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.

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Professor Mazzotta continues his discussion of the Heaven of the Sun (Paradiso 10-14), where the earthly disputes between the Franciscan and Dominican orders give way to mutual praise. The tribute St. Thomas pays to the founder of the Franciscan order (Paradiso 11) is repaid by St. Bonaventure through his homage to St. Dominic (Paradiso 12). The chiasmic structure of these cantos is reinforced by the presence of Nathan and Joachim of Flora, the counterweights to Solomon and Sigier, among...

This lecture deals with Paradiso 4, 6 and 10. At the beginning of Paradiso 4, the pilgrim raises two questions to which the remainder of the canto is devoted. The first concerns Piccarda (Paradiso 3) who was constrained to break her religious vows. The second concerns the arrangement of the souls within the stars. The common thread that emerges from Beatrice’s reply is the relationship between intellect and will. Just as Piccarda’s fate reveals the limitations of the will, the...

Professor Mazzotta introduces students to Paradiso. The Ptolemaic structure of Dante’s cosmos is described together with the arts and sciences associated with its spheres. Beatrice’s role as teacher in Dante’s cosmological journey is distinguished from that of her successor, St. Bernard of Clairvaux. An introduction to Dante’s third and final guide to the Beatific Vision helps situate the poetics of Paradiso vis-à-vis the mystical tradition. Professor Mazzotta’s introduction to the...

This lecture deals with Dante’s representation of the Earthly Paradise at the summit of Mount Purgatory. The quest for freedom begun under the aegis of Cato in Purgatory I reaches its denouement at the threshold of Eden, where Virgil proclaims the freedom of the pilgrim’s will (Purgatorio 27). Left with pleasure as his guide, the pilgrim nevertheless falls short of a second Adam in his encounter with Matelda. His lingering susceptibility to earthly delights is underscored at the arrival of...

This lecture deals primarily with Purgatorio 19, 21 and 22. The ambiguity of the imagination discussed in the preceding lecture as the selfsame path to intellectual discovery and disengagement is explored in expressly poetic terms. While the pilgrim’s dream of the siren in Purgatorio 19 warns of the death-dealing power of aesthetics, the encounter between Statius and Virgil in the cantos that follow points to its life-giving potential by casting poetry as a means of conversion.

Guest lecturer Prof. David Lummus discusses Purgatorio 24-26. On the terraces of gluttony and lust, the pilgrim’s encounters with masters of the Italian love lyric give rise to the Comedy’s most sustained treatment of poetics. Through Dante’s older contemporary Bonagiunta (Purgatorio 24), the pilgrim distinguishes the poetic style of his youth from that of the courtly love tradition pursued by his interlocutor. In Purgatorio 26, Dante reinforces his own poetic genealogy through his...

This lecture covers Purgatorio 5, 6, 9 and 10. The purgatorial theme of freedom introduced in the previous lecture is revisted in the context of canto 5, where Buonconte da Montefeltro’s appearance among the last minute penitents is read as a critique of the genealogical bonds of natural necessity. The poet passes from natural to civic ancestry in Purgatorio 6, where the mutual affection of Virgil and Sordello, a former citizen of the classical poet’s native Mantua, sparks an invective...

In this lecture, Professor Mazzotta moves from the terrace of pride (Purgatorio 10-12) to the terrace of wrath (Purgatorio 16-17). The relationship between art and pride, introduced in the previous lecture in the context of canto 10, is pursued along theological lines in the cantos immediately following. The “ludic theology” Dante embraces in these cantos resurfaces on the terrace of wrath, where Marco Lombardo’s speech on the traditional problem of divine foreknowledge and human freedom...

The final cantos of Inferno are read with a view to the role of the tragic within Dante’s Comedy. Using Dante’s discussion of tragedy in the De vulgari eloquentia as a point of departure, Professor Mazzotta traces the disintegration of language that accompanies the pilgrim’s descent into the pit of hell, the zone of treachery, from the distorted speech of Nimrod in Inferno 31 to the silence of Satan in Inferno 34. The ultimate triumph of comedy over tragedy is dramatized by the pilgrim’s...

In this lecture, Professor Mazzotta introduces Purgatorio and proceeds with a close reading of cantos 1 and 2. The topography of Mount Purgatory is described, and the moral system it structures is contrasted with that of Hell. Dante’s paradoxical choice of Cato, a pagan suicide, as guardian to the entrance of Purgatory ushers in a discussion of freedom from the standpoint of classical antiquity, on the one hand, and Judaism, on the other. In his refusal to be enslaved by the past, both on...

Professor Mazzotta begins this lecture by recapitulating the ambivalent nature of Ulysses’ sin and its relevance to Dante’s poetic project. Inferno 27 is then read in conjunction with the preceding canto. The antithetical relationship between Dante’s false counselors, Ulysses and Guido da Montefeltro, anchors an overarching discussion of the relationship between rhetoric and politics. The latter half of the lecture is devoted to Inferno 28, where Dante’s preeminent sower of discord, Betran...

This lecture focuses on the middle zone of Inferno, the area of violence (Inferno 12-16). Introductory remarks are made on the concentration of hybrid creatures in this area of Hell and followed by a close reading of cantos 13 and 15. The pilgrim’s encounter with Pier delle Vigne (Inferno 13) is placed in literary context (Aeneid III). The questioning of authority staged in this scene resurfaces in the circle of sodomy (Inferno 15), where the pilgrim’s encounter with his teacher, Brunetto...

This lecture deals primarily with cantos 19 and 26 of Inferno. Simony, the sin punished in Inferno 19, is situated historically to point out the contiguity of the sacred and the profane and its relevance to the prophetic voice Dante established in this canto. The fine line between prophecy and profanation is shown to resurface in Inferno 24 and 25, where the poet falls prey, as did the pilgrim in Inferno 4, to poetic hubris. Once again, the dangers of Dante’s poetic vocation are dramatized...

In this lecture, Professor Mazzotta discusses Inferno 9-11. An impasse at the entrance to the City of Dis marks Virgil’s first failure in his role as guide (Inferno 9). The invocation of Medusa by the harpies that descend while they wait for divine aid elicits Dante’s first address to the reader. The question of literary mediation, posed in the previous lecture in the context of Inferno 5, is explored further, and the distinction Dante draws between the “allegory of poets” and the...

This lecture examines Inferno 4 -7. Dante’s Limbo, modeled on the classical locus amoenus, is identified as a place of repose and vulnerability. Here, in fact, among the poets of antiquity, the pilgrim falls prey to poetic hubris by joining in their ranks. The pilgrim is faced with the consequences of his poetic vocation when he descends to the circle of lust (Inferno 5), where Francesca da Rimini, in her failure to distinguish romance from reality, testifies to the dangers inherent to the...

Professor Mazzotta introduces students to the Divine Comedy, focusing on the first four cantos of Inferno. Stylistic, thematic and formal features of the poem are discussed in the context of its original title, Comedy. The first canto is read to establish the double voice of the poet-pilgrim and to contrast the immanent journey with those described by Dante’s literary precursors. Among these is the pilgrim’s guide, Virgil. The following cantos are read with special attention to the ways...

This lecture is devoted to the Vita Nuova, Dante's autobiographical account of his "double apprenticeship" in poetry and love. The poet's love for Beatrice is explored as the catalyst for his search for a new poetic voice. Medieval theories of love and the diverse poetics they inspired are discussed in contrast. The novelty of the poet's final resolution is tied to the relationship he discovers between love and knowledge. This relationship is then placed in its larger cultural context to...

Professor Mazzotta introduces students to the general scheme and scope of the Divine Comedy and to the life of its author. Various genres to which the poem belongs (romance, epic, vision) are indicated, and special attention is given to its place within the encyclopedic tradition. The poem is then situated historically through an overview of Dante's early poetic and political careers and the circumstances that led to his exile. Professor Mazzotta concludes by discussing the central role...