Lecturae Dantis: Inferno Canto I

 I just attended the first session of Lecturae Dantis, a canto-by-canto reading with commentary of the entire Divine Comedy organized by the Literature Department of my alma mater, the University of Asia and the Pacific.  I intend to follow all the readings religiously.

The Divine Comedy is one of those works that reward re-reading.  Every time I re-read it, I always discover something new.  In this case, the re-reading was enhanced by the commentaries the reader, Dr. Paul Dumol, a medievalist.  I always found myself exclaiming, "Oo nga, ano!" to myself throughout the session.

We started with the first canto today with Dante finding himself lost in a dark wood, his attempts to escape it being thwarted by the appearance of three beasts, and his encounter with Virgil who told him that his only way to escape the dark wood  was through another route:  the guided tour of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven.  

Some take-aways from today's reading:  

• The Divine Comedy as an encyclopedic synthesis of the available knowledge of his time
• When reading the Comedy, one must train one's ear to distinguish the tones of the various characters.
• The Comedy has parallel motifs with Florante at Laura; in fact it is very likely that Dante influenced Balagtas.
• The literal and metaphorical layers of the Comedy must be perceived together, similar to a dance and the accompanying music. 
• Dante's literary techniques:  layering, and unveiling.
• The terza rima form and the Trinity

Some insights I had during the re-reading (WARNING:  SOME SPOILERS!):

• From Lines 124-126:  My question -- is Virgil's sin, which keeps him in Limbo, lack of hope?  He says that "the King of Time, who reigns on high, forbids me to come there since, living, I rebelled against his law."  This is significant because later on in the Comedy, we encounter souls who also lived before Christ but whom we find in Purgatory and not in Limbo; the explanation we were given in college was that these latter souls (like Cato) had hope.
• Dante addresses Virgil as "Poet" -- I did my final term paper in the Dante course I took in college on "What Can the Poet Do for Evangelization that the Theologian Cannot".  The fact that it is Virgil, a poet, who acts as Dante's guide is another clue to, and proof of, my conclusion in that paper.  (Unfortunately; I did not keep a copy.  I hope I get a chance to re-construct and improve on it.)
• Dante (the author, not the character in the work) died on the Feast of the Exultation of the Holy Cross.  An interesting coincidence, because  in the 34th canto, the last canto of the Inferno, the opening lines are "On march the banners of the King of Hell" which is a corruption of the hymn "Vexilla Regis", a hymn for the triumph of the Holy Cross -- driving in the point about the crucifixion being the ultimate battle between Christ and Satan. 

So many tindig-balahibo moments!

BTW,  Dr. Dumol's reading and commentary was beginner-friendly.

Here's hoping you can join us in the next session!