Random thoughts while reading The Divine Comedy

 In her introduction to Hell, Dorothy Sayers quotes a passage from Dante’s Vita Nuova where he describes how he felt the first time Beatrice ever spoke to him. “Dante is describing the effect upon him of Beatrice’s ‘salutation’; and it should be remembered that the Italian word salute means not only ‘salutation’ but also ‘salvation’.” Think now of how Charlotte greeted Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web. “Salutations!”

Moving through the Cantos of Inferno, I got the distinct impression we were moving through the celestial spheres—or rather through an infernal reflection of the spheres. That shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did.

I kept wondering why this is called a Comedy when it feels more like a Romance, then I noticed Anthony Esolen’s footnote to I.XVI.129: “For writers of the Middle Ages, a comedy is a song written in humble style . . . wherein the main character begins in grief and trouble and ends in happiness.” It’s good to be aware that terminology has changed over the centuries.