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BLOG ENTRY #7

Cantos 30-34

 

“My guide and I crossed over and began to mount that little known and lightness road to ascend into the shinning world again.”-The Inferno

 

            Throughout the Inferno, Dante was lead by his guide Virgil.  Virgil can be considered a mentor or a friend who could teach through experience.  Virgil has been the one who Dante follows through the experiences that Virgil has already been through.  Virgil did not tell Dante what to do rather he told Dante what he had learned through his previous experiences in hell. 

            In cantos 32 it depicts the frozen lake of hell.  The image of a frozen lake was not what I had expected Dante to find at the center of hell.  I would have imagined that there would have been a fire pit or some sort of burning material at the deepest depths of hell.  This quote represents the end of Dante’s and Virgil’s travel through hell.  The lake represents the sinners who were denied the emotions of sadness, regret, and remorse.  The sinners are denied the ability to shed tears.  The tears that that could have been shed would have been frozen by the blowing winds from the wings of Satan.  Because the sinners were not able to cry it forced them to forever remember what they had done wrong and what they were being punished for. 

            Overall, the Inferno depicts what life would be like if everyone recognized their sins and could understand the reasons that connect their punishments to their after life.  Dante has leaned through the wrongs and faults of others.  There were many visual images that will stick with Dante throughout the rest of his life and hopefully he will use this acquired knowledge to better his own well being and decisions that he will make throughout his life.

BLOG ENTRY #5

Cantos 21-26

 

“There is no greater sorrow than to be mindful of the happy time in misery.”-The Divine Comedy

 

Through the twenty-first through the twenty-sixth canto Dante and Virgil continued down into the depths of hell.  In canto twenty-three, the poets entered the sixth bolgia, which was filled with the hypocrites of the world.  On their outside, the hypocrites portray the image of holiness, but your outside appearance can only cover so much.  The inside of the hypocrites was filled with the lies and deceitful actions that each soul must live with through all perpetuity.

The main sinner in the sixth bolgia is Caiaphas.  He was a High Priest of the Jews who counseled the Pharisees to crucify Jesus; his punishment is to be crucified to the floor of hell so that all the travelers and passing sinners must walk upon him.  This symbolizes the way in which Jesus was crucified and suffered the pain of death for all the world’s sins and now Caiaphas must suffer the pain of death for all the world’s hypocrisy.  The relations that this canto has with my personal faith made it very simple to connect the Inferno with regular life.

Through my years of learning about the bible it is times like these that I can relate my faith in real life situations.  Peter, who was one of twelve disciples, betrayed Jesus at the last supper (the night before Jesus was crucified under Pontius Polite).  Peter is an example of a hypocrite because he turned against his faith when he realized that his recognition from Pontius Polite was at stake. 

A quote from the Inferno that symbolizes the weight of which the hypocrites are held under is “I waited there, and saw along that track two souls who seems in haste to be with me; but the narrow way and their burden held them back.”(200) This quote shows the punishment that the hypocrites must live under for the rest of their lives.  This also relates the quote for the Divine Comedy, because once you commit a deceitful action, such as turning against your faith, you must live with the thought of only seeing happiness and never being able to experience it.

Also, this relates to Caiaphas because he crucified at the bottom of hell, he is always aware of the misery that he lives amongst and yet he is only able to remember happiness.  Overall, cantos twenty-three was a very powerful cantos and I was able to come to life through my own faith. 

 

BLOG ENTRY #6

Cantos 26-30

 

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in time of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.”-Dante Alighieri (Hell Quotes)

 

            This quote refers to the many levels of hell, some of which are hotter than others.  The hottest places in hell can be thought of as places where there is the most temptation and the most difficult desire to choose the wrong side.  When you maintain your neutrality you detach yourself for the surroundings and then you are able to make a controlled choice without taking sides.

Through the 26^th through the 30^th cantos Dante is lead by Virgil to the deepest depths of hell.  As Dante has been traveling through the different levels of hell he has seen the punishments of each sinner and can relate his own life situations to the people he sees in hell.  Dante sees what the punishments of each sin are and he has finally begun to understand how the actions and choices you make in your life time continue to affect you throughout eternity, in hell.

One particular instance, seen in cantos 30, is when Dante sees the falsifiers.  The falsifiers are made up of the evil impersonators, the counterfeiters, and the false witnesses.  The evil impersonators are the people in hell who use words to better themselves.  They would even give out false advice if it was going to improve their self image or help them personally.  The falsifiers are punished by running forever without a pause.  ‘”For every word I uttered that was not true you uttered enough false coins to fill a bushel.”’(253)  This quote has significance to the book because it is saying that if you were to put a weight of some sort, such as money, on account of how many times you lied then there would be meaning to your punishment.  In order to understand what you are being punished for you must understand exactly what you failed to recognize in your life.  This relates to Dante because he has learned to detach himself from his surroundings in order to discern what step must be taken.

Overall, Dante has come a long way, literally and mentally.  He has learned to connect the sinner’s actions with events that may have taken place in his own life and he uses their misunderstandings to learn from and live his life by.

 

 

BLOG ENTRY #4

Cantos 15-20

“A fair request should be followed by the deed in silence”-The Divine Comedy

       As Dante and Virgil persist on their journey through hell they enter the eighth circle.  In this circle there are ditches that seem to contain those who have committed a peccadillo.  “And that flayed spirit thought to hide his face…”(159) This quote from the Inferno show the change in the level of sinners that are encompassed by the endless walls of hell.  The change that the sinners portray is that they are no longer so eager to see the passing human.  They seem to possess a sense of pity as they try to conceal their identity.  The sinners at this level only want to be forgotten and erased from the minds of people still on Earth. 

            “And he replied: ‘I speak unwillingly, but something in your living voice, in which I hear the world again, stirs and compels me.’”(159) The continuation of the first quote depicts the image that the sinner speaks reluctantly and that the voice of a human does not appeal to him.  He implies that as Dante speaks it brings back the memories from when he was an adroit speaker and the only word he knew was not ‘sipa’. Although the sinner does not ask Dante directly, he would like Dante to continue in silence.  This is the request that the sinner would like Dante to grant.

            This quote also relates to Dante’s maturity. He is beginning to grasp how your after life is a reflection of what you did or failed to do with your life on Earth.  Dante is no longer a callow visitor to Hell he is learning how his actions have an effect on the ‘sinners’ around him. As a result of this maturity Dante is able to carry out the request of the sinner without questioning.  He is now able to comply even without fully understanding.

BLOG ENTRY#

Cantos 11-15

 “Consider you origin: you were not born to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.”-The Divine Comedy

 

            This quote for the Divine Comedy can be seen as the way in which Dante is learning as he travels through Hell with his guide Virgil.  Virgil can be considered a facilitator or a mentor.  He is not teaching Dante what is right and what is wrong, but instead he is guiding him and forcing him to learn from his own fatuous mistakes.  Also, Virgil is now able to reflect on what he has already lived and experienced and this gives Dante time to grow and learn on his own.

            Dante’s origin represents the confused.  He lacks the knowledge base of other.  This quote can be related to a quote from the Inferno: “ From the point on the peak where the mountains split to the plain below, the rock is so badly shattered a man at the top might male a rough stair of it.”(111) This quote depicts the way that Dante is learning.  Instead of only seeing the mountain as a jagged cliff he sees that it may easy to climb down, but climbing from the bottom may be impossible.  He now sees that there is two sides to everything and that the first route may not be the best route.  This shows how Dante starting path has taken a turn for the better.  He is able to follow the virtue of a strong sagacious leader, Virgil, and gain the knowledge that he is willing to learn. 

            A statement that my dad often makes is “Going to school is learning how to learn.”  This relates to Dante because he is traveling through Hell learn and better understand the life before and after death.  By traveling through Hell Dante is learning how to learn from other mistakes, as well as learning how to obtain new knowledge that could change your origin.  Throughout the eleventh to fifteenth cantos it is patent that Dante learns how to learn and follow Virgil and his virtues.

 

BLOG ENTRY #2

Cantos 6-10

“A great flame follows a little spark.”-The Divine Comedy

     Looking directly at the seventh cantos, the character Virgil shows himself more powerful that the rages of hell’s monsters.  “Thus we descended the dark scarp of hell to which all the evil of the universe comes home at last, into the fourth Great Circle and ledge of the abyss.”(72) This quote is from when the poets descended to the fourth circle and the came to find the war. 

            The quote “a great flame follows a little spark” represents the course that the war seemed to follow.  The war was between the Hoarders and the Wasters.  This shows that the Great War started small, like a spark, and grew in to the Great War, like a great flame.  The Great War was when each mob would clash by throwing and pushing great weights apart and against one another. 

            Also, in the seventh cantos Virgil walks across the marsh, which is full of various souls attacking one another in the slime.  There are two different classifications for the souls that lie in the slime, the wrathful and the sullen.  The wrathful souls, who were too obdurate, and were not able to let go of their grudges and fury, relate to the quote from the Divine Comedy, because they started their fall to become a wrathful soul with one complaint or problem that then lead to a large grudge similar to the large flame that follows the little spark.  Affluence can be a cause of becoming a wrathful soul, because in life they may have become too consumed by wealth and were not able to avoid their greed.

This is very similar with the sullen souls that lie in the slime.  In life they were unable to have a sanguine outtake on life, and rather than except the joys and happiness of life, over time they created an overwhelming amount of hate and rage.  Because of this large amount of hate and rage, they are no longer able to surface out from underneath the layers of slime.  This relates to the Divine Comedy quote in a very similar way that the small amount of hate grew into a larger state of odium, just like the flame grew from the spark. 

Comparing the wrathful and the sullen relates to when the poets descended to the fourth circle because it elucidates what the denouement of what the war between the Hoarders and the Wasters will be.  Whether or not they will end up as a wrathful or a sullen soul, all because of the small spark or war that grew into a large flame of war.

 

BLOG ENTRY #1

Cantos 1-5

“In the middle of the journey of our life I came to find myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.”-The Divine Comedy

      This quote sets the tone for the book the Inferno and it can be broken down into three sections using references to the first five cantos.  Looking at the middle of the journey, a quote from the Inferno is “Poet, you who must guide me, before you trust me to that arduous passage, look to me and look through me-can I be worthy?” (35) This quote is showing the self-doubt that the “I” character feels in the quandary.  He is not sure that her will still be worthy to continue the journey once he reaches the middle.  This quote also depicts that “I” as a person lost in confusion, trying to figure out the right way of travel and whether or not he will be lead or eschewed from the right way to travel.  This relates to the Inferno because this is how the character  “I” is first portrayed in the book.

       “Within a dark wood” is one part of the Divine Comedy quote that can relate to the Inferno.  This quote describes hell, as the character “I” travels through it.  “How shall I say what wood that was! I never saw so dear, so rank, so arduous and wilderness! Its very memory gives a shape to fear.”(28) This quote banally shows how the character “I” feels about hell.  The hell that is being described is without a doubt a dark and a daunting place to be and anyone who enter this hell is far from being ebullient about it.  It is a bone chilling fear that can creep upon you when a memory or image is brought up.

            A third part of the quote that can be related to the Inferno in “the straight way.”  A quote from the Inferno that seems to show that the character “I” is in fact continuing on the same route, even though the route is winding and the destination is uncertain, “Circling and circling, it seemed to scorn all pause.  So it ran on, and still behind it pressed a never ending rout of souls pain.”(43) This quote directly relates to the Divine Comedy quote because is depicts the sights of hell that are painful to the eyes, such as the souls reaching out of the slime filled marsh.  Also, it depicts the image of how there seems to be many paths to follow and how the correct path to travel seems nebulous, but in reality they all end up at the same place.

IMPORTANT EVENTS IN DANTE ALIGHIERI'S LIFE

YOUTH

He was born in 1265, towards the end of May

When he was born his family joined the celebration.

His childhood was filled up with stories of the struggles that had just ended. (This played a key role in what happened through the story of the Inferno).

His mother died when he was very young and his father remarried.

He was orphaned as an adolescent.

Impressions of his youth came from his first work: La Vita Nuova (the new life), this work was a proclamation of his love.

He also had a poet friend named Guido Cavalcanti, who helped Dante gain an interest for the vernacular lyric style.

MIDDLE YEARS

His love, Beatrice Plortinari, died at the age of 25.

He wrote mourning poems.

When he was 27 he stopped writing about her.

1289: He took part in the battle of Campaldino.

1295: He took part in his first political activity.

1299: He filled an ambassador position.

In 1300 two parties fought (the Blacks vs. the Whites)

He was elected one of six supreme magistrates (also known as priors)

When the fights came to an end, people were convicted, but thankfully Dante had been absent. Then his voluntary absence (1302) became an exile under the penalty of being burned alive.

 OLDER YEARS

There is not much known about the last 19 years of his life.

The exile had no funds, no reputation, and no powerful friends.

He stayed with various families in Italy and France.

He also studied at Oxford.

As time passed his reputation grew as a civilian and also as a writer.

His last ears were spent in the house of Guido Novello.

He fell sick on the way back from a mission and then died.

In Paradise XVII is where he left his most poignant descriptions of life in exile.

 

Relgion vs. Government

THIS WEEK'S FOCUS:  Our Constitution and governmental structure has been structured to create a separation between any religion and the matters of state, no matter what religion is dominant in the culture itself. However, our laws and moral structures that are embedded in the system itself are highly influenced by the monotheistic religions, particularly Judaism and Christianity.  The debate rages on as to how a balance can still be forged between the affairs of the state and the importance of religion in American culture. 

Question(s):  Will the American government come to a place where a balance can be forged between religion and the state (or are we already there)?  How do you see the role of religion in the civil affairs of government in the United States?

This question poses many different arguments and possible view points.  I was confirmed into the catholic faith last spring and up until that point I had no idea that religion vs. state was such an issue.  Throughout all of my years of Sunday school we were taught the same things, God did this and Jesus did that, but in my last year of Sunday school our class talked more about the current issues dealing with our faith and others faith.  This led me to think that there might never be a resolution to the disagreements between church and state. 

Also in history class we learn about that past and present history of not only our country but Europe’s history, and other world history.  We learn that in the past our government was made up of the basis or catholic religion.  We accepted the ideas that were put before us because we had no other foundations to build our beliefs on.  Then in 1779 when the Declaration of Independence was signed is when our country changed by opening a new form of beliefs and that was the government.

Our country is known as the melting pot.  We live here in agreement that we will be open to new ideas and the different religions that now surround us.  This is why I feel that it is important to move on and accept the government system we have, instead of trying to incorporate the old form of beliefs through religion.  We have grown up and moved away from one dominant religion so I feel that is important keep religion separate from the state and government because it will only cause disagreement between the people.  People’s beliefs have changed and we no longer can settle on one religion to believe in, so we should put that in the past and focus on one thing to agree on, our government.

Leadership pretaining to the Iliad

THIS WEEK'S FOCUS:  In the current "debate on politics" in Washington D.C., the nomination of Harriet Miers to fill the vacated seat on the Supreme Court(who has never been a judge), as well as the resignation of the FEMA Director (Browne) after Hurricane Katrina (who did not have any experience with post-disaster reconstruction) have many wondering how we know if someone is truly competent to lead or not.

Question(s): How do you truly know when someone is competent to lead? How do you define a great leader in terms of the qualities that he or she exhibits? Use examples from "The Iliad" to support your arguments.

There is not a standard to measure someones capacity to lead.  The closest that you can get to understanding the way that someone leads is to compare them to past leaders that you can aggree with; unfortunatly this leads to the act of judging them.  This is the trap that most people fall into,  we make false judgements before we see the the leaders are capabel of.   One way to define a great leader is through the actions that have been exibetited through the past leaders.  We can see how the current leader differ in their own unique forms of leadership. 

Throughout "the Iliad"  leaderdhip is exibited in many different forms.  The aray of oppertunities to lead during the many heroic battle scenes shows how each leader, portrayed  in the Iliad, handels the sistuation differently.  One example that shows how the leaders in the Iliad handles the role of leadership is when Odysseyus has to come up with a speach in the heat of the moment in order to explain to the troops that they should not leave the war.  The form of leadership is not what all leaders can create, let alone live and work by it.  Some leaders do not a "total control", and by that I mean they do not speak their mind and lead by what they feel is right.   Instead they lead inorder to keep the people at ease and content with their leader.  This form of leadership is what can cause choas within the government or other statis of leadership and this leadership is unfortunately what creates so many little battles between all the characters in the the Iliad.