Synopses & Reviews
This work is a guide to the reading of Dante's great poem, intended for the use of students and laymen, particularly those who are approaching the
Inferno for the first time. While carefully pointing out the uniqueness, tone, and color of each of Dante's thirty-four cantos, Fowlie never loses sight of the continuity of the poet's discourse. Each canto is related thematically to others, and the rich web of symbols is displayed and disentangled as the poem's unity, patterns, and structures are revealed.and#160;What particularly distinguishes Wallace Fowlie's reading of the
Inferno is his emphasis on both the timelessness and the timeliness of Dante's masterpiece. By underlining the archetypal elements in the poem and drawing parallels to contemporary literature, Fowlie has brought Dante and his characters much closer to modern readers.
Table of Contents
Introductionand#160;Cantos1. The Dark Wood2. The Three Ladies3. The Vestibule (
Acedia in Baudelaire and Eliot)4. Limbo (First Circle)5. The Carnal Sinners (Second Circle)6. The Gluttons: Ciacco (Third Circle)7. The Avaricious and Prodigal (Fourth Circle); the Wrathful and Sullen (Fifth Circle)8. Wrath and the Gates of Dis9. The Furies and the Angel10. The Heretics: Farinata (Sixth Circle)11. The Plan of Hell12. Violence: The River of Blood (Seventh Circle)13. The Suicides: Pier della Vigna14. The Sandy Plain: Third
Girone of the Violent15. The Sodomites: Brunetto Latini (Eliot's "Little Gidding")16. The Wheel of the Three Florentines; Dante's Cord17. Geryon; the Usurers; the Descent to the Eigth Circle18.
Malebolge: The Panders and Seducers (First
Bolgia); the Flatterers (Second
Bolgia)19. The Simonists: The Three Popes (Third
Bolgia)20. The Diviners: Tiresias (Fourth
Bolgia)21. The Barrators (Fifth
Bolgia); Note on Beckett's "Malacoda"22. The Barrators (Fifth
Bolgia)23. Dante Rescued from the Fifth
Bolgia; the Hypocrites (Sixth
Bolgia)24. The Difficulty in Reaching the Seventh
Bolgia; the Thieves: Vanni Fucci25. The Thieves (Seventh
Bolgia)26. The Evil Counselors: Ulysses and Diomedes (Eighth
Bolgia)27. The Evil Counselors: Guido da Mantefeltro (Eighth
Bolgia: Eliot's "Prufrock")28. The Sowers of Discord: Bertrand de Born (Ninth
Bolgia)29. Falsifiers of Every Sort (Tenth
Bolgia)30. Virgil Reproves Dante (Twelfth
Bolgia)31. The Giants (Ninth Circle)32. Cocytus: The Zones of Caina and Antenora33. Antenora (Ugolino); Ptolomea34. Judecca; Lucifer; the Ascent out of HellNote on Reading Dante TodaySelected BibliographyIndex