24 episodes

(ITAL 310) The course is an introduction to Dante and his cultural milieu through a critical reading of the Divine Comedy and selected minor works (Vita nuova, Convivio, De vulgari eloquentia, Epistle to Cangrande). An analysis of Dante's autobiography, the Vita nuova establishes the poetic and political circumstances of the Comedy's composition. Readings of Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise seek to situate Dante's work within the intellectual and social context of the late Middle Ages, with special attention paid to political, philosophical and theological concerns. Topics in the Divine Comedy explored over the course of the semester include the relationship between ethics and aesthetics; love and knowledge; and exile and history.

This course was recorded in Fall 2008.

Dante in Translation - Video Giuseppe Mazzotta

    • Arts
    • 3.9 • 46 Ratings

(ITAL 310) The course is an introduction to Dante and his cultural milieu through a critical reading of the Divine Comedy and selected minor works (Vita nuova, Convivio, De vulgari eloquentia, Epistle to Cangrande). An analysis of Dante's autobiography, the Vita nuova establishes the poetic and political circumstances of the Comedy's composition. Readings of Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise seek to situate Dante's work within the intellectual and social context of the late Middle Ages, with special attention paid to political, philosophical and theological concerns. Topics in the Divine Comedy explored over the course of the semester include the relationship between ethics and aesthetics; love and knowledge; and exile and history.

This course was recorded in Fall 2008.

    • video
    24 - General Review

    24 - General Review

    The last class of the semester consists of a brief recapitulation of topics in the Divine Comedy addressed throughout the course, followed by an extensive question and answer session with the students. The questions posed allow Professor Mazzotta to elaborate on issues raised over the course of the semester, from Dante's place within the medieval love tradition to the relationship between his roles as poet and theologian.

    • 4 sec
    • video
    23 - Paradise XXX, XXXI, XXXII, XXXIII

    23 - Paradise XXX, XXXI, XXXII, XXXIII

    Professor Mazzotta lectures on the final cantos of Paradiso (30-33). The pilgrim's journey through the physical world comes to an end with his ascent into the Empyrean, a heaven of pure light beyond time and space. Beatrice welcomes Dante into the Heavenly Jerusalem, where the elect are assembled in a celestial rose. By describing the Empyrean as both a garden and a city, Dante recalls the poles of his own pilgrimage while dissolving the classical divide between urbs and rus, between civic life and pastoral retreat. Beatrice's invective against the enemies of empire from the spiritual realm of the celestial rose attests to the strength of Dante's political vision throughout his journey into God. Dante's concern with the harmony of oppositions as he approaches the beatific vision is crystallized in the prayer to the Virgin Mary offered by St Bernard, Dante's third and final guide. In his account of the vision that follows, the end of Dante's pilgrimage and the measure of its success converge in the poet's admission of defeat in describing the face of God.

    • 4 sec
    • video
    22 - Paradise XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX

    22 - Paradise XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX

    This lecture focuses on Paradiso 27-29. St Peter's invective against the papacy from the heaven of the fixed stars is juxtaposed with Dante's portrayal of its contemporary incumbent, Boniface VIII, in the corresponding canto of Inferno. Recalls of infernal characters proliferate as the pilgrim ascends with Beatrice into the Primum Mobile. Bid to look back on the world below, Dante perceives the mad track of his uneasy archetype, Ulysses. Dante's remembrance of this tragic shipwreck at the very boundary of time and space gains interest in light of his allusion to Francesca at the outset of Paradiso 29. These resonances of intellectual and erotic transgression reinforce the convergence of cosmology and creation Dante assigns to the heaven of metaphysics.

    • 4 sec
    • video
    21 - Paradise XXIV, XXV, XXVI

    21 - Paradise XXIV, XXV, XXVI

    This lecture covers Paradiso 24-26. In the Heaven of the Fixed Stars, Dante is examined on the three theological virtues by the apostles associated with each: St Peter with faith (Paradiso 24), St James with hope (Paradiso 25), and St John with love (Paradiso 26). While mastering these virtues is irrelevant to the elect, it is crucial to the message of reform the pilgrim turned poet will relay on his return home. Dante’s scholastic profession of faith before St Peter (Paradiso 24) is read testament to the complication of faith and reason. The second of the theological virtues is discussed in light of the classical disparagement of hope as a form of self-deception and its redemption by the Biblical tradition through the story of Exodus, the archetype of Dante's journey. The pilgrim's three-part examination continues in Paradiso 26 under the auspices of St John, where love, the greatest of the virtues is distinguished by its elusiveness. The emphasis on love's resistance to formal definition sets the stage for the pilgrim's encounter with Adam, who sheds light on the linguistic consequences of the Fall.

    • 4 sec
    • video
    20 - Paradise XVIII, XIX, XXI, XXII

    20 - Paradise XVIII, XIX, XXI, XXII

    In this lecture, Professor Mazzotta examines Paradiso 18-19 and 21-22. In Paradiso 18, Dante enters the heaven of Jupiter, where the souls of righteous rulers assume the form of an eagle, the emblem of the Roman Empire. The Eagle's outcry against the wickedness of Christian kings leads Dante to probe the boundaries of divine justice by looking beyond the confines of Christian Europe. By contrasting the political with the moral boundaries that distinguish one culture from another, Dante opens up the Christian economy of redemption to medieval notions of alterity. In Paradiso 21, Dante moves from the exemplars of the active life to the contemplative spirits of the heaven of Saturn, Peter Damian and St Benedict. The question of perspective through which the theme of justice was explored resurfaces to distinguish between the visionary claims of the contemplative and mystical traditions. As Dante ascends to the Heaven of the Fixed Stars, catching sight of the earth below (Paradiso 22), his own visionary claims are distinguished by an awareness of his place in history.

    • 4 sec
    • video
    19 - Paradise XV, XVI, XVII

    19 - Paradise XV, XVI, XVII

    This lecture focuses on the cantos of Cacciaguida (Paradiso 15-17). The pilgrim's encounter with his great-great grandfather brings to the fore the relationship between history, self and exile. Through his ancestor's mythology of their native Florence, Dante is shown to move from one historiographic mode to another, from the grandeur of epic to the localism of medieval chronicles. Underlying both is the understanding of history in terms of genealogy reinforced and reproved by Dante's mythic references to fathers and sons, from Aeneas and Anchises to Phaeton and Apollo to Hippolytus and Theseus. The classical and medieval idea of the self's relation to history in terms of the spatial continuity these genealogies provide is unsettled by Cacciaguida's prophecy of Dante's exile. The very premise of the poem's composition, exile is redeemed as an alternative means of reentering the world of history.

    • 4 sec

Customer Reviews

3.9 out of 5
46 Ratings

46 Ratings

GoGoScirocco ,

Introduction

I was thoroughly captivated by the depth of knowledge promised by this book, which was so rivetingly portrayed by the professor. I was filled with excitement at reaching a point in my life where I am ready and eager to learn from wisdom that has stood for 700 years as one of humanity’s pinnacles. By the end of this introduction, my sense of reverie and gratitude for this accumulation and accessibility of human knowledge was so great, that I was yanked out of my state of mind when the first student question was when the first paper was due or something. The professor handled it marvelously, treating it as a reasonable question. It was as if a preacher, full of the Spirit, had finished an hour-long impassioned sermon, and the parishioners first question in response was “what time is the potluck?”

Top Podcasts In Arts

The Bright Side
iHeartPodcasts and Hello Sunshine
Fresh Air
NPR
The Moth
The Moth
99% Invisible
Roman Mars
The Recipe with Kenji and Deb
Deb Perelman & J. Kenji López-Alt
McCartney: A Life in Lyrics
iHeartPodcasts and Pushkin Industries

More by Yale University

Inside the Yale Admissions Office
Inside the Yale Admissions Office
Psychology
Yale School of Medicine
The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1845-1877 - Audio
David Blight
Those Who Were There: Voices from the Holocaust
Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
Ancient Greek History - Audio
Donald Kagan
Constitutional Law
Yale Law School