01. The Divine Comedy

[agirlahaunt]

This inspiration post is oriented around Dante Alighieri’s great poetic work, The Divine Comedy. It features both in the books and in the Hannibal television show— half of the third season itself takes place in Florence, the city of Dante’s birth. This said, you don’t need to have read or even be familiar with The Divine Comedy to participate.
 

SOME IDEAS

You don't need to have read The Divine Comedy (or know anything about it) to participate in this round! A few ideas below to get your creative juices flowing:

— the number three; The Divine Comedy is divided into three books, each composed of three cantiche; Dante once repeats Virgil’s name three times

— any of the scenes in Florence; Florence was Dante’s birthplace

— scars — stars; each book ends on a line with Dante looking at the stars

— circles

— salvific love, damning love, doomed love

— the woods, forests, trees; the first line begins in the woods

— journeys, descents, ascents, especially with a guide; Dante traverses hell, purgatory, and paradise

— make a set of icons each representing one of the layers of Dante’s hell, purgatory, and/or paradise. the levels below (note that some levels are subdivided)

Hell: Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, Betrayal

Purgatory: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, Lust

Heaven: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Fixed Stars, and the Primum Mobile

 

ICONS

bittergraced / danseur_lion / delacourtings / iwillnotdance / absolucion

 

accios x2 / vanessa_lj / mundodefieras / sininferno

nightbulbs / tragicmetaphor / absolucion / hauntes / poisonfield

emiels / valeyvo / ninjasinpyjamas / danseur_lion / tinebrella 




 

SCREENCAPS
credit to kissthemgoodbye.net

 

PALETTES

QUOTES FROM HANNIBAL

BEDELIA: We’re all making our way through the Inferno. — 3x12

BEDELIA: Even the most-contentious Florentines can’t resist the verse of Dante ringing off frescoed walls. — 3x01

HANNIBAL: Dante wrote that fear is almost as bitter as death.

BEDELIA: Dante wasn’t dead when he wrote it. — 3x01

HANNIBAL: Betrayal and hanging, then, linked since antiquity, the image appearing again and again in art. — 3x01

JACK: [Hannibal is] the Devil himself bound in the pit. — 3x12

WILL: Damn if I’ll feel. — 3x12

WILL: The divine punishment of the sinner mirrors the sin being punished.

BEDELIA: Contrapasso. If you play, you pay. — 3x12

 

QUOTES

Dante Alighieri, in the original Italian: Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, / ché la diritta via era smarrita.
translated by Robert Pinsky: Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself / In dark woods, the right road lost. translated by
Mark Musa: Midway along the journey of our life / I woke to find myself in some dark woods, / for I had wandered off from the straight path.

Dante Alighieri: Amor condusse noi ad una morte.
Robert Pinsky: Love gave us both one death.
John A. Carlyle: Love led us to one death.

Hannibal says “Dante wrote that fear is almost as bitter as death” and Bedelia counters “Dante wasn’t dead when he wrote it” (3.1). Hannibal is quoting from the opening words of the Inferno as Dante is about to begin his journey to hell. This may be a reference to the person he is about to kill who does not know he will die, but it may equally reference the fact that the poem’s opening words are about being middle-aged and lost, as Hannibal is without Will, in the city of Dante’s birth.

— Geoff Klock, Aestheticism, Evil, Homosexuality, and Hannibal: If Oscar Wilde Ate People

For Dante, then, the most serious crime was the most human: the betrayal of trust.

—  Paul G. Chevigny, ‘From Betrayal to Violence: Dante’s Inferno and the Social Construction of Crime’

the act of gazing is never innocent of transgressive eroticism in the Inferno.

—  James Miller, Dante and the Unorthodox: The Aesthetics of Transgression

body in the Inferno is often not problematized at all. It receives and expresses evil. Scars and deficiencies manifest sing; rippings and mutilations are simply painful; sinners are dark and ugly, dwelling in a darkness that contrasts to the light and lightness of heaven.

— Caroline Walker Bynum, Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity 200-1336

Dante is, like Kafka, one of the writers for whom the law is tremendously important. What is Dante’s afterworld if not a huge judicial apparatus—a secret world, parallel to and integrated with our own—that makes judgment and justice eternally visible, correcting everything and making up for everything?

— Elif Batuman, ‘A Divine Comedy: Among the Danteans of Florence’

His window cleared and he could see the stars.

— Thomas Harris, Hannibal Rising:

Then we came forth, to see again the stars.

— Dante Alighieri, the last lines of Inferno (translated by Jean & Robert Hollander)

I came away remade, (…) / pure and prepared to rise up to the stars.

— Dante Alighieri, the last lines of Purgatorio (translated by Jean & Robert Hollander)

But now my will and my desire, (…) / were turning with / the Love that moves the sun and all the other stars.

— Dante Alighieri, the last lines of Paradiso (translated by Jean & Robert Hollander)

 

ART

RESOURCES

— this Dante Alighieri Google Drive (x) - Thomas Harris used the Robert Pinsky and Mark Musa translations for his books
— the illustrations to the Divine Comedy section on wikimedia (x) - links to beautiful illuminated manuscripts, paintings and more; great for making textures
— Digital Dante with Commento Baroliniano (x) - lovely commentary and explanations by Teodolinda Barolini
— Dante’s Lab Reader (x) - comparative translations with commentary from Jean & Robert Hollander, Charles S. Singleton, and many others
— MyDante Course at Georgetown (x) - free and taught by Frank Ambrosio