Week Five: Cantos 21-25

 For the purposes of this discussion, we will follow the structure of Baylor's 100 Days of Dante to frame our discussion. Feel free to use whatever translation you have access to (more is better) to follow along with the poem.

Fifth Five Cantos: 21 - 25


The questions this week are adapted from the 100 days of Dante, Bishop Barron, and my own reading

I am linking here to a web resource for a conversational version of the text.

Some Prompts:

1) What are the purposes of demons in Catholic thought? Are we more comfortable thinking about angels? Is there a symmetry between angels and demons where this gives us some insight into how hell is the opposite of heaven? 

2) There are pieces of civil society here: the band of demons is like a roman contubernium, or small unit of tent-mates. This military reference is strange since it is ordered, something that doesn't sound much like hell. The bridges are over the pits, but in this one they are broken down. 

Barratry is the abuse of a public office, often to get a bribe (sometimes just to frustrate others plans), so there is a way that this pit can be read as insight into politics when it goes wrong. Is that how we should read it?

What should we take away from this discussion of disorder? How is it that the demons get tricked? 

What makes Barratry so bad? Is it the lying to others, to one's self, or the effects on civil society? If it is the last one, what does this tell us about ranking sins in terms of their effects on the world? 

3)  What role is Caiaphas playing here? How ought he to have known that Jesus was God? How was his hypocrisy used by God to save the nation (and the world)? What are we saying here about sin and how God uses our sin? What other implications of this can we draw, which of those would be intentional on the part of Dante? 

4) What is Virgil's comment on fame in canto 24 and how does this contradict what seems to be the lesson we would take from Brunetto Latini in canto 15? We are going to get some interesting contrast to Ulysses later: seeking adventure, being heroic, and wanting to be great. What is the role of desiring fame in Dante? Classicals wanted to be lovely and praiseworthy, but could they desire the praise directly? Is it possible for a great artist to exist without praise (Maybe Emily Dickenson)?  How might this virtue of praiseworthiness without being corrupted by it compare to praying in secret? 

5) What is going on in the pit of the thieves?  Do you agree with me that there is a reversal here of the salvation story? The resurrection is made into the myth of the Phoenix, but the soul is always reborn in hell. The belly-button is mentioned, which relates to the fall from grace. The creation is "unmade" in the sense that the soul in hell is morphing. To Dante, the story of the garden is about thievery. God gave us everything but the one thing that we would have to steal to get. The "sign of the fig" is an obscene gesture that relates to women's bodies hitting eve and the tree of knowledge all at once. I am a little obsessed with this theory, so tell me why I am wrong.   




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