Leo Treitler on oral traditions - Spring 2011

In his 1974 article Homer and Gregory: The Transmission of Epic Poetry and Plainchant, Leo Treitler discusses the dissemination of chant through the Holy Roman Empire, which was prompted by Charlemagne’s desire for uniformity in liturgical practice. Charlemagne arranged for official chanters to teach far-lying dioceses the official chants, and viewed divergence from these as corruption of the music. The chants which we know as Gregorian were ascribed to the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, which taught them to Pope Gregory the Great. Because these chants were believed in this way to be divinely prescribed, corruption was to be purged and the authoritative canon to be fixed. Treitler postulates that this is the first occurrence of our modern view on the musical canon, and points out that the co-incidence of the Carolingian reforms and the origins of notation for chant seems intentional (that Charlemagne resorted to notation in order to fix the correct repertoire for the entire empire and for future generations). This causality is complicated, however, by several factors. Elucidating these factors takes Treitler through an explanation of Bartlett’s theories on memorization, and an exploration of the process by which a chant is transmitted orally.

            Oral transmission of chant has several important consequences: the workings of memory mean that chant remembered is not simply reproduced, but rather reconstructed, and if the method of transmission of chant is oral in the absence of scores, the method of composition is also oral (in some ways, similar to improvisation, but different in the details and purpose). Formulas and formulaic systems in chant both constrict and aid the singer in creating/recreating chants for various parts of the service. These conclusions are drawn from the studies of oral transmission which have their beginning in Homeric studies, yet another nested explanation in this article. Treitler’s necessary digressions and detours follow eachother seamlessly and without superfluity.

            Treitler shows how Homeric epic, as presented by Parry, makes sense as seen within the tradition of oral epic, and how what we know/study about Homer helps our knowledge of chant and other oral repertoires. One major commonality is the use of formulas as both aide-memoires and compositional techniques: for instance, the beginning and end of lines tend to be memorized easily, and so this lends itself to formulas for these components. Treitler shows examples of chants (Gregorian and Old Roman) which start and end similarly or contain other melodic formulas, and similarity in single chants – Tracts, which are long antiphonal chants – where each strophe begins and ends the same way. A famous example from oral poetry is the Homeric epithet, a naming formula for the various gods, goddesses and heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey; e.g. gray-eyed Athena, or swift-footed Achilles.

Finally, Treitler speculates about the possible decline in oral composition and greater use of what we would normally consider memorization (with more tradition of specific melodies rather than general formulas), preceding the beginnings of notation. These melodies could have become more fixed with the passing of time, or in accordance with the prevailing tradition, becoming a prescribed canon for liturgical observance. Whether the Carolingian reforms caused this trend towards canon before notation, or used notation to bring about a unified canon is not clear.

The differences in style between the Gregorian and Old Roman chants are explored in light of oral transmission: Treitler presents three possible scenarios regarding the reliance of each tradition on oral transmission and concludes that it seems most plausible that Old Roman chant shows more evidence of oral transmission because it was oral longer, rather than that it was “more oral” or that the Gregorian chants had these aspects of oral transmission purged from them editorially. Other authors have concluded that Old Roman chant is “more primitive” and therefore older; Treitler does not rely on the duality of primitive and advanced to explain the relative age of these traditions. Treitler ends the analysis with three different angles from which to examine the uniformity of chant: 1) the Carolingian reforms caused uniformity; 2) the chants show this uniformity because of a common ancestor, so to speak, which can be traced; and 3) oral transmission causes and makes use of this uniformity in composition. It is difficult to examine Old Roman chant and Gregorian chant from before the Carolingian reforms, because the only notated examples we have of Old Roman postdate these reforms. For this same reason, it is difficult to obtain evidence of a common ancestor tradition of chant, either in written examples of the ancestor itself, or in older examples of Old Roman and Gregorian chant. The third angle is likely to be the most fertile for future study: oral transmission, though increasingly difficult to encounter in today’s world, is still present, as well as studies cited in Treitler’s article which rely on Eastern European traditions which may no longer be extant. Further study of oral transmission may give us textual analysis techniques which can probe Old Roman and Gregorian chant for their DNA, so to speak, and determine (as modern DNA testing can now tell us so much) details about their ancestry.

Machaut's Modernity - Spring 2011

     Guillaume de Machaut was known to his contemporaries as Guillaume; that appellation strikes us as incomplete or unfamiliar, because of our modern conception of surname.  There are many aspects of his music which seem ancient to us – the harmonies, the “double leading tone” cadence formula, the rhythms – and after all, he did write in two languages which are now “dead” (Latin for the religious music, and Medieval French).  The aspects of Machaut’s character and career that seem the most striking to us, however, are those which seem to foreshadow aspects of modern art and music.  Machaut was the first composer to take pains to ensure his music’s legacy, and to cement his role as composer and author of his own works; his oeuvre is dominated by secular music, as opposed to religious; and he can be considered usefully the forerunner to the modern “singer-songwriter” type.  His music, religious and secular, has a strong sense of identity and unity, especially the Mass of Notre-Dame, and the unity in the Mass is unusual for works of this time both for its single author and his undoubtedly conscious design for this piece. 

     Machaut’s influence, as discussed in class, would still be relevant today if he had never written or been associated with music.  He was a renowned poet and inspired Chaucer, and is a great representative of French literature in the 14^th century.  But his approach to music and words unified further ensures his value to modern culture: Machaut, though perhaps not actually singing his own poems as a roving artist, is considered the last link in the cultural-artistic troubadour lineage.  He brought this tradition forward into his era by enhancing the traditional style with a close attention to forms which are both complex and flexible in his hands.  The troubadour music was already a secular genre mainly concerned with courtly love, but the combination in Machaut of talented poet, fluent composer, and sole author gives his “troubadour” songs a stronger sense of being art music, as opposed to a performing tradition.  Machaut knew how to set “silly love songs” (pace Paul McCartney) in an educated polyphonic idiom, and the words he set were his own.  The most modern aspect of Machaut is his deliberate act of identifying his music with him, as composer and author; the majority of music before him comes to us in varying degrees of anonymity, which is the prevailing characteristic of early music composers. 
     Machaut’s focus on secular music, or rather, the bias in his complete surviving works towards secular music, contrasts with what we know of his predecessors and influential composers before the 18^th century.  The church of his day was still the Roman Catholic church, the Reformation being two centuries in the future, but there is a trend (beginning with the writing of secular motets, and later the work of Philippe de Vitry – composer of the Roman de Fauvel) of religious subversion or dissidence in music at this time.  Machaut’s appointments were courtly, not religiously affiliated positions, so the need to write Masses or other service music is absent (compared to Bach, for instance, or the works we identify as written by Leonin).  This shows that by the 14^th century, patronage still held the key to stable musical employment, but patronage could be non-religious and still furnish a viable opportunity for a composer or poet.  Machaut’s cyclic setting of the Mass also represents a divergence from previous composers: he wrote the piece himself, conceived it as having unity among the movements, and made sure it was identified as his for posterity and performed at his endowment.  This kind of identity – identifying as an individual, not as a Christian subject or clerk in an establishment – is very forward looking, and takes centuries to take permanent hold.

Le Nozze di Figaro and the issue of identity - Spring 2011

Analysis

As so often in Mozart’s operas, the theme of identity – mistaken, revealed, assumed – is employed and exploited in various ways in The Marriage of Figaro.  The characters deceive or spy on each other in disguise, manipulate the truth through their choice of disguise and revelation, and discover their own uncertainties about their reality.  Confusion is almost a counter theme to this idea: all the characters at some point in the opera are unsure or confused, whether through the agency of other characters or

Josquin, Beethoven, and musical literacy - Spring 2011

            Josquin des Prez has been compared to Beethoven as the greatest composer of his generation and beyond.  The parallels between these two legendary figures extend from their musical influence to the contemporary shifting paradigms of music dissemination.  Musical literacy in Josquin’s time had recently received a boost through the advent of printing (Petrucci, 1501), and now musical enthusiasts were able to study not only manuscripts (hand copied) but also printed scores or parts.  In Beethoven’s time, musical literacy grew through public concerts and mass produced scores.  These two developments contribute in part to the reputations afforded to the composers.

            Before Petrucci, music was available to connoisseurs through manuscripts, usually copied by monks.  Manuscripts of this type would be “distributed” to very few patrons. As printing of books was just starting in the late 15^th century, some liturgical music was printed, but this seems to have also been very rare.  Familiarity with contemporary music at this time came more from performance than from score study.  Petrucci and his successors provided a viable method by which music could be copied and disseminated, though this was by no means “mass media.”  Music printing as an industry began to take off, alongside the book industry, and people throughout Europe could now own and perform works by composers like Josquin.  Scores thus distributed were more than likely to be chamber music, for amateurs to perform from and enjoy, and perhaps study.  At this time, larger works, such as requiem s and masses were being written and were well known (as composers began to be identified with their work) but “mass producing” their scores was not done, as the audience for these works would be less broad (and commercially viable) as for small scale works.  Church patrons were a different market, which may have continued to utilize manuscripts (especially where the work had been written by a local composer for a specific church), as well as still having access to scribes and funding for scores.  Widespread dissemination of printed works meant a larger audience for Josquin and his contemporaries, and a legacy by which they could be memorialized in future generations. 

By the 19^th century, music printing was as widespread as private and public performance.  As noted in class, the first published scores of Haydn’s symphonies became available in the 1780s, and for the first time, not only chamber music but large scale orchestral works – too large to be performed in the home – were available to consumers.  This represents, to me, two trends in music history: the popularity of these larger works to a mass audience, and the advent of greater literacy in music.  If you were to buy a score of a Haydn symphony, this would likely not be the only printed book or even book of music on your shelf; you likely could read the notation and study the score’s finer points of harmony, melody and orchestration, and may have already become familiar with the piece through attending a concert performance or reading through a four-hands piano arrangement.  In the time of Beethoven, the association between composer and works had grown even tighter, as scores were published and given an opus number (roughly) in order of composition.  Haydn’s works were left, as with Bach, to be catalogued as part of his legacy; Beethoven had some control in his interactions with publishers over which pieces would form an opus and what, if any, extra information (title, etc) would be included.  Beethoven’s music was marketed to an audience who participated in contemporary music through listening to performances, collecting printed scores, performing the music themselves (in arrangements or as written) and perhaps studying them.  Musical amateurs were both an intellectual and commercial audience, and composers and publishers worked to gain their business.

Discussions of musical literacy in our day often touch on the issues involved in “cultural literacy:” how to market awareness of classical and classic pieces to an audience more familiar with the Top Ten.  At the same time, our contemporary composers can seem difficult to approach, especially through printed scores.  Musical literacy today must keep up with complicated notational techniques and non-tonal approaches to harmony or counterpoint, as well as literacy in the “common practice” style.  It is interesting to contemplate what kind of paradigm-shift could take place today to equal that of the eras of Josquin and Beethoven: what innovation in music dissemination has the ability to increase the audience of amateurs? The innovations that brought scores by Josquin and Beethoven into more people’s hands helped in some small way to make the reputations of these composers last far beyond their lifetimes, and the changing times of these composers may also contribute to the legends that have grown up around their reputations.  Perhaps in the future digital technology may be seen as the next parallel to music printing and the careers of our most legendary musical figures.

The growth of music technology and musical literacy is a subject I know far too little about, and not the easiest subject to trace in one source.  Some of the sources I found helpful include:

Boorman, Stanley, et al. "Printing and publishing of music." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/40101 (accessed April 7, 2011).

Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. “The Advent of Printing and the Problem of the Renaissance.”

Past & Present, No. 45 (Nov., 1969), pp. 19-89

Taruskin, Richard. "Chapter 13 Middle and Low." In Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 7 Apr. 2011, from http://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume1/actrade-9780195384819-div1-013008.xml

Weber, William. “Mass Culture and the Reshaping of European Musical Taste, 1770-1870.” Croatian Musicological Society: Vol. 8, No. 1 (Jun., 1977), pp. 5-22  http://www.jstor.org/stable/836535

Subtitling Peppino - fall 2010

I Cento Passi was one of the films we watched in Mayder Dravasa's Intermediate Italian class, spring 2009. In fall 2010, I worked with Amy Boylan on an independent study of translation, and this paper was the final project, followed in spring 2011 by an Undergraduate Research Conference presentation.

Rock-n-roll Accent - spring 2010

A ‘rock ‘n’ roll accent?’ Rhotic and non-rhotic r in rock and roll music

The period of the 1950s and early 1960s was a fertile time for popular music. The genres of rock n’ roll, Soul, and the styles Britpop and rockabilly all began or gained national notice during this time, and the music and singers of this generation continue to influence popular music today: Elvis, The Beatles, Chuck Berry, James Brown, etc. Rock music began in America, and was exported to England, which in turn exported the British Invasion to America, thus augmenting and further popularizing the genre. Since the rock artists of these early days are still so influential today, it is no surprise that their voices and style would be imitated and incorporated by many artists, from their contemporaries to those who could never have heard Buddy Holly or John Lennon at a live concert.

Rock and roll developed out of a confluence of artists from two

Dante's Inferno in Art - fall 2009 at Ascoli Piceno

Dante’s Inferno: History and Art

Inspired by Virgil, both as poet and as author of the Aeneid, Dante wrote a quasi-autobiographical account of a poet’s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Dante’s vision was fantastically detailed, both in his theological/geographical conception of the underworld, and the characters – mostly real- who people it.

Dante’s epic, influenced by the Aeneid and Aristotelian philosophy, in turn inspired many other works of poetry and art. From the first illuminated manuscript editions, before Gutenberg, to the 1951 edition with illustrations by Salvador Dali, illustrating Dante has been the inspiration for great art. The tormented humanity of Dante’s characters has inspired many sculptors, such as Auguste Rodin and Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, and the many fantastic (and gruesome) images of the Commedia are well translated into painting, by such diverse artists as William Blake and Dante Gabriel Rosetti. T.S. Eliot used quotes from Inferno to illustrate despair and sorrow. Finally, the very drama of the Commedia lends itself well to video representation, and is the basis for several films and even a video game.

The origins of the Commedia: Virgil

Virgil’s hero, Aeneas, fleeing Troy and on his way to found the city of Rome, travels to the underworld to see the prophet Tiresias. There he meets dead heroes from the Trojan War, and his father Anchises prophesies the beginnings and glorious future of Rome, all the way to Julius Caesar. Virgil’s underworld differs from Dante’s in many ways, and Dante’s (the poet-character) journey is more concerned with the judgement and end of all of us, and our universal redemption, than with predicting the future or even carrying on a narrative towards the end of the story and beyond, as does Aeneas’.

Dante’s contemporaries in Hell: the factions of Florence

At the time of Dante’s birth in 1265, Florence was split by two warring factions: the Guelphs and the Ghibellines; Dante’s family were Guelphs. The battle of Montaperti, when the Guelphs were defeated and Florence lost regional control, took place in 1260.[1] When Dante was a young man, however, the Guelphs regained power at the battle of Campaldino. During the prime of his life, Dante took active part in Florentine politics, as well as beginning his career as a poet, and as ambassador to the Pope, was sentenced to death in 1302; Dante went into exile, travelling from city to city and dying at Ravenna in 1321. His Commedia was written in exile. The many Florentines in the Inferno are both Guelphs, Blacks and Whites, and Ghibellines; friends and enemies of Dante, and their punishments certainly do not always reflect their relative animosity or sympathy to Dante: he meets some whose end he mourns, and some who he can barely stand to meet, even if they are condemned to eternal damnation. In a way, the Inferno is unavoidably tied to its time in history, as certainly the poem would have been very different had Dante been able to remain in Florence until his death. But, the Commedia is much more than its political background, though the reader can only benefit from an acquaintance with Florentine history. Dante’s contemporaries were human, as well as Florentines of the 13^th century, and the canvas of his time gave him inspiration to write a great poem about humanity, self, and religion.

Beatrice

When Dante Alighieri was 9 years old, he met the 8 year old Beatrice, who would become his muse for the rest of the poet’s life and career. For Beatrice, who died in 1290 at the age of 24, he wrote his Vita Nuova, a collection of poetry that explores the poet’s love for Beatrice, his grief at her death, and his life and vocation as a poet. Beatrice herself is more than just a historical figure: as Dante’s love and muse, she takes her place in a long line of feminine inspirations, from the Muses Virgil and Homer invoked, to the courtly ladies the troubadours and cavaliers of Dante’s day worshipped from afar[2]. She also takes her place in the Commedia, as Dante’s advocate to Heaven when he is lost and despairing at the beginning of the Inferno, and as his guide through Purgatory, when Virgil must leave him. In this ultimate transfiguration of the girl Dante loved, she takes on different layers of significance, and is portrayed as the ideal woman. Beatrice, as his ideal of beauty, womanhood, and spirituality, guides Dante through life and the Commedia, and inspires in turn other poets and artists who have been inspired by Dante.

The Illustrators of the Divine Comedy

The Commedia was written over a century before Gutenberg’s printing press, but was first circulated in small booklets, beginning in 1314 with Inferno.[3] Early manuscript copies were illuminated; the earliest illustrations are very 2-dimensional and relatively primitive, as they predate the Renaissance discoveries of form and perspective; the later manuscripts, such as the 1444 by Priamo della Quercia, show greater mastery of composition, figure drawing, and shading. Della Quercia’s illustration of Dante and Virgil meeting Count Ugolino in the Ninth Circle (canto XXXIII) shows two snapshots of the poets, a sort of time elapse depiction of two moments on their journey. At the left of the picture, we see both Archbishop Ruggiero and Ugolino talking with the poets. On the right, Ugolino has returned to his eternal gnawing at Ruggiero’s head, and Virgil motions to Dante as if to stop or caution him as he questions the grotesque count.

Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), another Florentine, illustrated an edition of the Commedia in 1481. His illustrations are detailed sketches, showing many stories in the same frame and compressing several actions of one canto into one frame.

William Blake, the visionary English poet and painter, made several illustrations of the Commedia starting in 1826. He died before he could complete the commission, but the completed illustrations show his command of his art, and his deep artistic interaction with Dante and his poem.

Gustavo Dore (1832-1883) illustrated the Inferno in 1857, when he was still a young man. He was well known for his engraved illustrations, and his engravings for the Commedia are among the most famous and memorable. The 1911 film L’Inferno owes much to Dore’s visual conception of Dante’s epic.

In 1951, Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was commissioned to illustrate a new edition of the Commedia, for Dante’s 700^th birthday. Dali’s surrealist style interprets Dante’s imaginative world in an unexpected way, and brings out both the horror and beauty in the Inferno.

L’Inferno in painting

There are many paintings based on the story of Paolo and Francesca (Canto V). Francesca, daughter of Guido di Polenta, married Gianciotto Malatesta of Rimini, but fell in love with his brother Paolo, and the two of them were killed by Gianciotto when he discovered their love. The couple, condemned to the Second Circle, is endlessly swirling among the other floating spirits of the Lustful, and when Dante hears their story, he faints. The scene of the forbidden kiss of Paolo and Francesca, Gianciotto’s discovery and their death, and this scene in the Inferno have all been painted by various artists. The first illuminated manuscripts we have show the spirits suspended in mid-air, and Dante and Virgil conversing with them. William Blake, in a similar strategy to that of Priamo della Quercia’s illumination, depicts the spirits swirling in the air, Dante in a faint on the ground and Virgil standing over him, and a small image of Paolo and Francesca’s forbidden embrace, as a visual flashback, in the air over Dante and Virgil. In this way, he shows the act, its consequences, and how Dante hears and reacts to this story. Ary Scheffer, in his 1835 painting, shows the lovers as they appear to Dante and Virgil, who watch them float in the air. The couple is draped in fabric, with which Paolo covers his face as if for shame; Francesca clings to him, her back to us and the spectators. The two seem to be both deeply concentrating on eachother, unaware of the world around them, as well as shutting out that world, for shame or fear.

The Inferno in sculpture: Rodin’s Gates of Hell

In 1880 Auguste Rodin began to create a massive set of doors for the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, depicting various scenes from the Inferno. Neither the museum or the doors were ever completed according to plan, though the doors were exhibited in 1900, still a plaster cast; later on, the doors were finally cast in bronze, according to Rodin’s vision. Rodin used famous figures from the Inferno, as well as other characters from mythology, to adorn the Gates of Hell. He subsequently recast several of the figures as full size statues. Paolo and Francesca at the moment of their kiss, originally part of the Gates, were removed, because their moment of total happiness was not somber or tormented, like the rest of the figures in the Gates. Instead, Rodin removed them and created a statue entitled The Kiss, and another statue called Paolo and Francesca, later in their story, when they are caught in the eternal whirlwind in Hell. This statue, free standing, posed different difficulties from The Kiss, as the figures must seem to be suspended. Rodin solved this problem by creating a solid base for the figures that seems airy and in motion. It is interesting to note that Rodin’s most famous statue, The Thinker, was originally part of the Gates. It was placed at the very top, above the doors, and may signify Dante, or Adam contemplating his fall and its effects on mankind, or simply the poet, in abstract.[4]

Ugolino in the tower: Rodin and Carpaux

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-1875), also from France, was born 20 years before Rodin. His work is of the Romantic style, and in his time he won acclaim from his peers. He created a sculpture based on Canto XXX of the Inferno in 1857 of Count Ugolino and his sons in the tower. Carpaux’s statue is larger than life size, and depicts Ugolino as he watches his sons starve to death. Ugolino della Gherardesca was a Ghibelline of Florence who held several powerful offices in his prime, but was accused of treason and condemned to starve in the Torre dei Gualandi[5] in 1289, along with his sons and grandsons. The sons, in Dante’s account, are young children, though in the historical record both sons and grandsons are adults. They ask Ugolino to save himself by eating them when they have died of hunger. Dante’s account leaves the actual end of Ugolino’s life in mystery: Ugolino tells his story with the ambiguous words “Then hunger did what sorrow could not do […]”[6] which suggests either that before resorting to cannibalism, he died himself, or that he took his sons’ last counsel and committed a terrible infamy in order to spare himself. Ugolino is condemned to the Ninth Circle, Antenora (second ring) for his crime of treason to Florence, rather than crimes against his own family (whereas Gianciotto Malatesta, brother and murderer of Paolo, goes eventually to the Ninth Circle, Caina, first ring, for betraying his family). If he had eaten of his own children’s flesh, perhaps that crime would also have condemned him to the Ninth Circle, but because crimes against country are ranked lower (more grave) in Inferno than crimes against family, perhaps Ugolino would be in Antenora regardless of his actions in the tower. The treatment of Ugolino by Rodin, also forming part of the Gates of Hell and later separated into a free standing statue, shows him looking at the bodies of his children in despair, so at that point in Ugolino’s story, his choice is already before him. Rodin does not hint at the choice Ugolino makes; neither does Carpeaux. The dramatic value of this moment in its ambiguity makes a better subject than perhaps Ugolino after destroying his children; unlike for instance, Ajax surrounded by the sheep after he goes mad and destroys them, the moment of destruction would lose some of the drama of the moment in which he can destroy or not destroy. Ugolino’s options are both horrendous and the final moment that comes from either decision would be a pathetic picture in itself, but seeing him with that choice before him lends great drama and artistic potential.

T. S. Eliot and the Inferno

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), American/English poet, was greatly influenced by Dante His poems The Wasteland, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and Ash Wednesday are (typical of Eliot’s style) full of allusions, and most strikingly, allusions to Inferno. He quotes the inscription over the Gates of Hell, as well as quoting Guido Cavalcanti, contemporary of Dante (perch’ i’ non spero di tornar giammai), and Guido da Montefeltro’s words to Dante (s’io credesse che la mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo). In The Wasteland, Eliot also uses quotes from Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde, which is based on a French romance from the courtly tradition to which Lancelot and Gallehaut (the book Paolo and Francesca read) belong. The quotations from Inferno give Eliot’s poems a sense of sorrow and despair, and allude to (the poet/narrator) Eliot’s spiritual journey by quoting (the poet/narrator) Dante’s spiritual journey in the Commedia.

The new media: film and beyond

Because of the cultural significance of Dante’s epic, and the dramatic value of the text, it is no coincidence that the first full length Italian feature film was the 1911 L’Inferno, directed by Giuseppe di Liguoro. Film at that time was silent, which placed more emphasis on visual effects and acting than on dialogue. Dialogue or description was limited to a few sentences at a time, written on title cards shown in between shots of the action. Silent films, especially those of Melies and Cocteau, often had fantastic subjects, and stretched the capacity of special effects of their time. Inferno is no exception. Paolo and Francesca and the other suspended spirits are truly floating at different levels in the air, very slowly, in the dark, and though one can imagine how the illusion is created, the dream-like (or nightmarish!) effect which pervades most of the film is strong enough to be convincing. Very slowly, they descend to Dante and Virgil and tell the story of their love and death. They are clothed in white because of the constraints of censorship, though the spirits in the Commedia are not clothed, and they float effortlessly, though not entirely happily.

Di Liguoro directed and also acted in the film, playing the parts of Ugolino and several others. The scene with Ugolino and the Archbishop Ruggiero is especially terrifying, with the face of Ugolino dripping with blood but his hair encrusted in ice, in which the traitors are all half buried. Ugolino recounts his story to Dante, and the film cuts to a flashback of the tower, and Ugolino starving with his sons. We see the jailer take the key and throw it away; and Ugolino and his sons, in despair. The sons here are adults. The narrative tells us that Ugolino, after six days, was left alone with the corpses of his sons, and died himself on the ninth day, and then we see this on the screen. We watch Ugolino in the tower rend his clothes in sorrow, and then we see Ugolino in Hell, proud and angry, return to his eternal tearing at the Archbishop’s head, his political enemy and author of his undoing. Dante is horrified, but like so many other moments in Inferno, Virgil moves him on his journey.

The film, even with few excerpts from Dante’s beautiful words, conveys eloquently the drama seething beneath the poem and literally beneath the earth. The final scene “e quindi usciammo a vedere le stelle” is shot looking up at the poets, from dark up to light, so Dante and Virgil are silhouettes. Dante makes a gesture of surprise (this time wonder, not horror) and Virgil calmly explains the next steps he will take. He takes Dante’s hand and leads him to the light.

Dante at the opera

In 1918, Giacomo Puccini’s three short operas, entitled Il Trittico, were premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The first two operas dealt with more or less contemporary subjects (a Parisian barge man and his wife; a young woman forced to become a nun after bearing an illegitimate child) but the third opera concerned itself with a character from the Inferno: Gianni Schicchi, a falsifier from Canto XXX. Schicchi was a clever man, not rich, who posed as a certain nobleman (in reality, recently deceased) in order to take the rich man’s goods for himself. For this forgery, Schicchi is condemned to the Eighth Circle of Hell. Schicchi’s story, therefore (and his gruesome punishment in hell) is not at all comical, but the source on which Puccini based his opera is comic. The eponymous hero, villain, or antihero, as it may be, deals cleverly with Buoso Donati’s relatives, who also wish to inherit his wealth, and with Schicchi’s daughter, Lauretta, who wishes to marry her Florentine sweetheart, Rinuccio. Schicchi puts on the dead man’s clothes and signs the will, in the presence of a notary, and in the end, Schicchi and Lauretta both have their way. The relatives are left out in the cold. Perhaps Dante would appreciate Rinuccio’s arietta, “Firenze e un alberito fioril,” in praise of his native city, or perhaps the whole opera would make the poet roll in his grave in exile.

Finally, in the past few years the Inferno has been reimagined in a completely new medium: a video game, where you play as Dante and guide him through the underworld. The screen shots show an imaginative conception of Dante’s vision; though the object of the game ( to find Dante’s dead wife ) is less Dante’s object on his journey through the underworld, than the story of Orpheus.

These various exports of Dante’s drama into media unheard of in his time, and his inspiration to art that reached far beyond the artistic conceptions of his time, show how ageless and timeless Dante’s epic really is. The politics with which many of Dante’s sinners concerned themselves (and for some, for which they were condemned) may be distant from our era, and the individual names of Farinata, Ugolino, Gianciotto, Ciacco, etc, might well be forgotten outside of Florentine history had they not been immortalized by Dante; though condemned to unending suffering, they have also gained a certain immortality from the Inferno. Dante, and his mentor Virgil, both understood what it was to feel pride, and sorrow: to be human, in fact. In the end, it is Dante’s humanity, not his theology or imaginative journey, which makes him eternally a poet and pilgrim along the road of our life.

---

[1] Cambridge Dante, 5

[2] Hawkins, 76

[3] Hawkins 23

[4] http://www.rodin-web.org/works/

[5] http://www.studiolo.org/MMA-Ugolino/Ugolino.htm

[6] XXX:76 Longfellow translation

Bibliography

Hawkins, Peter Dante: a brief history Blackwell 2006

Jacoff, Rachel (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Dante Cambridge; 2003

Mandelbaum, Allen (tr.) L’Inferno (dual language)

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (tr.) L’Inferno

Websites

Wikipedia.org: for pictures and links only

http://www.divinecomedy.org/divine_comedy.html side-by-side translations; different illustrators

http://www.studiolo.org/MMA-Ugolino/Ugolino.htm Carpaux’s statue, Metropolitan Museum (NYC)

http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/gallery.html

http://www.musee-rodin.fr/senf2-e.htm

http://www.rodin-web.org/works/

http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=9745 detailed interactive panorama of Rodin’s monumental Gates of Hell door

worldofdante.org

One more to go!

Well, here I am at the end of 2010-11, technically junior year. This spring I woke up one morning and found myself a senior, and have been adjusting to this for a while - since I can, I'm graduating a semester early in December.

I have had more papers to write this year than ever before, but they have been (mostly) a joy to write. Now that finals and papers have been discharged peacefully, I really miss writing! So I wrote a paper. No kidding.

This blog was an idea of mine last year, to archive the fun and arcane projects that I (sometimes) complete for the fun of it. I will be posting a few assorted papers here which may be interesting or fun to read, as well as working on my academic writing in a fun blog about music.