Introduction to Dante's Inferno: The Celestial Spheres and the Great Chain of Being
1. GOOD, EVIL, & MAN’S PLACE
IN THE UNIVERSE
The Medieval to Renaissance Transition
Mr. Gilliand
English IV Honors
2. MAKING SENSE OF THE
UNIVERSE
How do we understand the universe? What
is your current conception of the way the
universe works?
3. MEDIEVAL CONTEXT
Now, take yourself back in time.You are an educated,
inquisitive individual, but the circumstances were
different at the end of the Medieval Peried.
Canterbury Tales c. 1387
Dante’s Inferno c. 1308
Roughly contemporary works
4. MEDIEVAL CONTEXT
How did Medieval Europeans understand the
universe? What was their conception of the way the
universe worked?
5. THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSE
The Celestial Spheres
•Earth-Centered (geocentric) Universe (Heard of it? It’s
important!)
6. THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSE
A note on 7th Heaven...The idea of the Celestial Spheres predates
Christianity and is sometimes credited to Ptolemy, the Roman (90
AD-160 AD). However, the Babylonians had a similar cosmology as
early as 2300 BC.
Whatever its origins, Ptolemy's geocentric model was used by several
religions to describe the physical workings of the cosmos. Medieval
Jews and and later Muslims believed that the outermost concentric
sphere was the boundary to the home of God and, so, called it 7th
Heaven. The word entered the English language from these traditions,
but only very recently: probably in the 19th century as a result of
British Imperial contacts with Islam.
7. THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING
The Celestial Spheres weren’t enough because they
didn’t explain man and his place in the universe.
Philosophers needed more.
The Great Chain of Being
8. THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING
According to Medieval Catholic Church doctrine, every
thing existing in the universe has its "place" in a
divinely planned, unchangable, hierarchical order,
which was pictured as a chain stretching from the
lowest, least Godly thing to the highest, most God-like
creation.
An object's "place" depended on the relative
proportion of "spirit" and "matter" it
contained--the less "spirit" and the more "matter,"
the lower down it stood in the hierarchical chain.
9. THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING
Near the Top
Humans, Angels/Demons, God
Near the Bottom
metals, stones, the 4 elements (earth, air, fire,
water)...inanimate objects
10. THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING
Each link moving up the chain
has more perfection (is
Spirit more God-like) than the link
below it. Even within each
category, there are finer
distinctions. For example,
useful animals are more
Division perfect than house-pets
and kings are more Godly
(by divine ordination) than
commoners. The
implication is that they are
more spiritual and, therefore,
closer to God. Popes, as
Matter kings of kings, are still more
perfect.
11. THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING
Spirit TGCoB explains
the importance of
man. Man
connects the
Division physical world to
the spiritual
world. It also
explains how sin
debases man
(moves him away
Matter from spiritual
perfection).
12. THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING
The fear of "disorder" was not merely philosophical--it
had significant social and political ramifications.
The “mandate” against trying to rise beyond one's
place ) perpetuated political and religious
stability, because it helped to justify authority
and threatened eternal punishment for
ambition. Civil rebellion caused the chain to be broken,
creating chaos in the order of the universe. Under
threat of divinely-ordained damnation, the average,
uneducated commoner simply accepted his place in the
world.
13. THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING
To depart from one's proper place was to betray
one's nature, which was a crime against God, who
created that nature.
Human beings, for example, were pictured as placed
between the beasts and the angels. To act against
human nature by not allowing reason to rule the
emotions--was to descend to the level of the
beasts.
Likewise, to aspire to a higher place was equally
unnatural. This sin was called ambition!
14. LITERARY CONNECTIONS
How does all of this relate to literature?
TGCoB was the accepted “science” of the day.
Imagine trying to understand the cosmos without
experimental data about gravity or nuclear fusion,
or astronomy. The people had only what they were
taught to form their beliefs.
What was possible in literature was defined by
what was accepted as true.
How might TGCoB have influenced The Canterbury
Tales?
15. DANTE’S INFERNO
In Dante's cosmology, TGCoB and the Celestial Spheres
are extended, literally, to explain Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven
and how sinners move through the afterlife.
The earth is at the center of the universe and Hell is a
cone-shaped crater reaching from near the earth's
surface to the center of the planet which is the center of the
universe and the farthest point from God. In this way,
Hell mirrors TGCoB. The sides of the crater are a series of
concentric terraced circles reaching down to the
deepest pit. On each terrace, specific classes of the sinners
are punished with each deeper circle dedicated to worse
sinners than the last.
