The End of Hell

Dante concludes for the seniors this week with a giant Dante Day celebration slated for Friday. The day promises to be an amazing amalgamation of food, dance, videos, games and artistic rendering -- all in the name and for the love of our favorite Italian writer, Dante. We are also blessed this week to have Dr. Bill Cook, a noted Medievalist from SUNY to pop in to all my senior classes and talk a bit about Dante. Dr. Cook will be wrapping up our study this Thursday, so it promises to be a terrific week.
Our travels around hell have finally led us to the base of the cone and to the frozen ninth layer, reserved for the traitors. After 34 cantos, the seniors all feel a bit of a let down when Dante and Virgil come face to face with Satan. Here in Dante's Inferno, Satan is the greatest sufferer and the greatest sinner. He is not the royal ruler of his underworld lair, as often depicted in movies.He represents all that treachery can, and his enormity and pain are so powerful that Dante and Virgil only observe him briefly before literally climbing down his torso to head toward a passage out. One of my observant seniors noticed this week that in the eighth and ninth layer, Virgil, aka Human Reason, seems to be much quieter than earlier in the journey. As we discussed the possible reasons for this, one offered the idea that as a teacher, he needs to step aside a bit and let Dante use what he has gleaned on the journey to work his way through these most terrible of layers. I added that perhaps Human Reason itself cannot altogether offer insight about treason; treachery to that extent seems to defy reason altogether.
Well we have certainly had a lot to ponder. As we end our visit in Hell, the seniors will move onto Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. Seems after a month of Inferno, we need the calm, cooling river of Hesse.

Senior Dante project

I am posting this link, dantesinfernoproject.blogspot.com which is an unfolding project by a few of my senior boys. They are keeping a video diary of the filming of the Dante project. They have built a greenscreen... who knows what else is coming? We head onto the 7th circle of the 9 today, so I can see the end of Dante in the distance.

Mid Hell

As we wandered through the Castle of Dis, reserved for those heretics in their custom-heated tombs, and made our way to the river of boiling blood, Phlegethon, my class discussed the idea of anger and its manifestations. Earlier in the cantos, Dante deals with what must be termed righteous anger, when he runs across an enemy from Florence whom he sees in Hell and rejoices. Virgil, Dante's guide and the manifestation of human reason, explains the concept of righteous anger as that emotion which we should, in fact, reserve for those sins and sinners who violate the trust we all have with one another. We discussed in class the ways we may all feel righteous anger and how such an emotion has played a pivotal role in movements across history, spurring Civil Rights activists among others as well as marches for equality and peace and research. In this third river in hell though, the sinners are not just angry; they are tyrants who shed blood. They are highway bandits and murderers and those who not only spilled blood but whose own blood boiled with malice. Dante seems to spend quite a bit of time detailing these feelings of anger and down further here, rage. Clearly as a man who has lost his home, his family and his position as Prior of Florence, this emotion was not foreign to him.
However, through these sinners and punishments, Dante seems to call for a tempering and a step back, away from the river alive with rage and to a place of reflection. Only with such can one see the source of this discontent. Sure it is a 700 year old lesson, but its relevance is undeniable.

Upper Hell: Sins of Incontinence

As we read our way through the first few cantos of Inferno, the seniors discussed these upper region sins -- lust, gluttony, avarice,anger -- and the punishments Dante assigns. This group collectively called the sins of incontinence reflect those urges or bodily desires that stand at the core of man, the animal. After I explain the difference in the modern concept of incontinence with its focus on bladder control undergarments, we try our hand at differentiating the desires that one has based on need and want. When we venture farther into the underworld, those wants will be tied directly into the use of intellect and that is what gives us pause. The lower one descends into this mythical Hell, the more intense thought is required by the sinner in the commissioning of his sin. This logic of splitting Hell into sins based on body and intellect was not new to Dante in 1300; Aristotle used a similar model. And that is exactly the point. Choices have consequences. As we sail past the gluttons today and the greedy tomorrow, I am struck by the relevance of Dante's insight some 700 years after he published this epic. More Hell to come.
So when my friends ask how school is, I can honestly ( at least for the next few weeks) say, it is Hell. What a perfect way to start October!

Dante's Inferno : The Journey Begins

I began the journey through hell again this week. The class of 2011 has taken their first few baby steps into the Inferno. While I have been reading this text for 30 years or so, I must say each trip to the afterworld holds some new meaning for me. I was especially struck this time by our discussion of the foyer to Dante's Hell, reserved for the apathetic. Sinners are forever chasing a banner and being stung by wasps. Dante's message here about our need for engagement is clear. People who are aware of injustice and turn their heads are forever stung by their conscience and must chase an endless banner for a cause they never joined. In our world, it is often easy to see pain and suffering caused by poverty or despair and to turn away. We are caught in our own dilemmas, and the problems and suffering of others seem irrelevant or nonexistant. We can look away assured in our convictions that their suffering is not our problem. Dante's foyer to hell suggests, in fact, it is.
Those wasps and flies represent the stings of conscience that should have been present to make us act in a noble way, to make us stop and care about the fate of others. Dante seems to be saying that being worthy of eternal reward is more than not sinning; it must involve doing good. Joining the cause for rightousness is a pretty big step, but one Dante's readers are greeted with as soon as they step foot on his journey.

Antigone, a woman before her time...

In Sophocles' play, Antigone,Teiresias,the blind prophet of Apollo, says to the unyielding Creon, King of Thebes, "The only crime is pride."
This trilogy written in the 4th century BC offers many astute observations about the nature of man, man's pride, man's temper, man's relationship with the gods, among others. In this scene when confronted with Creon's stubborness, the prophet asks him to reconsider his unjust law and take a moment to gain some perspective on the situation. Creon's red hot rage cannot be tempered with this sage advice, however. He feels justified in his proclamations and neither his son, the chorus, nor the prophet can convince him initially. When he does relent, it is too late. Creon laments, "Oh it is hard to give in! but it is worse to risk everything for stubborn pride." These words ring loudly for us all. How many times does a situation present itself that given time and counsel, we would not rather back down and acknowledge our misstep? As we wrap up our discussion of this masterful play today, I am going to suggest to the seniors that it is not Antigone's example of courage that is our only guide in the play, but rather when Creon admits his own weakness that we are privy to valuable insight about humanity. Off to Dante and a nice trip through hell.

A few last thoughts on Pride & Prejudice

As we concluded our discussion of Pride and Prejudice last week, I contemplated the lovely way that Miss Austen drew her novel to a close. The weddings that tied the novel up so neatly happened only when the characters themselves came to terms with their preconceived notions, often discounting their initial observations. Austen clearly realizes as that old deodorant commercial noted, "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." She even had originally entitled the book, First Impressions. However, a careful reader will also see her subtext regarding the pitfalls of jumping to hasty conclusions, whether these leaps are the result of a person's dress or mannerisms or conversation. We are all more than one can possibly know through a few moment's acquaintance.
Austen no doubt wants her readers to learn the lessons that Lizzy and Darcy took some while to inculcate. Judging others in a hasty way, as Lizzy does when falling for Wickham or disliking Darcy, can have unintended results. I believe Jane Austen understands our tendency to like or dislike others after a brief encounter; maybe in this novel, she is asking us to pause in our judgment. Now that is a lesson we all can see the value in.In saying goodbye to Jane Austen, I hope to remember her bidding. Off to Dante later this week. But a few words on that superwoman Antigone must precede our descent to Hell.