Talk:Divine Comedy/Archives/2009

Angle of whatnow?

"As he is leaving the terrace, the dazzling light of the angel causes Dante to observe that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection "as theory and experiment will show.""

From the article. Does Purgatorio really say that? What on Earth does that mean or have to do with purgatory? 99.245.92.47 (talk) 19:32, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Indeed it does. Dante is full of these little side-comments about up-to-date scientific and philosophical points. Radagast3 (talk) 04:06, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Image overload

This article is once again becoming overloaded with images, which break up the text and make reading difficult. Anyone feel like pruning some of the thicket? Deor (talk) 17:00, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, because no one has taken up the challenge, I've gone ahead and cut some images and done some rearrangement, trying to keep in mind the guidelines at WP:MOSLINK and WP:Layout#Links (though I'm probably not the person who should have done it, since I'd be perfectly content if Wikipedia were without any images at all). Deor (talk) 20:40, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Religiously Inaccurate

It should be mentioned that this is a completely fictional interpretation of the Christian Afterlife.

As written in the New Testament Heaven has "God as the light", there is "no sun or moon (as stated, God provides the Light), "streets of gold", "crystal sea", and walls made of jewels.

Hell is "a lake of fire", in which God casts disbelievers (depart from me, I never knew you). This is Satan's domain, where there "is no light", but "flames burn without creating light", and there is misery and "gnashing of teeth". People curse God, but He does not listen.

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No spheres, no Saturn, no levels of Hell, no nothing.

This entire article is fiction, and honestly, is not "in universe".

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If this is a "comedy", then why isn't it funny? Where's the laughter/happiness? It sounds like a tragedy to me.

--74.184.188.59 (talk) 21:32, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Holy crap.

When you find someone who thinks that the Divine Comedy is history or something, DO let me know.

And it's called a "comedy" because it has a happy ending.

Sheesh. Carlo (talk) 21:39, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. However, it is quite possible, as some have noted, that Dante was at best an agnostic, and at worst (heaven forfend!) an atheist. Having read several English translations (I prefer Ciardi's as he captures the spirit of the original) as well as the original Italian version, I'm inclined to agree. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 23:51, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Also, to back up Carlo: from the OED entry on comedy Probably taken from Italian; cf. the Divine Comedy, the great tripartite poem of Dante, called by its author La Commedia, because ‘in the conclusion, it is prosperous, pleasant, and desirable’, and in its style ‘lax and unpretending’, being ‘written in the vulgar tongue, in which women and children speak’ •Jim62sch•^dissera! 23:54, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

The important points are that (1) it reflects the medieval world view, and (2) it's an allegory. I can't see how we can make that clearer in the introductory paragraph. Radagast3 (talk) 07:45, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Who has said that Dante was "at best" an agnostic? Carlo (talk) 22:06, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that seems to me unlikely, given his authorship of the poem, and his involvement with the Franciscans. Radagast3 (talk) 08:30, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Breaking up the article

I'm making smaller articles for the three parts, and will cut the sections accordingly. Hope that's okay. I think it's time. Carlo (talk) 13:36, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree. My only suggestion is that the articles be located under the names Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Wareh (talk) 21:19, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Inferno and Paradiso are currently dab pages—moving them out of the way of the new articles probably should go through a WP:RM discussion. The only thing that bothers me about the new articles is that they consist entirely of plot summary, therefore not conforming to WP:WAF. Deor (talk) 21:53, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Just for the record, I think this was a REALLY bad move. I vote for undoing the split. The original article was a good one, but none of the current four articles really work on their own. Radagast3 (talk) 22:04, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I could accept that as well. The article has always been, to my mind, deficient in information about intellectual background, reception, and interpretation; and what's there is spotty and in part driven by special interests (the overprominence of the material on possible Islamic sources, for instance). But a full treatment of these couldn't coexist with so full a plot summary as there was—the WP article-size restrictions wouldn't allow it. There is certainly a possibility that the Inferno, Puragtorio, and Paradiso articles could consist of more than just plot summary: the influence of the Nichomachean Ethics on the structure of Hell, the connection of the traditional astrological attributes of the planets with the types of souls D. assigns to the spheres, and similar topics could all be discussed; but I agree that as they stand, the four articles don't add up to much. I don't see any real reason for the split unless it is followed quickly by expansion of each. If that isn't going to happen, things were better as they were. Deor (talk) 22:43, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

My reasoning is simple: the subject is HUGE. The article doesn't do it justice, but can't be expanded as it is, because the article is huge. If you compare this article with the Shakespeare article, the difference is enormous. That article has many, many daughter articles; the importance of the subject justifies. Same here. This is the most important writer in the history of the Italian language. Carlo (talk) 22:52, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh - and they consist entirely of plot summary because the quickest way to get them started was to cut and paste what was already here. Carlo (talk) 22:55, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I guess the move is a fait accompli now. I've started on fixing the fairly large number of broken links created by the move. And we can think about where to take the main article. I'd like to see sections on political themes and on the role of Beatrice, for example. Radagast3 (talk) 09:50, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Dating

I've always known that people have dated the Divine Comedy as taking place around Easter in 1300. I don't know if I haven't been observant in my readings of the Endnotes to my edition, or to the Comedy itself, or something else, but I don't know how that was decided. Taking that for granted, the Comedy does start with "Midway through the Journey of our lives," always interpreted as meaning 35 years of age, because the bible says that a man's life is 70 years long. Dante was born in 1265 sometime in May or June. Easter never goes past April 25 on the Julian Calendar (in use in the 1200s and 1300s) and was celebrated on the 10th of April in 1300, according to http://www.phys.uu.nl/~vgent/easter/easter_text2b.htm/. Wouldn't Dante have been 34 at that time? Does that mean the story actually talkes place in 1301? In the Endnotes to the Divine Comedy, the Barnes and Noble Classics Edition, it is stated that some people believe that the Comedy takes place in 1301. However, it states that this is highly unlikely. Why is that? Can someone explain? I realize that I am most likely incorrect, but this has been bothering me and I would love to be corrected. Thank you. --15lsoucy (talk) 07:09, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I wish I could summarize the most important evidence from the poem, but I can say that the indications of time go far beyond reckoning from the poem's first line. For example, the poem makes "remarkably accurate references to planetary positions," "almost certainly" based, for example, on the Perpetual Almanac of Prophatius for the year 1300 (Richard Kay, "Astrology," in The Dante Encyclopedia). Again, without trying to get a handle on the positive evidence, I will say I'm not sure the problem you raise about the poem's first line is any obstacle: if you were so close to your 35th birthday, wouldn't it be more accurate to say you were midway through a 70-year span than 34/70 of the way or any other fraction? Wareh (talk) 15:13, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I seem to be taking up a lot of space on this page with my uneducated questions and suggestions. Thank you for explaining these things to me. --15lsoucy (talk) 00:45, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Your question was perfectly reasonable and appropriate. Not only is there a better answer than mine out there, but Wikipedia in its imagined future perfect state ought to offer the reader a smooth path to that better answer. These talk pages are for improving the encyclopedia; your question points the way to a treatment of the poem's chronology, still only a desideratum, but which eventually could merit an article of its own. Wareh (talk) 01:02, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Translations

I don't know if anyone else thinks this is a good idea (I know they think the article is long enough already), but would it be acceptable to have a section or sub-section on translations somewhere? --15lsoucy (talk) 21:35, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Have a look at this section already existing. Wareh (talk) 01:14, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the 'translations' section could be expanded, with more detail on translations (eg. a more methodical listing of whether translations are in verse or prose) and perhaps a little critical assessment. As a seperate point, I wondered what the significance of 'the first American translation' was? Surely it would be of more interest to have details of the first translation into English? The earliest English translation listed here is by Cary, from the early 19th century: surely there were translatoins before this one? I would like to do these things myself, but unfortunately know little on Dante. Drobba (talk) 13:34, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a great idea! As to the Longfellow translation, it probably was significant in terms of making Dante known in the US, and (like the classic Cary translation) it's still widely used. -- Radagast3 (talk) 20:50, 5 November 2009 (UTC)