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Frances Teresa - Dante
It would be intersting to explore Dante's Franciscan links and roots, too. He was a Secular Franciscan and devoted to Bonaventure and may well have got his insights into the fundamental structure of '3' from Bonaventure as much as Augustine. There are also many interesting echoes in his presentation of Beatrice (and more on her would have been great) and the way the Lady Poverty speaks to St Francis in the Sacrum Commercium, often translated as the Marriage of Francis and Lady Poverty. This text was probably written around 1227 and known by Dante. I would endorse the hope that you will deal with Purgatorio and Paradiso in future programmes (at least one on each!) and both Beatrice and Bonaventure would feature interestingly in the latter! And what about Virgil, the dear master??? Many thanks for this regular dip into fascinating byways.
Stephen Fleming - Dante's Inferno
I was very surprised, when Melvyn asked about the influence of Dante, that none of the contibutors mentioned that he set the standard for modern Italian. That is one reason why he is revered by Italians.
Dante's Inferno. Christopher Maycock
After a suitable interval may we please have a programme (or two) on Dante's Purgatorio and Paradiso?
Jon Stubbings - Dante's Inferno
A correction to my comment - the pilgrim encounters Mohammed/Mahomet in Canto XXVIII
Tom Dawkes on Dante
Colum Gallivan believes "the ancient Etruscans have left no 'words' to archaelogists". This is not quite true. we can read the letters of extant Etruscan inscriptions but they are generally so brief and limited in their subject matter that we have only a fragmentary idea of Etruscan vocabulary. A search with keywords 'etruscan language' on the national research libraries catalogue COPAC (www.copac.ac.uk) will show many books on this and related topics and the Wikipedia entry gives a good summary of what is known, with a brief list of books and links to related web sites
Jon Stubbings - Dante's Inferno
No mention was made of the poet's encounter with the 'heretic' Muhammed in Canto 8. I only became aware of this myself recently when reading Edward W Said's 'Orientalism' in which he points out that in the late middle ages Islam was seen (in Christian Europe) as just another heresy - but a menacing and fearful one at that. In Dante's Inferno, Muhammed is being punished by being cut in half repeatedly - a gory fate which the poet describes in bloodcurdlingly explicit detail. It strikes me that in a climate where Salman Rushdie still fears for his life, some cartoons published in Denmark continue to provoke outrage, and only a couple of weeks ago a north London publishing house was firebombed for daring to publish a historical novel featuring one of the prophet's wives as a character - it might have been an interesting line of discussion.
translations of Dante's Inferno
There are Longfellow and Mandelbaum translations on the web site 'dante@mailhub.ilt.columbia.edu' together with the original.
Jane - Dante's Inferno
Do you think he ate cheese before he went to bed? I'm not familiar with the work so can only comment on what I gleaned from the programme. For it to have lasted as it has, he must have written wonderfully and in translation that could probably never be fully appreciated though the compromise would be relative in overall terms depending on the translator. Obviously the piece is a mosaic of personal, catholic, consensus, unconscious etc. influences held together by Dante's superb perceptual and literary talents. The process of writing it was probably a wonderfully creative catharsis for Dante but I can't help but think that, just maybe, he and his friends would sit in the local bistro holding their sides with laughter as they outdid each other on the graphic scale of horrors Dante might bring to life in this epic poem. Laughter is, after all, incredibly cathartic too. I heard a well known and very talented comedian once say that he thought that in Dante's Inferno there was one more layer of hell beneath all the others specially reserved for a certain media mogul and his like.....the audience loved that and even applauded - slightly purged. Listening to the last part of the programme, I do think that the work is, for all its cultural coloration, visionary - both in relation to the collective and the individual. Only 'light' can take that much darkness upon itself and emerge to tell the tale. Another 'beacon' in our earthly scheme of things. Did he write about traveling through the coruscating realms of the heavens or did he simply emerge and look at the stars aware that love is the very nature of life? Thanks once again to this programme which is itself a beacon - it always galvanizes my brain into action in order to clarify life. I will go and look up more on this most useful internet. Very best wishes.
Colum Gallivan
If I may be permitted a second bite of the cherry. With reference to Mr Hawke-Smith's query as to whether Dante had a sense of humour. Dorothy Sayers definitely thought so, and loses no opportunity to point it out in her Penguin translations. There is also overt humour in Dante's exchange with Belacqua in Purgatorio. It is worth noting that humour in Tuscany is a distinctive brand. The Tuscans are descendants of the Etruscans, most definitely a 'race apart' from all other Italians, in ancient times they were much preoccupied with tombs, sarcophagi and the afterlife in general, and modern Tuscan humour is very 'black',sarcastic and funereal. The best modern account I know is by Curzio Malaparte 'Maledetti Toscani' ('When a Tuscan is blind with rage, he closes his eyes to see better') I am not aware of a translation, alas. In any case there is no better introduction to 'Tuscan' than living there and learning the language. There is one distinct advantage; such was the status of Dante's 'Commedia' that the 'dialect' of Tuscan became standard Italian, i.e. Tuscan virtually has no dialect, apart from aspirating the hard 'c' sound ('Hasa' instead of 'casa') and a few vernacular expressions, it is pure standard Italian. I remember once sharing trippa Fiorentina in a cafe with an old shepherd from the Pistoian mountains.He was as shaggy as a yeti, but he spoke the purest Italian I ever heard. The ancient Etruscans have, I believe, left no 'words' to archaelogists, not the slightest idea of their language, and it is ironic that one of their descendants should turn out to be a poet of world class, one may well ask what were they like in antiquity?
Geoff COLTON - Divine come3dy
The panel seemed to be at a loss to explain why classical philosophers etc were in Limbo. It was not that they did not have faith, but because they had not been baptised and were there fore still in a state of original sin. This meant that there was no way they could enter heaven.
Guido Drapatolli: Dante
Dante's most famous quote should have been translated: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here", not "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here." For the damned, there is no hope, not even the hope of any hope. Nothing.
Colum Gallivan Dante's Inferno
I am glad that one of your contributors emphasized the importance of considering Inferno alongside Purgatorio and Paradiso. Therein lies Dante's genius (as T.S. Eliot said) he went from the depths to the heights. This consideration of Inferno in isolation was a bugbear of the late Dorothy Sayers, she may very well have given you a clip on the ear for 'Inferno obsession', and she would probably quoted to you what is said of Purgatorio ('the least known, but the most beloved' of the three). As for Dante's influence he is the only writer I have known who could unite T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, C.S.Lewis, Charles Williams, Dorothy Sayers and the entire literate population of Italy from over five centuries, from Bocaccio to Montale) in acclaiming him as the absolute greatest, right next to Shakespeare (and as Eliot said, 'there is no third') If this doesn't suffice there are the entire dramatic works of Samuel Beckett, have a look at Anthony Minghella's film of 'play'!As far as the debate as to the extent Dante expected his readers literally to believe in his creation. A lot of his characters are figures from mythology, which, presumably, he did not expect to be taken literally. The existence of hell itself is another matter. In the twentieth century a theory of 'aesthetic appreciation' was formulated by the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce, and the debate is still continuing, but it very much looks as if christianity is woven into the fabric. Your contributors were as fair and balanced about Dante as they could be expected in the limited time, one simple thing however, was missing, Dante wrote like an angel. He belongs right up there with Shakespeare... He is a verbal Mozart, the music and magic of the spheres in language, almost every word has a glow and luminosity of its own. Canto after canto with never a wrong note, you can sit and read him for hours. If ever there was a writer worth learning a language for its him
James: Dante
I really enjoyed the programme on Dante - I especially liked the discussion of Paolo and Francesco. Pity there wasn't time to hear more about Dante's use of the vernacular. Can we have a programme on Purgatorio and Paradiso soon?
Cameron Hawke-Smith: Dante
A little disappointing! Nothing about the subsequent literary influence of Dante's Inferno on western culture, outside the confines of medieval dogmatic Catholicism. Many listeners will have been familiar with the content of the book, and would I think have liked some views of its contemporary relevance. And are we quite sure Dante meant it to be believed - did he have no sense of humour? Impossible to think that a trace of naughtiness didn't affect him when he put all the people he disliked in a place of such ingenious tortures!
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