INFERNO CANTO 21 explained
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
- Synopsis and analysis of Canto XXI of Dante’s Inferno. Such a fun, dark and 'cheerful' canto.
English translation used for this video:
Robert Pinsky, "The Inferno of Dante: A New Verse Translation", Bilingual Edition. You can find it here: www.amazon.com...
Thanks as always for your comments and questions. I will keep trying to upload at least one video every week with the next cantos.
The funniest part in the whole Canto is Dante turning to Virgil and saying, "you know, after spending this much time in hell, I don't think I trust these people." Oh? Almost as if there was some compromise, up to that point, on if the people in hell were trustworthy or not. 🤣 This is the second time Donte has evoked the comedy a Monty Python skit. I was also going to ask, I remember in a previous video, you mentioned a good biography on Dante's life--I am thinking I may need to pick that up after this.
: ) So true. Virgil trusting the demons is a skit in itself! The biography I mentioned is the one by Marco Santagata - the English title I believe is "Dante: the story of his life". Relatively recent and not too long or heavy.
@@tomlabooks3263 Yes! That is right, I will look for it tomorrow, or order it! Thanks! Also, I was going to email you tonight or tomorrow about a video I was going to do on "Genu" in the future! I think you will like the idea!
@@attention5638 Oh that would be sweet !! But in that case, let me send you Volume 4 as well..... the lettering is almost done, we need only a few more days. Volume 4 is pretty crucial in the 5 parts because it includes the big reveal that makes sense of everything before.
Agree.. it's very Pythonesque or like a pantomime ....loved the whole thing .. I could really see it and hear the audience shouting out " No!!!! " as Virgil trusts those pesky devils
@@hesterdunlop7948 🤣🤣 right!!
ah..and i thought i misunderstood the last line...lol.
This gives the phrase Hell’s Kitchen a while new meaning! 😁
The last line was really a surprise and I can imagine young kids laughing with it.
That’s the only line that many lazy Italian students will memorize!!
Ciardi says: "These two cantos (XXI & XXII) may conveniently be remembered as the GARGOYLE cantos. If the total Commedia is built like a cathedral (as so many critics have suggested), it is here that Dante attaches his grotesqueries. At no other point in the Commedia does Dante give such free rein to his coarest style." Have you heard this before?
I have not, but it’s a very original and creative angle. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone was able to prove that the Comedy follows some type of complex church / cathedral architectural scheme. I love the definition of “gargoyle cantos”.
I struggled with this on my read though. A month off made me rusty. I even missed the humor at the end. Great discussion. I'm looking forward to getting caught up.
You're going to enjoy the next cantos, some parts sound like a Clive Barker book : )
We are down at the bottom of the barrel now in terms of humour and I love it. My favourite moment was when they have to walk through the group of demons waving their forks and hooks at them. It is so visual. And the casual cruelty to the sinners sustains a layer of horror beneath the humour.
Among many other things, I see the Divine Comedy as a master class in "how to craft perfect similes" for your fiction. It's shocking how each one of them is so perfect as it doesn't only embellish the passage but it always adds useful information.
I am determined to catch up on the Cantos and videos this week! Haha. I had to take a break, but returning to this world was amazing.
I hadn't noticed how little details like telling us that the pilgrim and Virgil were having a conversation he won't tell us about makes the reader feel like what Dante is recounting actually happened. I completely agree with that. Even when we're not told what happens between two Cantos, I fill it in, because Virgil and the pilgrim surely must be doing something when we're not looking...? Thanks for the information about the exile.
Thank you ! Yes he uses so many subliminal techniques that it’s impossible to spot them all, and in fairness I don’t even know how conscious he was about some of them. It’s incredible how every canto is a world / novel in itself. Speak soon! 👋🏼
The pacing in the Inferno is really wonderful. The humor in XXI does offset some of the misery that we're seeing, and it gives the reader a sense of variety, keeping the tone from a certain monotony that lesser writers may not have been savvy enough to avoid. I salute you! (but not the way the devils do it).
🤣🤣
This canto was great good fun. I can’t imagine that Paradiso has anything so funny
"Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company", Mark Twain : )
@@tomlabooks3263 love it!
Hi Tom, another great video. Do you know I just realised that this is the third time I'm reading The Inferno and I have to ask myself why on earth I keep coming back to a text full of ghoulish scenes of devils and all manner of awful things. Seriously, what's wrong with me? Why do you think this work mesmerizes us so?
My friend if you are looking for an objective answer I'm probably the wrong person to ask, because my answer to your great question is: "Because it's the best work of literature that's ever been written by anybody". But I realize I may be slightly biased! ; )
@@tomlabooks3263 What a delightful answer! It sounds like something I would say😉
That’s the definition of a classic to me: something that you reread ad infinitum, always finding new things. Classics are a renewable type of energy for my reader’s soul. Very ecological.