Syllabus
22 Feb Homer I. Introduction, authorship, composition and structure of Homer’s poems, their mutual relationship and brief summary 1 March Homer II.
Il 18, 478-608 — Homer’s cosmography, shield of Achilles 8 March Homer III. Soul and body in Homer’s poems 15 March Homer IV.
Il 9, 1-420 — Heroic moral code of Iliad 22 March Homer V. Od 11— Nekiya, fate of the soul in Hades 29 March Vergil’s Fourth eclogue and Christianity 5 April: Dante I.
Introduction, Dante and his time, Inf I. — Dark wood, three beasts, Vergil and hound 12 April: Dante III. Inf III-IV — Gate of Hell and Limbus 19 April: Dante IV.
Inf XXXIV — Ninth circle of Hell 26 April: Dante V. Pur I — Classification of mortal sins and system of Purgatory 3 May: Dante VI.
Par XXXII — Celestial paradise and Empyreum 10 May Dante VII. Par XXXIII — Raptus and the vision of Holy Trinity 16 May (Monday) Final examination
Annotation
The bottom line of the seminar is to provide a hermeneutical introduction to the readings of the Homer’s Odyssey, Vergil’s Aeneis and Dante’s Divine Comedy. Traditionally, the good knowledge of these books used to be the corner stones of the culture and education in the West, however, they seem to be often obscure, over-complicated, strange and even bizarre to the mind of the modern man.
The seminar especially focuses on an outline of the conceptions of the underworld and afterlife as can be found in these poets. The point of departure is the assumption there is essential unity and coherence of such vision thorough spiritual history of the West, nevertheless, there are also constant re-evaluations of the related concepts as divine justice, eternal punishment or mortal sin, founded in the metamorphosis of the relationship between the humans and gods.
Beginning with the Homer’s Odyssey book XI., the emergence of the so-called moral religion can be observed, and gods become more and more involved in the human affairs and gradually ceased to be the splendid and exalted divine beings indifferent to the human categories of good and evil. Even profound change can be found in the book VI. of the Vergil’s Aenesis, and the process is finished in the catholic conception of Inferno and especially Purgatory, vividly described in the Dante’s Divine Comedy.