our general culture has damaged the way we read the work. The astounding pretention of DA in assigning himself the powers in deciding who goes where in his system of divine retributions has been blurred to some naive readers. Some of them try to excuse Dante precisely because they have been entirely convinced by his acting puppet. The highly successful Dante the Pilgrim (DP) as a candid personality with the qualities of kindness, fear, anger and similar emotions, distracts our attention away from the real Dante, the Author.

The Pilgrim is an alibi mechanism for his creator. He shows pity for the people DA condemns. He can go beyond the Terrace of Pride, in which the rather proud DA may be still spending some of his time. And he becomes the anointed messenger from the Heavens to deliver to us what DA is writing. But we would also be mistaken if we did not recognized that not always him, but many other characters voice DA’s opinion. His brilliant dramatization with innumerable personages constitutes the choir of a ventriloquist.

In the sophisticated Narrative technique, the handling of time is also magisterial. Apart from the symbolic unfolding of the action during Holy Week of the year 1300, and the references to eternal cosmic time, it is the numerous voices of this clever ventriloquist who continually foretell what is to happen to the sinners.

Most outstandingly the voices predict the eternal condemnation of DA’s particular enemies. Some of these were not yet dead at the time of the pilgrimage, but had already passed away when DA was writing his poem. Such an example is the premonition that the most hated pope Boniface VIII will be damned. He died three years later. But there is also the shocking case of the soul that is already in penance while his body is still living on earth. This personality died even after Dante.

Finally it is DP himself, once he has entered Heaven, who engages in this foretelling, and of course, it had to be in his warning to the Popes that were about to be in power in the years after the voyage of the Commedia, reminding them to stay out of politics and to forget material wealth.

The suitability of DP as our Alter-egos to reach salvation is certified by his examinations on the Theological Virtues by the the Apostles Peter, James and John. He passes them with flying colors, because DP acknowledges that his knowledge is based on the Holy Text.

And it is also with Text, and DA was very well versed in exploiting its four levels of interpretation (Literal, allegorical, moral and anagogical), that is, with this new poetry that Dante Aliguieri is proposing a plan for his, and our, salvation. Because after such a heavenly Graduation who can deny the Commedia its status as Prophetic and Scriptural? May be we saw it coming, when the still anonymous Pilgrim posited himself, at the very beginning of the poem, as the 6th greatest poet after the likes of Homer, Ovid, Virgil etc. So, may be it is not by chance that his identity as Dante is revealed until Virgil is used and expensed.

Several other poets also populate the triptychal poem: representatives of the two pioneering schools of Provençal and Sicilian schools, as well as by those Florentines who with or just before DA, started formulating the sweet new style (dolce still novo) and exploring the literary possibilities of the still vernacular Tuscan tongue. But if DA has been exploiting his abilities as ventriloquist, it is with his own voice as a poet that he makes a presence in Commedia. A few of his fictional characters quote some of Dante’s earlier verses.

Having reached the Empirium of the poem, we can stop and think about where Dante Alighieri has taken us. Because, even if not eternal salvation, he has delivered us a most extraordinary feat of literature that we cannot but qualify as divine. Furthermore, he has done so in a newly coined language, to which he added some words of his own invention, and, most outstanding of all, he positioned the Author at the very center of that literary White Rose of fiction.

And this flower continued to exude its rich scent until, in a similar process to the displacement of Giotto’s viewer, Roland Barthes, plucked it in the declaration formulated in his 1967 Essay The Death of the Author.


But before that, it had a long life.