Last week, the focus of the course was romantic love. This week – the twenty-fourth — I explored a love of a different kind. I’m still trying to sort through it.
I’d already read Gioia’s recommended texts for this week, but decided to revisit them anyway. Not so for his musical recommendations, which I ditched in favor of recently departed musical geniuses. I also tried a different approach for selecting this week’s movie, which resulted in a choice that had little to do with the readings. (But which I enjoyed.)
Readings
Two works by Dante Alighieri: La Vita Nuova and the first part of The Divine Comedy, the Inferno. These were the first books I read on my first iPad back in 2010, so I was treading familiar territory.
La Vita Nuova is a set of sonnets and canzones composed by young Dante in the waning years of the 13th Century. They focus on his unrequited love for Beatrice, a young Florentine girl of noble birth.
The poems chronicle Dante’s insecurities and suffering. He adores Beatrice as an ideal, not as a real person. When she dies young, he glorifies her. This isn’t romantic love; for Dante, Beatrice becomes an allegory for divine love.
The book ends with Dante issuing himself a public challenge:
if it shall please Him by whom all things live that my life continue for a few years, I hope to compose concerning her what has never been written in rhyme of any woman.
He follows through by composing the Divine Comedy, which some people consider the best poem ever written. The Commedia (Comedy), as he called it, is a three-part chronicle of his spiritual journey out of a midlife crisis.
His journey takes him through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Paradise (Paradiso.) On week 24, I re-read Inferno; I’ll finish the other two parts this coming week.
We know Dante is having a midlife crisis because he tells us so. These are the poem’s opening lines:
Midway along the journey
of our life I woke to find
myself in a dark wood, for
I had wandered off from
the straight path.
This is a medieval author, so the straight path is the path to God. Dante soon realizes that the way to become unstuck — i.e., to get back onto the “straight path” — is by overcoming his weaknesses (i.e., sins.)
The first step is acknowledging them. The poet Virgil guides Dante down through Hell, which is structured as a descending funnel of nine circles. Each is populated by “shades”: the spirits of people being punished for their sins.
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The Map of Hell painting by Sandro Botticelli, via Wikimedia
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Many of the sinners highlighted in the book are famous contemporaries of Dante, including many of his political and ecclesiastic adversaries. Contemporary Florentines would’ve chuckled in recognition; we must rely on footnotes.
Alongside the expected murderers and fornicators are people who’ve betrayed their patrons and other such sins. Each lower level highlights an even more wicked sin, reaching the nadir with Lucifer at the center of the Earth.
At the end of the poem, Virgil guides Dante up Lucifer’s back and out of Hell. This sets us up for the second part of the book, Purgatorio.
Audiovisual
Music: Gioia recommended minimalist masterpieces by Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Pauline Oliveros. Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians and Glass’s Koyaanisqatsi are among my favorite works. I was familiar with In C. (But not with the Oliveros piece.) So this week I skipped Gioa’s recommendation in favor of two major artists of the Twentieth Century who died last week: Sly Stone and Brian Wilson.
I was familiar with Wilson’s work with the Beach Boys, but re-visited Pet Sounds, an album that’s grown on me.
I was less familiar with Sly Stone’s work; I’d only heard Everyday People. I corrected that by checking out Sly & The Family Stone’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On — an unfortunately timely pick given there were riots happening in Los Angeles even as I listened.
Arts: The Ghent Altarpiece. A detail of this work adorns my copy of Bach’s Mass in B Minor, but I’d never explored it in detail. It was painted by brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck in the 15th century, and is one of the first paintings that exploits the capabilities of oil.
This video explains the work in detail. The presenter is passionate and informed — I felt engaged throughout. This is the best of learning online; YouTube is a goldmine for lifelong learners.
Cinema: So far in the course, I’ve focused on classic films that relate (even if just loosely) to the week’s reading. This week, I shifted gears and watched a contemporary film instead: Wes Anderson’s THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME.
I suspect it won’t stand the test of time like other picks in the course. It also has little to do with Dante. But my daughter Julia and I enjoy Anderson’s movies; this was a good opportunity to spend time together.
Reflections
The Divine Comedy has influenced popular ideas about the afterlife for centuries. But there’s an important difference between his depiction of Hell and ours.
We imagine Hell as a place where damned souls are tortured by fire. But Dante’s Hell is cold. In its lowest circles, souls are encased in ice. Lucifer flaps his wings to escape; he only succeeds in chilling the place further.
Dante’s Satan isn’t a mighty figure like Chernabog in Disney’s FANTASIA. Rather, he’s a pathetic, powerless, disgusting giant, encrusted in ice. It’s the image of somebody rendered powerless by becoming trapped by their ego.
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Chernabog in Disney’s FANTASIA, via Disney Wiki
I’ll have more to say about the Divine Comedy next week, after I’ve finished the whole work. But for now, I’ll say that I’m reading it as an allegory of how to transcend the ego.
But the endless references to Dante’s contemporaries make me wonder whether he meant this work — at least in part — as payback for his political misfortunes. (He was banished from Florence in the early 1300s.)
Would writing a gossipy and ill-spirited work not merit a place in Hell too?
Notes on Note-taking
As you know, I’ve been taking notes of the reading in Obsidian. But I haven’t explained in detail how I’m doing it. This is a good opportunity to correct that, since this week offers a common challenge.
Every time I finish a book, I start a new note in Obsidian focused on that work. I’ve set up Readwise to sync my ebook highlights and notes with my Obsidian vault. I link those notes to the main note about the book.
I also keep a running tab of everything I’ve read in a separate note called “Readings.” It’s organized by year, with a list of books under each year. Whenever I finish a book, I add a link beneath each year in chronological order.
But what about cases where I’ve only partially read a book? In the past, I wouldn’t have bothered. But now, I’ll start a note anyway. I won’t link it from Readings until I’ve finished, but at least I have a note for the book itself.
In this case, I already had a note for the Divine Comedy, since I’d already read it fifteen years ago. In this case, I’ll note the translation I used (which is different from the one I read in 2010) and any further thoughts on the book.
This likely won’t be the last time I travel along with Dante. This is the perfect use case for evergreen notes, a concept I explain at length in Duly Noted.
Up Next
This week, I’ll finish the Divine Comedy. One thing I remember from my previous reading: I enjoyed Inferno more than Purgatorio and Purgatorio more than Paradiso. But I was a different person then; I’m curious to see what the work says now.
Again, there’s a YouTube playlist for the videos I’m sharing here. I’m also sharing these posts via Substack if you’d like to subscribe and comment. See you next week!