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October 15, 2009
Dante Blogging - Inferno Canto XXII
Canto XXII
Dante continues his devil-farce in Canto XXII. I'll certainly have to come back to this and compare it to some of the devil-play in French farces, which I've spent some time thinking about in public. Certainly, Dante is closer in these two canti, with their sinners bobbing in boiling pitch, poked by demons, to modern popular conceptions of Hell.
The humor here is pretty broad - but the conclusion is actually funny - the devils begin fighting among themselves and fall in - and get stuck together with the tar. We could take this as a serious lesson about how there is no honor among thieves or mutual respect among devils, and that's true, but it misses the point, I think.
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(oh - sorry for the gap - it's midterm and I've been grading)
Posted by CrankyProfessor at October 15, 2009 7:48 AM