The meaning of the name "Divine Comedy"

The interpretation of the meaning of the poem is possible from several angles of vision. In the literal sense, this is truly the journey of the soul after death in the other world. But, in addition to the literal, legitimate is also an allegorical understanding of the poem, that is, every event, every detail carries an additional meaning.

According to traditional religious beliefs, hell is the place where sinners are. Suffering because of committed sins in purgatory is for those who have the opportunity to be cleansed and saved for a new life. Paradise is a reward for those who have lived righteous lives. It is about a moral assessment of people's actions: where exactly a person's soul goes after death is determined by its earthly life.

So even in the literal interpretation of the poem, the world of people is divided into righteous and sinners. Nevertheless, The Divine Comedy is not about individuals, but the insults created by the author symbolize certain principles or phenomena. So, the image of Virgil, which accompanies the protagonist on his journey in the circles of hell, is not only the image of the poet Virgil, but embodies the principle of knowing the world devoid of faith. Dante recognizes Virgil's greatness, yet portrays him as a resident of hell. Beatrice is not only a depiction of a beloved woman, but also an allegory of love, saving and forgiving.

The allegories in the poem are also ambiguous. For example, the animals that are found on Dante's path in the dense forest are endowed with traditional meanings for the Middle Ages: the lynx symbolizes insidiousness, the she-wolf - insatiability, the lion - pride. There is another interpretation of the images depicted by the poet: the lynx is Dante's political enemies, the lion is the king of France, the she-wolf is the Roman papacy. The meanings of the allegories are superimposed on one another, providing the work with additional dimensions.

A detailed allegory is the journey itself - this is the search for the right spiritual path for a person surrounded by sins, temptations and passions. Choosing a road is a search for the meaning of life. The main action takes place in the soul of the lyrical hero. The entire journey takes place in the mind of the poet. Having learned that there is a collapse, passing through the circles of hell, changes occur in the poet's soul, he rises to the realization of the most important truths about the world and about himself.

It is in the part that depicts paradise that the main secret of life, which lies in love, is revealed. Not only in love for a single and beautiful woman, but in all-consuming and all-forgiven love, love in the broadest sense of the word. Love like driving force, the force that the heavenly bodies move. Dante makes us think that God is love.

Often, out of love, actions are performed that go beyond understanding. It is customary among poets, having experienced love, to devote their works to the object of feelings. But if this poet is still a man with a difficult fate and, at the same time, is not devoid of genius, there is a possibility that he is able to write one of the greatest works in the world. This was Dante Alighieri. His "Divine Comedy" - a masterpiece of world literature - continues to be interesting to the world 700 years after its inception.

"Divine Comedy" was created in the second period of the great poet's life - the period of exile (1302 - 1321). By the time he began work on the Comedy, he was already looking for a haven for body and soul among the cities and states of Italy, and the love of his life, Beatrice, had already fallen asleep for several years (1290), becoming a victim of a plague epidemic. Writing was a kind of consolation for Dante in his difficult life. It is unlikely that then he counted on world fame or memory in the centuries. But the genius of the author and the value of his poem did not allow him to be forgotten.

Genre and direction

"Comedy" is a special work in the history of world literature. When viewed broadly, it is a poem. In a narrower sense, it is impossible to define its belonging to one of the varieties of this genre. The problem here is that there are no more such works in terms of content. It is impossible for him to come up with a name that would reflect the meaning of the text. Dante decided to call his work a "comedy" Giovanni Boccaccio, following the logic of the Aristotelian doctrine of drama, where comedy was a work that began badly and ended well. The epithet "divine" was invented in the 16th century.

By direction - this is a classic work of the Italian Renaissance. Dante's poem is characterized by a special national elegance, rich imagery and accuracy. With all this, the poet also does not neglect the sublimity and freedom of thought. All these features were characteristic of the Italian Renaissance poetry. It is they who form that unique style of Italian poetry of the 13th - 17th centuries.

Composition

Generally speaking, the basis of the poem is the hero's journey. The work consists of three parts, consisting of one hundred songs. The first part is "Hell". It contains 34 songs, while Purgatory and Paradise have 33 songs each. The choice of the author is not accidental. "Hell" stood out as a place in which there can be no harmony, well, and there are more inhabitants.

Description of hell

Hell is nine circles. Sinners are ranked there according to the severity of their fall. Dante took Aristotle's Ethics as the basis for this system. So, from the second to the fifth circles, punish for the results of human intemperance:

• in the second round, for lust;
• in the third, for gluttony;
• in the fourth - for stinginess with waste;
• in the fifth, for anger;

In the sixth and seventh for the aftermath of the atrocity:

• in the sixth for false doctrines
• in seventh for violence, murder and suicide

In the eighth and ninth for a lie and all its derivatives. The worst fate awaits Dante's traitors. According to the logic of modern, and even then, man, the most serious sin is murder. But Aristotle probably believed that the desire to kill a person to control may not always be due to the bestial nature, while lying is an exclusively deliberate matter. Dante obviously followed the same concept.

In "Hell" all political and personal enemies of Dante. Also there he placed all those who were of a different faith, seemed immoral to the poet and simply lived in a non-Christian way.

Purgatory description

Purgatory contains seven circles that correspond to seven sins. Their Catholic Church later called mortal sins (those that can be "forgiven"). Dante ranks them from hardest to most bearable. He did this because his path should be the path of ascent to Paradise.

Description of paradise

Paradise is performed in nine circles named after the major planets solar system... Here Christian martyrs, saints and scholars, participants crusades, monks, fathers of the Church, and, of course, Beatrice, who is not just anywhere, but in Empyrean - the ninth circle, which is represented in the form of a glowing rose, which can be interpreted as the place where God is. For all the Christian orthodoxy of the poem, Dante gives the circles of Paradise the names of the planets, which in their meaning correspond to the names of the gods of Roman mythology. For example, the third circle (Venus) is the abode of lovers, and the sixth (Mars) is a place for warriors for faith.

About what?

Giovanni Boccaccio, when writing a sonnet on behalf of Dante, dedicated to the purpose of the poem, said the following: "To entertain descendants and instruct in faith." This is true: "The Divine Comedy" can serve as an instruction in faith, because it is based on Christian teaching and clearly shows what and who awaits for disobedience. And, as they say, she can entertain. Considering, for example, the fact that “Paradise” is the most unreadable part of the poem, since all the entertainment that a person loves is described in the two previous chapters, well, or the fact that the work is dedicated to Dante's love. Moreover, the function that Boccaccio said is entertaining may even rival that of edification in its importance. After all, the poet was certainly more a romantic than a satirist. He wrote about himself and for himself: everyone who prevented him from living was in hell, the poem was for his beloved, and Dante's companion and mentor, Virgil, was the favorite poet of the great Florentine (he knew his Aeneid by heart).

Dante's image

Dante is the main character of the poem. It is noteworthy that in the entire book his name is not indicated anywhere, except, perhaps, on the cover. The narration comes from his face, and all the other characters call him "you". The narrator and the author have a lot in common. The "gloomy forest" in which the first appeared at the very beginning is the expulsion of the real Dante from Florence, a moment when he was really in disarray. And Virgil from the poem is the works of the Roman poet that existed for the exile in reality. As his poetry led Dante through difficulties here, so in the afterlife Virgil is his "teacher and beloved example." In the character system, the ancient Roman poet also personifies wisdom. The hero shows himself best in relation to sinners who personally offended him during his lifetime. To some of them, he even says in a poem that they deserve it.

Themes

• The main theme of the poem is love. The poets of the Renaissance began to raise the earthly woman to heaven, often calling them Madonna. Love, according to Dante, is the cause and the beginning of everything. She is an incentive for writing a poem, the reason for his journey already in the context of the work, and most importantly, the reason for the beginning and existence of the Universe, as is commonly believed in Christian theology.
• Edification is the next theme of Comedy. Dante, like everyone else in those days, felt a great responsibility for earthly life before the heavenly world. For the reader, he can act as a teacher who gives everyone what they deserve. It is clear that in the context of the poem, the inhabitants of the afterlife settled down as the author describes them, by the will of the Almighty.
• Politics. Dante's work can be safely called political. The poet always believed in the advantages of the emperor's power and wanted such power for his country. In total, his ideological enemies, as well as enemies of the empire, such as the assassins of Caesar, experience the most terrible suffering in hell.
• Strength of mind. Dante often falls into confusion, finding himself in the afterlife, but Virgil orders him not to do this, not stopping before any danger. However, even under unusual circumstances, the hero shows himself worthily. He cannot not be afraid at all, since he is a person, but even for a person his fear is insignificant, which is an example of an exemplary will. This will did not break before difficulties in real life poet, nor in his book adventure.

Problematic

• Struggle for the ideal. Dante pursued his goals both in real life and in the poem. Once a political activist, he continues to defend his interests, stigmatizing all those who are in opposition with him and behave badly. The author, of course, cannot call himself a saint, but nevertheless he takes responsibility for distributing sinners in their places. The ideal in this matter for him is Christian teaching and his own views.
• Correlation between the earthly and the afterlife. Many of those who, according to Dante, or according to Christian law, lived unrighteously, but, for example, for their own pleasure and profit for themselves, they find themselves in hell in the very scary places... At the same time, in paradise there are martyrs or those who during their lifetime were famous for great and useful deeds. The concept of punishment and reward, developed by Christian theology, exists as a moral guide for most people today.
• Death. When his beloved died, the poet was very grieved. His love was not destined to come true and receive embodiment on earth. "The Divine Comedy" is an attempt to reconnect with a forever lost woman at least for a short time.

Meaning

"Divine Comedy" performs all the functions that the author laid down in this work. She is a moral and humanistic ideal for everyone. Reading "Comedy" evokes many emotions through which a person learns what is good and what is bad, and experiences a purification, the so-called "catharsis", as Aristotle dubbed this state of mind. Through the suffering experienced in the process of reading the everyday description of hell, a person comprehends divine wisdom. As a result, he treats his actions and thoughts more responsibly, because the justice laid down from above will punish his sins. In a bright and talented manner, the artist of the word, like an icon painter, depicted scenes of reprisals against vices that educate the common people, popularizing and chewing on the content of Scripture. Dante's audience, of course, is more exacting, because it is literate, wealthy and perspicacious, but, nevertheless, it is not alien to sinfulness. Such people tended not to trust the direct moralizing of preachers and theological works, and here the exquisitely written "Divine Comedy" comes to the aid of virtue, which carried the same educational and moral charge, but did it in a secular sophistication. In this healing influence on those who are burdened with power and money, it is expressed main idea works.

The ideals of love, justice and the strength of the human spirit at all times are the basis of our being, and in Dante's work they are praised and shown in all their significance. The "Divine Comedy" teaches a person to strive for a high purpose, which God has bestowed on him.

Peculiarities

"The Divine Comedy" has the most important aesthetic value because of the theme of human love raised in it, which turned into a tragedy, and the richest artistic world poems. All of the above, together with a special poetic makeup and unprecedented functional diversity, make this work one of the most outstanding in world literature.

Interesting? Keep it on your wall!

Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy is one of the most famous works world literature. It was written at the beginning of the XIV century, but people still read it and try to understand the meaning that the famous native of the city of Florence put into it.

I will try to tell you how I understood the first song of "Comedy". The first song is introductory. And, in my opinion, it is the most autobiographical in the entire poem. Like the whole poem, it tells in symbolic images about various events in the real and spiritual life of Dante himself.

Dante's wanderings in the afterlife begin in a dense forest, when the poet himself is already about 35 years old; around 1300 Dante began writing his great work:

Halfway through earthly life,

I found myself in a gloomy forest ...

After the death of Beatrice in 1290, whom Dante loved all his life, he, in his figurative expression, lost his way, "having lost the right path in the darkness of the valley." The beginning of the 1300s, when Dante began to write his "Comedy", is also associated with the political unrest in Florence, as a result of which the poet, who held a high position in the Florentine Republic, was convicted and exiled from his beloved homeland. These years are so difficult for Dante that he does not want to talk about them in detail:

I don’t remember how I entered there ...

Dante saw a high hill in the middle of the forest and, after a little rest, went there, looking for salvation. After all, from a height you can see where to go. And any height brings a person closer to God, that is, to salvation:

When I gave my body a rest

I went up ...

But three terrible wild animals prevent Dante from escaping from the “wild, dense and threatening forest”: a lynx, a lion and a she-wolf. Dante's poem is rather symbolic than realistic. These animals symbolize three human vices that were characteristic of Dante himself in full measure:

... An agile and curling trot,

All in bright spots of a motley pattern ...

This is the description of the lynx, "a beast with a whimsical coat," which symbolizes lust, the desire to satisfy sexual desire. For Dante, this is a terrible sin, because his beloved Beatrice died, but he could not resist and courted other women. The poet is saved from this sin by "Divine Love", which manifested itself as the rising sun:

It was early hour, and the sun in a clear firmament

Accompanying the same stars again

That for the first time when their host is beautiful

Divine moved Love.

Trusting an hour and a happy time,

The blood was no longer compressed in the heart

At the sight of a beast with whimsical wool ...

Pride, arrogance and love for money and power for Dante are much more terrible sins. They are symbolized by a lion and a she-wolf:

A lion with a raised mane came out to meet him.

He stepped on as if on me,

With hunger growling furious

And the very air is numb with fear.

And with him is a she-wolf, whose thin body,

It seemed that it bears all the greed ...

Terrible beasts-sins push Dante to the abyss, to the death of the soul. But Beatrice protects Dante throughout his life. And after death, her "worthy soul" becomes an angel and does not leave Dante in his wanderings around the earth. Beatrice, seeing the poet's suffering, sends him the help of Virgil, the famous Roman poet, who:

... entrusted with a song,

How Ankhiz's son sailed into the sunset

From proud Troy, betrayed by burning.

Dante's contemporaries revered Virgil, and for the poet himself he was "a teacher, a beloved example":

You are my teacher, my favorite example;

You alone handed me the legacy

A beautiful syllable, extolled everywhere.

It is Virgil who will protect Dante on his travels through the world of the dead:

Follow me, and to the eternal villages

I will bring you from these places

And you will hear the screams of frenzy

And the ancient spirits in distress there,

For a new death, vain prayers ...

There are many versions of why Dante chose Virgil as his guide. For example, the reason, perhaps, was the fact that Virgil described in his "Aeneid" the journey of the hero Aeneas through the underworld of the dead. It seems to me that this is not the only reason. After all, Odysseus's wanderings in Hades were also described by Homer, who has always been a very revered poet. But Virgil is also Dante's fellow countryman, a Roman, and therefore the ancestor of the Italians:

I bring down my kin from the Lombards,

And Mantua was their sweet land ...

"The Divine Comedy", Dante's summit creation, began to be born when great poet just survived his exile from Florence. "Hell" was conceived around 1307 and was created during three years of wandering. This was followed by the composition of "Purgatory", in which special place took Beatrice (the entire creation of the poet is dedicated to her).

And in last years life of the creator, when Dante lived in Verona and Ravenna, "Paradise" was written. The plot basis of the vision poem was the journey beyond the grave - a favorite motif of medieval literature, which, under Dante's pen, received its artistic transformation.

Once upon a time, the ancient Roman poet Virgil depicted the descent of the mythological third into the underworld, and now Dante takes the author of the famous "Aeneid" as his guide through hell and purgatory. The poem is called a "comedy", and unlike the tragedy, it begins anxious and gloomy, but ends with a happy ending.

In one of the songs of "Paradise" Dante called his creation "a sacred poem", and after the death of its author, the descendants gave it the name "Divine Comedy".

We will not present the content of the poem in this article, but dwell on some of its features. artistic identity and poetics.

It is written in terzines, that is, three-line stanzas, in which the first verse rhymes with the third, and the second with the first and third lines of the next terzina. The poet relies on Christian eschatology and the doctrine of hell and heaven, but with his creation he significantly enriches these ideas.

In collaboration with Virgil, Dante steps over the threshold of a deep abyss, above the gates of which he reads an ominous inscription: "Leave hope, everyone who enters here." But despite this gloomy warning, the satellites continue their march. They will soon be surrounded by crowds of shadows, which will be of particular interest to Dante, since they were once human. And for a creator born in a new time, man is the most fascinating object of cognition.

Having crossed the infernal river Acheron in the boat of Heron, the companions find themselves in Limbus, where the shadows of the great pagan poets rank Dante in their circle, declaring him sixth after Homer, Virgil, Horace, Ovid and Lucan.

One of the remarkable signs of the poetics of a great creation is the rare recreation of the artistic space, and within it, the poetic landscape, a component that did not exist in European literature before Dante. Under the pen of the creator of The Divine Comedy, both the forest and the swampy steppe, and the icy lake, and steep rocks were recreated.

Dante's landscapes are characterized, firstly, by bright depiction, secondly, penetrated with light, thirdly, their lyrical coloration, and fourthly, natural variability.

If we compare the description of the forest in "Hell" and "Purgatory", we will see how the terrible, frightening picture of it in the first songs is replaced by the image of a joyful, light, permeated with green trees and blue air. The landscape in the poem is extremely laconic: "The day was leaving, And the dark air of the sky / Terrestrial creatures led to sleep." It is very reminiscent of earthly pictures, which is facilitated by detailed comparisons:

As a peasant, resting on a hill, -
When it hides its gaze for a while
The one with whom the earthly country is illuminated,

and mosquitoes, replacing flies, circle, -
He sees the valley full of fireflies
Where he reaps, where he cuts grapes.

This landscape is usually inhabited by people, shadows, animals or insects, as in this example.

Another significant component for Dante is the portrait. Thanks to the portrait, people or their shadows turn out to be alive, colorful, vividly conveyed, full of drama. We see the faces and figures of giants sitting chained in stone wells, we peer at facial expressions, gestures and movements former people who came to the afterlife from the ancient world; we contemplate both mythological characters and contemporaries of Dante from his native Florence.

The portraits sketched by the poet are distinguished by their plasticity, which means they are tactile. Here is one of the memorable images:

He took me to Minos, who, entwining
Tail eight times around the mighty back,
Even biting him out of anger,
Said …

The emotional movement reflected in the self-portrait of Dante himself is also distinguished by great expressiveness and life truth:

So I perked up, with the courage of grief;
The fear was decisively crushed in my heart,
And I answered, boldly speaking ...

In the external appearance of Virgil and Beatrice, there is less drama and dynamics, but Dante's attitude towards them is full of expression, who worships them and loves them passionately.

One of the features of the poetics of the "Divine Comedy" is the abundance and significance of numbers in it, which have a symbolic meaning. A symbol is a special kind of sign that is already in its external form contains the content of the representation it reveals. Like allegory and metaphor, the symbol forms the transfer of meaning, but unlike the named tropes, it is endowed with a huge variety of meanings.

The symbol, according to A.F. Losev, has a meaning not in itself, but as an arena for the meeting of known structures of consciousness with one or another possible object of this consciousness. The same applies to the symbolism of numbers with their frequent repetition and variation. Researchers of the Middle Ages literature (S. S. Mokulsky, M. N. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, N. G. Elina, G. V. Stadnikov, O. I. Fetodov and others) noted the huge role of number as a measure of things in the Divine Comedy "Dante. This is especially true for the numbers 3 and 9 and their derivatives.

However, speaking about the indicated numbers, researchers usually see their meaning only in the composition, architectonics of the poem and its stanza (three cantikas, 33 songs in each part, 99 songs in total, threefold repetition of the word stelle, the role of the xxx song "Purgatory" as a story about meeting of the poet with Beatrice, three-line stanzas).

Meanwhile, the whole system of images of the poem, the narration and description of it, the disclosure of plot details and detailing, style and language are subordinated to mystical symbolism, in particular the trinity.

Trinity is revealed in the episode of Dante's ascent to the hill of salvation, where he is hindered by three beasts (a lynx is a symbol of voluptuousness; a lion is a symbol of power and pride; a she-wolf is the embodiment of greed and greed), in the image of the Limbo of Hell, where beings of three kinds (souls of the Old Testament righteous , the souls of infants who died without baptism, and the souls of all virtuous non-Christians).

Next, we see three famous Trojans (Electra, Hector and Aeneas), a three-headed monster - Cerberus (having the features of a demon, a dog and a man). Lower Hell, consisting of three circles, is inhabited by three furies (Tisiphona, Megera and Elekto), three sisters of the Gorgons. 3 here are shown three ledges - steps that appear three vices (anger, violence and deceit). The seventh circle is divided into three concentric belts: they are notable for reproducing three forms violence.

In the next song, together with Dante, we notice how “three shadows suddenly separated”: these are three Florentine sinners, who “ran all three in a ring,” finding themselves on fire. Further, the poets see three instigators of bloody strife, the three-body and three-headed Geryon and the three-pointed Lucifer, from whose mouth three traitors (Judas, Brutus and Cassius) stick out. Even individual objects in Dante's world contain the number 3.

So, in one of the three coats of arms there are three black goats, in florins there are mixed 3 carats of copper. Trinity is observed even in the syntax of the phrase ("Hecuba, in sorrow, in calamity, in captivity").

We see a similar trinity in Purgatory, where angels have three lights each (wings, clothes and faces). It mentions three holy virtues (Faith, Hope, Love), three stars, three bas-reliefs, three artists (Franco, Cimabue and Giotto), three varieties of love, three eyes of Wisdom, which looks at the past, present and future with them.

A similar phenomenon is observed in "Paradise", where three virgins (Mary, Rachel and Beatrice) are sitting in the amphitheater, forming a geometric triangle. The second song tells about three blessed wives (including Lucia) and talks about three eternal creatures
(heaven, earth and angels).

It mentions three commanders of Rome, the victory of Scipio Africanus over Hannibal at the age of 33, the battle “three against three” (three Horatii against three Curiatii), it speaks of the third (after Caesar) Caesar, three angelic ranks, three lilies in the coat of arms of the French dynasty.

The named number becomes one of the complex definitions-adjectives ("triple" fruit "," triune God) is included in the structure of metaphors and comparisons.

What explains this trinity? First, by teaching catholic church about the existence of three forms of otherness (hell, purgatory and paradise). Secondly, the symbolization of the Trinity (with its three hypostases), the most important hour of Christian teaching. Thirdly, the impact of the chapter of the Knights Templar, where numerical symbolism was of paramount importance, affected. Fourthly, as the philosopher and mathematician P.A. Florensky showed in his works "The Pillar and Statement of Truth" and "Imagination in Geometry", the trinity is the most general characteristics being.

The number "three", wrote the thinker. manifests itself everywhere as some kind of basic category of life and thinking. These are, for example, the three main categories of time (past, present and future) three-dimensionality of space, the presence of three grammatical persons, the minimum size of a complete family (father, mother and child), (thesis, antithesis and synthesis), three basic coordinates of the human psyche (mind , will and feelings), the simplest expression of asymmetry in integers (3 = 2 + 1).

In a person's life, there are three phases of development (childhood, adolescence and adolescence or youth, maturity and old age). Let us also recall the aesthetic regularity that prompts creators to create a triptych, trilogy, three portals in a Gothic cathedral (for example, Notre Dame in Paris), built three tiers on the facade (ibid.), Three parts of the arcade, divide the walls of the naves into three parts, etc. All this was taken into account by Dante, creating his own model of the universe in the poem.

But in the "Divine Comedy" subordination is found not only to the number 3, but also to the number 7, another magical symbol in Christianity. Recall that the duration of Dante's unusual wanderings is 7 days, they begin on the 7th and end on April 14 (14 = 7 + 7). Canto IV recalls Jacob, who served Laban for 7 years and then for another 7 years.

In the thirteenth song "Hell", Minos sends his soul to the "seventh abyss". The XIV song mentions 7 kings who besieged Thebes, and xx - Tirisey, who survived the transformation into a woman and then - after 7 years - the reverse metamorphosis from woman to man.

The week is reproduced most thoroughly in "Purgatory", where 7 circles ("seven kingdoms"), seven stripes are shown; it speaks of seven deadly sins (seven "R" on the forehead of the hero of the poem), seven choirs, seven sons and seven daughters of Niobe; the mystical procession with seven lamps is reproduced, 7 virtues are characterized.

And in "Paradise" the seventh radiance of the planet Saturn, the seven-word Ursa Major, is transmitted; it speaks of the seven heavens of the planets (Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) in accordance with the cosmogonic concepts of the epoch.

This preference for the week is explained by the ideas prevailing in Dante's time about the presence of seven deadly sins (pride, envy, anger, despondency, avarice, gluttony and voluptuousness), about the pursuit of seven virtues, which are acquired through purification in the corresponding part of the afterlife.

The life observations of the seven colors of the rainbow and the seven stars of the Big and Ursa Minor, seven days of the week, etc. also had an effect.

An important role was played by biblical stories related to the seven days of the creation of the world, Christian legends, for example, about seven sleeping youths, ancient stories about seven wonders of the world, seven wise men, seven cities arguing for the honor of being the homeland of Homer, about seven fighting against Thebes. Imagery had an impact on consciousness and thinking
ancient folklore, numerous fairy tales about seven heroes, proverbs like "seven troubles - one answer", "seven are spacious, and two are cramped", sayings like "seven spans in the forehead", "seven miles of jelly slurp", "a book with seven seals "," Seven pots got off. "

All this is reflected in literary works... For comparison, let's take a later example: playing with the number "seven". In the "Legend of Ulenspiege" by C. de Coster and especially in the Nekrasov poem "Who Lives Well in Russia" (with her seven pilgrims,
seven owls, seven large trees, etc.). We find a similar influence on the magic and symbolism of the number 7 in the "Divine Comedy".

The number 9 also acquires symbolic meaning in the poem. After all, this is the number of celestial spheres. In addition, at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, there was a cult of the nine fearless: Hector, Caesar, Alexander, Joshua, David, Judas Maccabee, Arthur, Charlemagne and Gottfried of Bouillon.

It is no coincidence that there are 99 songs in the poem, before the summit xxx song "Purgatory" - 63 songs (6 + 3 = 9), and after it 36 ​​songs (3 + 6 = 9). It is curious that the name of Beatrice is mentioned 63 times in the poem. The addition of these two numbers (6 + 3) also forms 9. And this special name - Beatrice - rhymes 9 times. It is noteworthy that V. Favorsky, creating a portrait of Dante, placed a huge number 9 above his manuscript, thus emphasizing its symbolic and magical role in New Life and Divine Comedy.

As a result, numerical symbolism helps to hold the frame of the "Divine Comedy" together with its multi-layered and populous nature.

It contributes to the birth of poetic "discipline" and harmony, forms a rigid "mathematical structure", saturated with the brightest imagery, ethical wealth and deep philosophical meaning.

Dante's immortal creation strikes with very often metaphors. Their abundance is closely related to the peculiarities of the poet's worldview and artistic thinking.

Starting from the concept of the Universe, which relied on the Ptolemy system, from Christian eschatology and ideas about hell, purgatory and paradise, confronting the tragic darkness and the bright light of the afterlife kingdoms, Dante had to widely and at the same time capaciously recreate worlds full of acute contradictions, contrasts and antinomies, containing the grandiose encyclopedism of knowledge, their comparisons, connections and their synthesis. Therefore, natural and logical in the poetics of "comedy" have become movements, transfers and convergence of compared objects and phenomena.

To solve the set tasks, a metaphor was best suited, combining the concreteness of reality and the poetic fantasy of a person, bringing phenomena closer together space world, nature, the objective world and the spiritual life of a person by similarity and kinship to each other. This is why the language of the poem is so powerfully based on metaphorization, conducive to the knowledge of life.

The metaphors in the text of the three kantik are unusually diverse. Being poetic tropes, they often carry a significant philosophical meaning, such as, for example, "the hemisphere of darkness" "And" the song rang "(in" Paradise "). These metaphors combine different semantic planes, but at the same time each of them creates a single indissoluble image.

Showing the journey beyond the grave as a plot often found in medieval literature, using theological dogma and colloquial style as necessary, Dante sometimes introduces commonly used linguistic metaphors into his text
("Heart warmed", "fixed eyes", "Mars is burning", "thirst to speak", "waves beat", "golden ray", "the day was gone", etc.).

But much more often the author uses poetic metaphors, characterized by novelty and great expression, so essential in the poem. They reflect the variety of fresh impressions of the "first poet of the New Time" and are designed to awaken the recreational and creative imagination of readers.

These are the phrases “depth howls”, “crying hit me”, “roar burst in” (in “Hell”), “firmament rejoices”, “smile of rays” (in “Purgatory”), “I want to ask for light”, “labor of nature "(In" Paradise ").

True, sometimes we come across an amazing combination of old ideas and new views. In the neighborhood of two judgments (“art… God's grandson” and “art… follows nature-), we are faced with a paradoxical combination of the traditional reference to the Divine principle and the interweaving of truths that were previously assimilated and newly acquired, characteristic of“ comedy ”.

But it is important to emphasize that the above metaphors are distinguished by their ability to enrich concepts, animate text, compare similar phenomena, transfer names by analogy, collide the direct and figurative meanings of the same word ("cry", "smile", "art"), identify the main, constant feature of the characterized object.

In Dante's metaphor, as well as in comparison, features are compared or contrasted ("overlap" and "pickets"), but comparative ligaments (conjunctions "like", "like", "as if") are absent in it. Instead of a two-term comparison, a single, tightly spliced ​​image appears (“the light is silent,” “screams fly up,” “pleading for the eyes,” “the sea is beating,” “enter my chest,” “running four circles”).

The metaphors found in the "Divine Comedy" can be conditionally divided into three main groups, depending on the nature of the relationship between cosmic and natural objects with living beings. The first group should include personifying metaphors, in which cosmic and natural phenomena, objects and abstract concepts are likened to the properties of animate beings.

Such are Dante's "a friendly spring ran", "earthly flesh called", "the sun will show", "vanity will reject", "the sun lights up. etc. The second group should include metaphors (for the author of the "comedy" these are "splashing hands", "build towers", "mountain shoulders", "Virgil is a bottomless spring", "beacon of love", "seal of embarrassment", "fetters evil ").

In these cases, the properties of living beings are likened natural phenomena or objects. The third group is made up of metaphors that combine multidirectional comparisons ("face of truth", "words bring help", "light shone through", "wave of hair", "thought will sink", "evening has fallen," "the distance is on fire," etc.).

It is important for the reader to see that phrases of all groups are often present author's estimate, allowing you to see Dante's attitude to the phenomena he captures. Everything that has to do with truth, freedom, honor, light, he certainly welcomes and approves ("taste the honor", "the brilliance has grown wonderfully", "the light of truth").

The metaphors of the author of "Divine Comedy" convey various properties of the imprinted objects and phenomena: their shape ("a circle with the top lay down"), color ("accumulated color", "torments the black air"), sounds ("a rumble burst in", "a song will rise again", "The rays are silent") the arrangement of parts ("deep into my slumber", "the heel of the cliff") lighting ("the dawn has overcome", "the gaze of the luminaries", "the light rests on the firmament"), the action of an object or phenomena ("a lamp rises", " the mind soars "," the story flowed ").

Dante uses metaphors of different construction and composition: simple, consisting of one word ("petrified"); forming phrases (the one who moves the universe, "fallen fire from the clouds"): unfolded (metaphor of the forest in the first song of "Hell").

Composition

"Divine Comedy" is recognized as the pinnacle of creativity of the most famous Italian poet, the founder of Italian literature Dante Alighieri. The poet's contemporaries from among ordinary people even believed that he had compiled a real guide to the other world, but in fact, the content of the poem is not limited only to the artistic embodiment of mystical ideas about life after death. The content of this work can be interpreted from different angles: both literally (the lyrical hero's own image of the journey of the lyrical hero through the other world), and allegorically, as well as morally - ethically.

According to traditional religious understanding, Hell is a place to punish hopeless sinners. Purgatory is for those who still have the opportunity to be saved, while Paradise is the reward for a righteous life. We are talking about a certain moral assessment of actions: where exactly a person goes, his earthly life determines:

Here, each soul undergoes its own judgment:
She said, heard and went to the pit.

So, even the literal aspect already divides people into good and bad. But in Dante's Divine Comedy, it is mostly not about specific persons, the images derived in the poem at the same time symbolize certain principles or phenomena. The image of Virgil, which accompanies the lyric hero in hell, is not only (and not so much) an image of a specific person, but the embodiment of the principles of cognition of a world devoid of faith. Dante recognizes him as his teacher, but Virgil must stay in hell. It is no coincidence that, as salvation, he is invited to wait for the arrival of Beatrice - not just a woman, but an allegory of love, and, according to some interpretations, of faith, or even of Theosophy.
The allegories in the work are also ambiguous, for example, the animals that block the poet's path in the dark forest are presented according to the traditional interpretations of symbols: the leopard is deceit, the lion is cruelty, the she-wolf is gluttony, lust, but there is another interpretation: the leopard is Dante's political enemies, the lion is the king of France, the she-wolf is the papacy. The meanings of the allegories are layered on top of each other, giving out the content as if in an additional dimension.

The journey itself is a detailed allegory - it is the search for the right path for the human soul, surrounded by sins, temptations and passion. Search for the meaning of being. The main action generally takes place in the soul of the lyrical hero. Having cognized what is evil, having passed the circles of Hell, he changes, rises to the understanding of the most important truths about the world and about himself:

I had very weak wings;
But the brightness of the radiance has come here,
And the power grew in mind and will.

It is in the part dedicated to Paradise (the least complete from an artistic point of view) that the main value is determined: love. Not only love, which the lyrical hero was looking for at the beginning of his journey, but love in the broader sense of the word, "Love that guides the sun and the stars in the sky." Even the Gospel claims that God is love, but for long historical periods church leaders tried not to focus on this aspect.

During the Middle Ages, when the poem was created, this conclusion was very bold, and it is hard to disagree with it: it is love that is the main value.

Other compositions on this work