/lit/ - Literature

>>20455253
It’s also about Dante trying to make sense of his life, times, and history

>>20455253
>Dante hates fags but loves ancient Greece
Aristotle fiercely hated homosexuality and compared it to eating dirt. Plato wrote that homosexuality was something unnatural. Dante didn't like Ancient Greeks as much as Christians, this why the pagans are in Hell and not in Paradise or at least Purgatory.

>>20455253
Still, the best poem ever written.

>>20455253
Yes

>>20455253
>>Dante hates fags but loves ancient Greece
That's the way you do it.

>>20455253
I watched a video going over in, and it sounds about right. his whole “journey” through Hell was mostly to get him to understand that the people there deserve to be there, hence the door at the very beginning. it sucked if you lived before Jesus and got sent to limbo. also those people he’s mad at were genuinely on-the-other-side in terms of IRL politics/war, so putting his enemies leaders in Hell is his own way of moral superiority?
just like how Purgatorio is his journey of “cleansing” himself of his sins so he’s allowed into Paradise.

>>20455253
Well i preferred the other two parts more, the hell part is really pretty dense in terms of characters.

>>20455253
retards unironically say this shit

It is essentially Dante doing Carl Jungs "active imagination" technique. Entering into a dark forest at the start of a journey is a common motif for inner visions. It typically signifies entering into the subconscious.

>Everyone who Dante is mad at is in hell forever, tax collectors (based) but also people that pretty much just were mean to him or lied to him once

Actually read the poem, multiple of his closest friends are in hell and multiple of his enemies are in purgatory and heaven, and Virgil himself isn’t even given a spot in heaven, instead Statius is.

>People are being tortured for eternity and he interrupts them to ask how the weather is up in Florence

Common ancient motif and practice to speak to the dead concerning current political and environmental and social situations, for example in Lucan we see the with erichtho conjure a dead soldier’s spirit for the same purpose.

>Interrupts peoples eternal torture to roast them (with words)

It’s usually to get information, to contemplate their nature, to overcome his mercy concerning whether they deserve to be in hell or not or simply to immortalize that which he believes ought be immortalized.

>Everyone in hell thinks Dante is super cool and important and heroic and smart

The demons certainly didn’t, nor did the people he met who he never really knew, demons wanted to fool him and others just seethed, the only reason those in hell looked at him differently is 1=he’s a living person in hell and that’s not normal, 2=he continuously has to extort them to speak and give information by the virtue that if they speak, their names will be glorified by being immortalized in his poem, which is literally true. Dante literally did.


>Dante hates fags but loves Ancient Greece

Yes. He puts his own beloved teacher in hell likely for being a homosexual.

> And that was all just Inferno, I didn't even get to the other parts

Literally some of the most brainlet shit you see normies pull, treating inferno as if it was a standalone poem, “oh I’ve read inferno” “oh inferno is my favorite.” Inferno by design is literally the worst part of the divine comedy, he specifically heightens his language in correspondence to each part of the divine comedy, and you’re literally just reading 1/3rd of a piece.

Purgatorio easily has more spectral beauty than anything in inferno regardless of translation.

>t. doesnt have a national epic

>>20455334
What the Greeks considered homosexual is a little different from what we would

>>20455253
Instead of reading it as some sort of biblical canon, try and read it instead as a man's journey toward self-knowledge and enlightenment. I'd said it's more akin to Plato's allegory with Christian overtones than it is to a biblical fan fiction.

Check out CotC. The story is essentially a modern retelling of The Divine Comedy.

>>20455253
>fan fiction
>he doesn’t know that Dante experienced it all in a vision
Ngmi hylic

>>20455253
>I didn't even get to the other parts
Why not?

>>20456476
If i remember correctly there is also a group of 'post-homosexuals' in Purgatory who have to work to get to Paradise due to their sinful passions in the past...or something like that?

>>20455253
The best part:
>Christians thought it was real

>>20455588
So you haven’t read it? Just gonna repeat some shit some faggot on YouTube said? Why don’t you kill yourself, you stupid fucking faggot. Why would you open this thread and comment on something you haven’t read?
Retard.

>>20455588
>it sucked if you lived before Jesus and got sent to limbo
The other guy is right about you being a retard but its worth clarifying that Limbo is just melancholy at worst and is mainly the major poets discussing poetry with each other.

>>20455253
Anyone have a translation recommendation? I'm reading Longfellow and I must say, it's difficult. I've found Homer, Virgil, Milton and Shakespeare eminently more readable. The syntax is just strange. I realize I may just be a retard but I'm curious what ya'll think.

>>20455253
Why is it called a comedy? It's not funny..

still think popeman should make it part of canon

>>20456315
I wonder if Dante smoked weed, or ate some shrooms or maybe datura?

>>20456399
Not him, but when we did Dante in school, we literally had to read just Inferno, the rest wasn't part of the curriculum.
Also, popular culture only focuses on that part because it's easier to turn into an edgy adventure. So normies don't really have a reason to go beyond.

>>20462202
same with Faust, people only read part I, even though second part is much more out there

>>20455588
Posts like this should be a perma-bannable offense.

>>20461964
More readable in what sense? The Comedy to some extent more didactic than the others which are basically pure narrative (except Milton at times but his language is always engaging anyway). So it's slightly different with regard to its actual genre, which I didn't really get before reading it, I just lumped it in as another "epic". As for the translation, please just read a straightforward translation (probably Mandelbaum) side by side with the original. Also I try to post this whenever anyone talks about the Comedy:

http://dantelab.dartmouth.edu/reader

And here's a site with the Mandelbaum translation:

http://www.worldofdante.org/inferno1.html

>>20456399
Thanks for the effort post, anon.

Genuine question - why should I read it?

>>20464222
historical or philisophical purposes mainly. if you know italian, then for artistic purposes.

>>20455588
This is just silly, pre-Christians awaited judgement in the limbo of the fathers or went to hell.
All those who died before Christ weren't eternally damned.

>>20455253
Where’s the comedy.

>>20462170
>Dante is one of the towering figures of medieval European literature. This biography indicates that Dante may have smoked cannabis to reach new heights of creativity.

Barbara Reynolds - Dante: The Poet, the Thinker, the Man

>>20461964
Sinclair is best. Mandelbaum is also good but if you compare the two you'll see that Sinclair is better.
Would recommend the online Yale course Dante In Translation because the lectures really help emphasise the more obscure aspects of the text, I don't think its one that can be easily appreciated just reading.

>>20455261
Source on this?

>>20463829
Thanks anon, Mandelbaum is significantly easier and more clear. I appreciate the links.