The Divine Comedy
Introduction
"I prefer to paint people's eyes rather than cathedrals, because there is in people's
eyes something which does not exist in cathedrals, majestic and important as they are."
Vincent Van Gogh.
Dante's Divine Comedy is one of the greatest works of Wisdom literature in the Western world - if not the greatest
after the Bible. It was written between 1300 and 1320 as an account of an imaginary "journey" into the
afterlife, undertaken by the Italian poet and shared by the reader. The journey is in three parts, "Inferno",
"Purgatorio", and "Paradiso" - or Hell, Purgatory and Paradise.
Dante starts out "from a Dark Wood" in which he is lost, mid-way through his life, i.e. when he was 35
years old. He finds a guide, the Roman poet Virgil, who is sent by Providence to help him find his way - or at
least to find his way up to the point where Virgil can no longer help him; thereafter he is guided by Beatrice,
the spirit of a deceased young acquaintance of Dante's, who to Dante embodied pure Love.
At this mid-point in his life Dante knows much about humanity, its weaknesses and strengths, but is lost as to
the deeper meaning in life, even though he is a loyal, if somewhat errant, son of The Church. The Dark Wood represents
Sin and Error that obscures the Right Way from the pilgrim's path through life. Dante in real life has at the time
of his writing become an outcast from his own city Florence by virtue of his involvement in its politics and the
poem incorporates many references to his contemporary society.
Each part has 33 chapters, "Cantos", (Hell actually has 34, the opening Canto being an introduction to
the whole work). In this journey Dante sees the destiny of the souls of the departed from all walks of life: where
they end up, or where he finds them, depends upon their performances during their earthly lives. Inevitably Dante
is playing judge and jury here, but he makes it clear to the reader why each person is here through the mouth of
his guide Virgil and, later, through Beatrice.
Hell
Hell is structured as a descending pit constructed as a series of nine circles, each one of which is populated
with 'sinners' who have succumbed to particular earthly temptations and during their lives would appear to have
had no intention of correcting their errors. The deeper the travellers go into the pit the worse are the sins represented
and the more miserable the punishments - eternal punishments since there is no chance of redemption. High up in
the pit are those representing personal weaknesses of indulgence, loss of self control and violence. Further down
are the more powerful sins that affect others indiscriminately (e.g. the misuse of power) and deeper still are
those who lead others away from spiritual truths and from trust, which Dante saw as more heinous than physical
self-destruction and personal violence to others. At the centre of Hell is Lucifer locked in a lake of ice …………
In the first circle of Hell is Limbo, where Dante meets those who lived before the time of Christ, a time when
"no one could know Salvation" (Canto 4 line 63). Immediately after the Crucifixion and before the Resurrection
Christ went into Hell to release the souls of the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets who prepared His Way. The
rest - the great humanists of the Classical and Ancient world - are judged by their own humanist standards in Limbo.
Purgatory
Purgatory is reserved for those who erred in their earthly lives yet had every intention of doing better -
and who had a Christian faith, however rudimentary. Here again the structure is a series of concentric circles,
but this time they are placed around a steep mountain. The journey is a climb involving effort - as opposed to
an erratic descent in Hell. The same sins that were encountered in Hell - where they destroyed peoples' souls -
are in Purgatory represented as weaknesses that can be overcome. Whereas in Hell it is easy to slip through 'gravity'
ever deeper into worse and worse sins - i.e. to be seduced by the ways of the world and one's own weaknesses -
in Purgatory a conscious act of the will has to be involved in climbing ever higher towards the Truth that will
eventually be revealed to those who persist.
Paradise
Paradise can only be guessed at. Dante places here the many great people from all walks of life who have dragged
humanity not only from the barbarity that human life so easily descends into, but through civilizing influences
towards knowledge of pure beauty, wonder and truth.
***
Annick Gaillard writes:-
Why paint the Divine Comedy in the year 2000? Botticelli, William Blake, Gustave Doré, Rodin and other great
artists have worked on it. Michelangelo made this work his bed-side reading. Dante's text is an inward journey
in which the poet confronts aspects of himself and of the world at large in order to find his own path. Such an
extraordinary and ultimately beautiful odyssey is available to anyone sufficiently humble and courageous to take
the first step.
I 'saw' the work as a series of portraits, since despite the picturesque environments the poem essentially describes
meetings between Dante and other human beings - and meeting people is, I believe, the best way to learn anything
of real value. I intuitively felt the models for the souls in Paradise needed to be artists - musicians, painters,
writers etc - since it is they, above all, who have given the world so such beauty, inspiration and hope over the
centuries. At about the same time I came across Van Gogh's observation quoted above.
***
In his commentary, Painton Cowen has occasionally drawn on Dorothy Sayers' comments on the Inferno in the Penguin
Edition.