Everyone, Meet Dante

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away…. OK, so maybe not that far away depending on where you live, but that’s not the point. Anyway, once upon a time, there lived a Florentine (as in, someone from the city of Florence) named Dante Alighieri (but all his friends just called him Dante). Dante was a solemn young man who took his city seriously and his religion seriouslier. Born in 1265, Dante had a gift for combining very serious subject matter (the salvation or damnation of the eternal soul) with dark humor and irony. While his most famous work The Divine Comedy (I’ll be blogging about the first canticle, Inferno) is not a “haha” kind of comedy, it definitely has its moments of hilarious absurdity (please see Canto XXII’s butt trumpets).

There are a few things you need to know about Dante and the Divine Comedy before you read/read about the Inferno (all will be expanded upon in late posts):

1. Dante has a hard-on for all things Roman. Specifically Vergil. God, does he love Vergil. His obsession stems directly from his belief that the establishment of the Roman empire by Augustus and the Pax Romana ("Roman Peace") that followed created the proper conditions for the birth of Jesus Christ. Dante thought that for Christ to return (the second coming) the circumstances of the Roman empire must be reestablished. He also believed that Vergil's inspiration for the Aeneid came not from Jupiter but from the Christian God.
2. Dante’s Hell is his personal “Burn Book” (Yes, that was a Mean Girls reference - more on this later) for his political enemies and people he just straight up doesn't like. Petty? You decide if his claims are legitimate or not. The location of certain residents of Hell is a direct reflection of the political climate of Florence at the time - Dante’s issues with the Pope, civil war between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.
3. All the threes. Literally, all the threes. If there is a number in the Inferno, it is probably a three or multiple of three. 
4. Dante is big on the idea of exile and returning home from exile. This directly reflects Dante’s experience being exiled from Florence (though he never returns). [FUN FACT: Ravenna and Florence are still fighting over his remains]
5. Everything in the Divine Comedy can be read on a literal level and an allegorical level. If you don’t know, an allegory is a symbolic representation of ideas, human life, or historical experiences. 
6. Dante helped popularize writing literature in the vernacular. This is a biggie. Before Dante very few authors wrote in their native languages. Most legitimate scholarly texts or otherwise were written in Latin (or occasionally Greek, but usually Latin). Dante’s Divine Comedy, along with Giovanni Bocaccio’s Decameron (Italian, like Dante) and Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (Middle English), were some of the first famous pieces of literature written in the local dialect. Think about how different it would be today if everyone had to learn Latin just to be able to read a book. You can thank Dante for that (and the other guys).
7. Dante has some serious skill. He invented a new form of verse and wrote ONE HUNDRED CANTOS OF INTERLOCKING RHYME SCHEME. DUDE HAS SKILL.

These are the basic facts you need to know before you begin your journey on the Highway to Hell. Relax, turn on your radio, and start driving.

Hello! (or The Only Disclaimer You'll Ever Get)

Hello, nerds, and welcome to Blogging My Bookshelf! This blog is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Basically, each week I will take one book off my massive bookshelf to read and then rant about. Because my bookcase was recently moved and its contents shuffled, this could include anything from Agatha Christie murder mysteries, forensic reference books, and historical biographies to Virignia Woolf, the Warrior Cats’ books, T.S. Eliot, and Tolstoy. 

Also, I plan to include analysis on the works we are currently reading in my English class. Enter Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Milan Kundera, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Dante, Morrison, Rushdie, Goethe, and the rest. Hopefully, my rants will make the pain of learning less acute (Joking. Learning is fun!).

A heads up. This blog is one massive spoiler. I will write anything and everything that comes to mind without a thought of who is reading and whether or not they have read whatever I am talking about. Thus, I refuse to put a spoiler alert at the beginning of each post. You have been warned. 

So, here's the way this is gonna work (For now at least. This is subject to change.) I will post on a given subject as I read. Then, when I'm done (as done as you can ever be with a piece of literature), I'll collect all the posts I've done on a topic and organize them into one easily navigable page (very useful for studying). These topic pages will be linked in the righthand column of this page. 

If you have any suggestions as to format, content, or anything else, please comment and be honest. This blog is for you as much as it is for me. Also, corrections in spelling are welcome. 

Lastly, the blog is what you make it. It's no fun to just rant to myself. Please comment and rant and start a dialogue. It will be more fun for all involved.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Her Highness, the Ginger Queen

P.S. Point of translation: I will often reference the site tvtropes.org. For any self-respecting, fun-loving nerd, this site will be your salvation. It is my favorite form of procrastination and you might actually learn something in the process (*gasp*). Do yourself a favor and check it out when you can. A good place to start would be the hyperlink in the second sentence. Just saying...