HIST-308 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Hellmouth, Midlife Crisis, Guelphs And Ghibellines
13 Mar 2020
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The author most associated with the dawn of the late middle ages. He was a bit too early to count as properly renaissance: dante"s politics. Like marsilius, dante was known as a political author. He was born a guelf, he argued mostly for imperial power: dante"s poetry. He was much more beloved as a poet writing in the vernacular. There could be no boccaccio or chaucer or renaissance at all: dante"s comedy. Is not a laugh riot but instead a comedy in the greek sense ending with reconciliation. The poem begins with dante in mid-life crisis, stumbling upon a hell mouth: circles of hell. Dante discovers 9 downward sloping circles of hell, always getting worse. It"s made for unbaptized infants and virtuous pagans: dante"s guide. One of those virtuous pagans becomes dante"s guide: the roman poet virgil. Though too early to be saved by christ, he still did his best: vicious circles. The circles beneath limbo then became increasingly vicious.
