Oct 3 (T)

11

V-VI

• Francesca’s discourse: names, words, and silence
• a sinner’s tale of love and the poet’s rewriting of previous texts
• the swooning of the I-character
• Virgil’s Cerberus and Dante’s Cerberus
• Ciacco and anagnorisis
• Pluto and language’s incomprehensibility

Oct 5 (TH)

12

VII-VIII

• Phlegias and the crossing of the Stix
• Filippo Argenti: anagnorisis, reticence, the name’s utterance

Oct 10 (T)

13

IX-X

• The word of Virgil, the word and gesture of the messenger, the silence of the I-character
• the messenger’s coming and its allegory
• Farinata, the I-character, and Cavalcante: anagnorisis, word, silence
• politics and poetics

Oct 12 (TH)*

14

XI-XII

• Virgil’s discourse in canto 11: the structure of hell
• The Minotaur or the privation of the word
• Virgil’s discourse, the centaurs’ guidance, and the I-character’s silence
• the crossing of the Phlegethon

Oct 26 (TH)*

15

XIII-XIV

• The Poet’s negative discourse in Inf. 13:1-9
• the suicides: belief and disbelief
• violence and speech
• personality and language

Oct 31 (T)

16

XV-XVI

• The pupil’s encounter with the master: anagnorisis, naming, silence, praise and condemnation
• Florentine culture and politics

Nov 2 (TH)

17

XVII-XVIII

• the cord and the text’s inscrutability
• the descent on Geryon’s back and the Pilgrim’s fear and silence

Nov 7 (T)

18

XIX-XX

• lower hell: structure, style, and poetics

Nov 9 (TH)

19

XXI-XXII-XXIII

• Narrative and style
• the devils, the sinners, and the pilgrims: the episode’s farcical elements
• naming and silence
• Christ’s absence and presence
• Virgil’s disconfirmation

Nov 14 (T)

20

XXIV-XXV

• Thievery and metamorphosis
• Vanni Fucci and his self-naming
• the Poet and his predecessors

Nov 16 (TH)

21

XXVI-XXVII

• Ulysses: the myth, the re-writing of the myth, the interpretation of Dante’s re-writing

Nov 21 (T)

22

XVIII-XXIX

• the falsifiers: metals, people, money, word
• Guido and the story of a conversion
• the sowers of discord: spirit and body
• Bertran de Born

Nov 28 (T)

23

XXX-XXXI

• The giants: speech, sin, and silence
• the “tristo buco” and the Poet’s challenge

Nov 30 (TH)

24

XXXII-XXXIII

• Count Ugolino

Dec 5 (T)

25

XXXIV

• Dante’s Lucifer or the denial of the word

Dec 7 (TH)

First reading day: final paper due