Inferno, Canto 21 with Dr. Andrew Moran

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I'm guessing that the final lines of canto  21 propelled your eyebrows to the ceiling   "off the devil set along the left-hand bank but  first each pressed his tongue between his teeth   to blow a signal to their leader and  he had made a trumpet of his asshole" Why does Dante give us a farting devil? In  this canto about sinners punished for graft   for taking bribes and kickbacks we end with the  lowest of the low bathroom humor. Why? To answer   that question and understand what's going on in  canto 21 we need to go back to its opening lines   "thus from one bridge to the next we  came until we reached its highest point"   Speaking of things my comedy does not care to sing   but to understand Dante's reference to his poem  and its actual title The Comedy, La Commedia we   have to go back a little further to the end  of the previous canto when Virgil speaks of   my lofty tragedy. Cantos 20 and 21 work as a pair. Virgil dominates canto 20 speaking more lines than   it than in any other in the Inferno, as he  tells of the tragic fates of the soothsayers   and refers to his poem the Aeneid my lofty  tragedy. The tragedian Virgil's canto is full of   weeping and as tragedy was traditionally reputed  to be the noblest, highest form of poetry its tone   is strangely dignified and restrained with silent  soothsayers who move at a slow pace. Dante asks   if there are" any worthy year of my notice for my  thought keeps going back to them alone" He alludes   to the pagan philosopher Aristotle's teaching that  the tragic hero must be someone of great eminence.   Tragedy teaches Aristotle is the genre  about and written by nobler higher souls. There is nothing high and noble about canto 21   even from the dirty and sticky epic simile or long  simile by which Dante starts describing the damned. The grafters are burning in a hot pitch like that  which the Venetians use to repair their ships. The simile also stresses activity one rebuilds his  ship while still another plugs the seams of his   one hammers at the stem, another at the stern, this  one makes the oars, that one twists the ropes for   rigging another patch's jib and mainsail; there's  movement and energy as there is in the canto. Dante   the pilgrim first fixedly stares at the pitch; but no this is a Malebolge a section in Hell   in which one has to be on one's toes. “Guarda, guarda!” the usually calm Virgil cries "look out, look out!" There are devils all over the place running around,  being loud, sticking their claws into sinners and having fun. These are devils from a Halloween  party, black from head to toe, grinning, smirking,   making blasphemous jokes; their leader waving his  bill hook obscenely. In fact these are devils from   medieval comedy such as you would see an actor  dressed up as in a play or a popular festival. So in contrast to the pagan Virgil's lofty  tragedy the Christian Dante offers us a comedy   despite that genre's lesser reputation.  Dante overloads this canto and the whole   episode with the devils and grafters with the  conventions of comedy. The devils have ridiculous   names translating to scratchy dog and swine  face, love knot and curly beard. The pilgrim   responds to their threats with humorously  exaggerated fear as if you were Lou Costello   of "who's on first what's on second" fame meeting  Frankenstein's monster in a black and white movie. But the stoic Virgil is too fearless too  confident in his own rectitude and authority.   He asks Malacoda, evil tale, for  directions to the next ditch of Hell. He's the out-of-towner in a three-piece  suit in a rough neighborhood   asking how to get back to the interstate. Of  course the devil gives him bad directions.   In a comedy the guy who takes himself seriously  has to take a pie to the face; so Virgil is tricked   by the devils but then they are tricked by one of  the sinners as if we're watching a comedy about   con men the sting or dirty rotten scoundrels.  Their follows slapstick À la The Three   Stooges as the devil smack each other  around and fall in the burning pitch.   We then end with the pilgrim and Virgil running  away from the devils; a chase scene, not quite   as involved as in The Blues Brothers or  another Hollywood comedy but always fun. So Dante identifies himself as a comedian even  to the point of having a farting devil. We're   then left with a question that goes beyond  the scope of canto 21 and the episode with   the devils and crafters: Why is the sacred poem to  which "Heaven and Earth have given a hand" as Dante   will write in paradiso 25 called La Commedia? Well  we did a hundred cantos to answer that question   but here are two quick thoughts with which to  conclude, one pretty obvious the other less so.   First the poem begins in a dark wood and ends with  the face of God; we go from misery to happiness. We   will end with a smiley face as is proper to comedy.  Christ promises a happy ending to His people. But more complexly the poem is a mix of  the damned, the redeemed who are suffering,   and the redeemed to a joyous. A mix of Florentine  contemporaries, famous historical figures and   characters from Greek mythology. A mix  of theology, ethics, metaphysics, literary   theory, political theory, even astronomy  and biology. A mix of the high and the low. There's an old distinction between tragedy and  comedy, which identifies the former as pure and the   latter as impure. Comedy: a mix of things. You can  add a song and dance number to a romantic comedy   but not to Oedipus the King "my eyeballs  are bleeding and my daughter is my sister"   No no no that song doesn't work, but comedy  works well with subplots and digressions and   the placing together of incongruous things such  as philosophic discourses and bathroom jokes.   Heaven and Earth, the word  and it's being made flesh. In identifying himself as a comedian maybe  Dante indicates that he seeks to bring together   everything that is true to see it all; and thus  picture as he writes at the beginning of Paradiso   how the glory of Him who moves all things   pervades the universe and shines in  one part more and in another lesson.
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Channel: Baylor HonorsCollege
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Length: 9min 16sec (556 seconds)
Published: Mon Oct 25 2021
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