Dante's Satan in the Medieval Thought
| Dante 's Satan and the Medieval Thought | Sympathy for the Devil | | Maria Roberta Vella (374890M) | 2/6/2013 |
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Dante 's Satan and the Medieval thought
When reading the Divine Comedy, one realizes that the Middle Ages, as far as they may be, they preserve a reality so close to us that one remains amazed. The question that arises naturally is whether it is Dante, that looks forward and is therefore able to make us conscious of our past and consequently relate the Comedy to a present state, or whether it is the context, the popular culture that revolved around the late Middle Ages, that arise in us latent feelings. To be able to answer well to this question one must read carefully the Comedy and realize which points intersect with the Medieval culture absorbed by Dante, and which other points are personal reflections and studies of outer influence. It is obviously arguable that Dante incorporated both Medieval influences to a personal interpretation of facts, but it is interesting to notice how far geographically and spatially did Dante go in his research to the completion of the Divine Comedy. Geography and time are two important factors that determine the completion of Dante 's thought, he not only relates to a specific period of time, but also to a specific geography, although the history of Dante 's thought show us how his geographical perimeters and his time spans may be a lot different from his Medieval counterparts.
The question put forward is of great importance in analyzing the figures portrayed in the Divine Comedy. One of the most fascinating parts in the Divine Comedy, is the Inferno, for its aesthetic beauty, its poetry and the awakening in a high literature context, of popular anxieties, such as the relation with death and sin, and the dominant figure of Satan and the devils. Demonology is a study that fascinates a lot of scholars, because of its importance both on the level of popular culture and high
|
Dante 's Satan and the Medieval thought
When reading the Divine Comedy, one realizes that the Middle Ages, as far as they may be, they preserve a reality so close to us that one remains amazed. The question that arises naturally is whether it is Dante, that looks forward and is therefore able to make us conscious of our past and consequently relate the Comedy to a present state, or whether it is the context, the popular culture that revolved around the late Middle Ages, that arise in us latent feelings. To be able to answer well to this question one must read carefully the Comedy and realize which points intersect with the Medieval culture absorbed by Dante, and which other points are personal reflections and studies of outer influence. It is obviously arguable that Dante incorporated both Medieval influences to a personal interpretation of facts, but it is interesting to notice how far geographically and spatially did Dante go in his research to the completion of the Divine Comedy. Geography and time are two important factors that determine the completion of Dante 's thought, he not only relates to a specific period of time, but also to a specific geography, although the history of Dante 's thought show us how his geographical perimeters and his time spans may be a lot different from his Medieval counterparts.
The question put forward is of great importance in analyzing the figures portrayed in the Divine Comedy. One of the most fascinating parts in the Divine Comedy, is the Inferno, for its aesthetic beauty, its poetry and the awakening in a high literature context, of popular anxieties, such as the relation with death and sin, and the dominant figure of Satan and the devils. Demonology is a study that fascinates a lot of scholars, because of its importance both on the level of popular culture and high
References: * Sermonti, Vittorio, L 'Inferno di Dante,( Rizzol, September 2001) * Marietti, Marina, Dante; La citta ' infernale, (Arcane editrice S.r.l May 2007) * Kirkpatrick, Robin, Dante 's 'Inferno ': Difficulty and dead poetry, Cambridge studies in Medieval literature, (Cambridge University Press 1987) * Russel, Jeffrey Burton, Lucifer, the Devil in the Middle ages, (Cornell University Press 1984) * Schmitt, Jean-Claude, Ghosts in the Middle Ages, the living and the dead in Medieval society, (The university of Chicago press, 1999) , (pp1-121) Online Sources; * The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Accessed on January, 2013) http://www.fullbooks.com/Dante-s-Inferno1.html [ 1 ]. Sermonti, Vittorio, L 'Inferno di Dante,( Rizzol, September 2001), Canto XXI, vv.37-39 [ 2 ] [ 3 ]. Sermonti, Vittorio, L 'Inferno di Dante,( Rizzol, September 2001), Canto XXI, vv 48 [ 4 ] [ 5 ]. Sermonti, Vittorio, L 'Inferno di Dante,( Rizzol, September 2001), Canto XXVIII, vv37-39 [ 6 ]