I thought I mentioned this in the post already but i didn’t ( I wrote it around midnight last night, please excuse me): I really liked the presentation, and very good points were made; my questions are only about Beatrice. Let the friendly forum debate begin!
During the discussion friday I was not wholly convinced that Beatrice was marginalized and “separate from God”. In her life she was quite well-to-do and married very well, therefore she was in the uppercrust of society thus it is unlikely that she was marginalized during her life on Earth. In the afterlife she is in the celestial rose, which is a symbol of divine love- thus, saved. Any soul that is saved is close to God because even if dante is seeing them in different levels in heaven, they are just examples of different ways to be saved. In the Catholic tradition, i believe, no one can be “more saved’ than someone else. I believe we’ve discussed before in class that In the Italian tradition there seems to be a democracy among the souls, unlike in the classical tradition. One must be careful not to get the epicurean idea of distant gods to get in the way.
In some ways I don’t even see Beatrice as a prophet, but moreso a messenger and interpreter of the complicated predictions. I may be wrong, but I couldn’t go on without expressing my hestitance to accept the ideas presented.
Congrats to a successful dialogue, Kathleen and Chester. I definitely agree with your overall theme of prophets being marginalized and that they neither can fit comfortably within regular mortals or gods
In relation with this, I found that it was interesting that in Oedipus Rex, Oedipus stated “but no living man can hope to force the gods to speak against their will” when the Chorus proposes that Phoebus (Apollo) should answer the riddle of the murder that he gave through his oracle at Delphi (I don’t actually have the lines since I have a print-out of the text). It is almost like a ploy technique to use prophets so that the Gods don’t have to directly answer the questions/orders they present (despite their knowledge of everything). It is true that the prophets are a tool/mouthpiece to provide the necessary information, but the information is sometimes unwanted (and as Professor Gosetti-Murrayjohn stated, they have no barrier or shield to block out disturbing knowledge), thus, the prophets are then marginalized as a result of their speaking truths that the community is abhorrent to hearing or is unable to understand. I guess I am getting at the fact that this marginalization is due to the will of the Gods, since it is within their power to punish mortals with forsight (take Cassandra for example, since Apollo made it so that no one would believe her, not matter the truth of her words), as well as (I think) it is within their power to make it so that the community of man could believe them.
Then again, if the Gods intervened with every single aspect of mortal life (as seen in the literature), there would be no sense of divine mystery (as a result of the distance created between the mortals and the gods) that the prophets could convey.
[Now with illustrations!]
Understanding societies of a different time and place is further complicated by the impossibility of “translating” culture and values between what one knows and what one is studying: some things have no simple parallels.
In Classical Athens, what many people think of as the most liberal polis of the era, women were very much marginalized. They were housed separately within living quarters, limited in their permission to be in public spaces, and absolutely devoid of political power. Certainly there are differences between how women were treated in different societies of that era, and within the legends and myths from that era, but we must note the differentiation between reality and fantasy. The powerful women from Homeric epic may have been acceptable as characters within an epic poem, and perhaps well loved in such a role, but do not mistake that as an acceptance of them into an actual society.
So, hopefully, I’ve established that within the Greek society, women were marginalized to begin with, despite being half the population.
Here’s a list of characteristics that marginalize the Sibyl and the Oracle:
Women. (i.e. Not a man.)
Having no father/husband.
Living in a cave (apart from society).
Powers of prophecy (only through possession by (usually male) gods).
Political clout (via men).
In the Latin tradition, many of these rules still apply, since the Aeneid is set in the ancient past, more within the time frame of the Homeric subjects than within early Imperial Rome.
I found the discussion on the messages of phropets being encrypted interesting. Personnaly it was good to see a differnt view. I have always just thought of the prophets being very straightforward in the classical tradition. In the Italian tradition I see the encription more especially with the allegories. GOOD JOb
I think that your discussion was interesting and was useful in a way of categorising prophets. However, I am not so sure on how I feel about the idea that since the sybl and the oracle of delphi were woman of power that that would set them apart from the community however very good job
Since I didn’t have the chance to write specific comments on every single midterm exam I graded, I thought it could be useful to come up with some general considerations on some of the central issues that came up in the exam, especially those I felt needed a little clarification.
On the relationship between the community and the deceased
It is undeniable that, compared to the Classical tradition, the Italian tradition assigns a less relevant role to funeral rites. One should however be careful to conclude that this deemphasizes or diminishes the role the community has, in the Italian tradition, in the successful transition of the deceased to the afterlife. If the role of the community appears to be lessened, it is because of the particularly strong tie, which the Italian tradition ushers in, between the deceased and God, which is what the examples of Manfred and Buonconte ultimately intend to underscore. This completely changes the ‘gravity’ of the deceased-community system, yet without diminishing any of the parameters. Indeed the crucial role of the community is supported by countless passages in Purgatorio, where the role of prayer for the deceased is constantly underscored, and where the process of purgation itself becomes a community business. One may say that the community is no longer crucial to the mere transition of the soul to the afterlife, yet it remains an essential part of the soul’s fulfillment in the afterlife. And that is indeed a big deal.
On topography and cosmology
The topography of the other world spells out the origins of the world itself. From Oceanus to Styx all the way to the mountain of purgatory, and at least the eight heavens that were known of in Dante’s time, the features of the other world in the Classical and Italian traditions are real geographical markers; for Dante, real astronomical markers too. That makes the other world a real place, albeit at times a vague place. It also makes the other world a place intimately connected with the history of mankind (we have spoken of the 5 ages of man in Hesiod, Ovid, Daniel and Dante). Thus, we may say that the other world in both the Classical and Italian traditions is made of meaningful cosmological signs.
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Wednesday’s dialogue about divine will got me thinking about the role of human will (what at least Dante would probably call “free will”) in both the classical and Italian traditions. I liked Khadija’s comment about how, according to Dante’s faith, one cannot be saved by works alone, for one must also have “love in the heart.” What interests me about this comment is that Dante seems to repeatedly stress that such love in the heart is optional — that each person has the ability to chose whether or not he shall seek God’s love inside himself and then make the commitment to follow it. Obviously, Dante illustrates what happens to those who chose not to take this path, but, in doing so, he emphasizes that a condemned person’s fate results from an act of his personal will. I’m not sure how how free will fits into the classical tradition, though I think our reading from Plato’s “Phaedo” might offer some clues on this subject. Plato discusses how those who “purif[y] themselves sufficiently with philosophy” achieve peace in the afterlife, and I suppose this belief implies that one has a choice about whether or not to pursue philosophy in life. However, I’m not sure if free will plays the same role in the other classical texts we’ve read.
Despite the prevalence of free will in Dante’s work, it also seems that, according to Dante, man’s will is ultimately part of God’s larger will. We ended Wednesday’s discussion by analyzing the last line in “Paradiso” and debating whether this line speaks more of acceptance or bliss. Here I think it’s important to look not only at the poem’s last line, but also at the few lines preceding it. Lines 142-145 read, “Here force failed my high fantasy; but my / desire and will were moved already — like / a wheel revolving uniformly — by / the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.” This passage conveys how Dante’s will is subordinate to divine will, as Dante is no longer acting on his own because he is already “moved” by God. Thus, I’d say that this passage stands more as a statement of bliss than acceptance, and that this bliss seems to be so complete as to not allow for anything else; it stands so great as to even prevent Dante from consciously accepting God (…but that’s okay because God is already moving Dante to accept divine will). Therefore, I think “Paradiso”’s conclusion remains a great example of how Dante sees man’s will as a small piece of God’s greater will.
After listening to Friday’s discussion, I thought that this verse from this song really provided a good topic. In both the classical and the Italian traditions, one main concept is that mortals are not equivalent to the gods or to God. The only exception of a mortal becoming immortal is Herakles, in the Classical tradition. Many times, we as mortals become too proud, and we think that we are as good if not better than God/the gods. If we do start to think that, we will be punished-in both traditions.
Both traditions use saints, prophets, or priests/priestesses to speak to the mortals. In the Christian traditions, there were apostles such as Peter or Paul. In the Classical tradition, there were priestesses such as the Cumaen Sybill of Apollo. Like we discussed on Friday, these apostles or priestesses really are the mouthpiece of God/the gods. They are provided to guide us or lead us in the right direction. They actually do act as a guide to us.
In Par. 6, Dante not only engages in a remarkable celebration of the Empire; he is attempting at something that no one had dared to do before him, not even Virgil. He is attempting to give a representation of history that accounts for God’s will or Providence and even for Predestination, “the obscure rationale that regulates Providence.” With Dante, for the first time since the Old Testament, we have a perfectly coherent representation of history as God’s creation. This is a daunting task indeed, because it not only entails that one must convincingly demonstrate that history is crafted by the hand of God; it must also account for the mysterious rationale that has been moving that hand from the beginning of time until the very end of times. Dante knows that and delivers all the way, from the simplest to the most intricate theological issue. His providential history is air-tight, although it does have a few grey areas (… after all being God is not a piece of cake); what is more, it also accounts for pagan antiquity in its extraordinary inter-cultural embrace. Dante’s history is truly the history of histories. Of course, for us readers of Hegels and Marx, it may be difficult to believe him, but this is not the point. What matters is the fact that for seven hundred years Dante’s historiographical model has remained something to be confronted, and contended with by those who have followed him, including Hegels and Marx; and this, I guess, includes us too.
