Transcript Kicking and Screaming: Thoughts on The Fountain

Wailing as They Fly: Circle
Two (The Carnal)
Feraco
Myth to Science Fiction
6 November 2012
Canto V: Data File
• Setting: The Second Circle
• Figures: Minos, Paolo, and Francesca
• Allusions: Dido, Cleopatra, Semiramis, Helen,
Achilles, Paris, Lancelot, Guinevere, Tristan,
Isolde
• Punishable Sin: Immoderate Passion
• Summary: The poets venture into the Second
Circle, where they encounter Minos, the
Dread Judge of all who pass through Hell. He
tries to force them to go back, a la Charon,
but Virgil works his magic and they pass. We
then see the Lustful, those whose appetites
overwhelmed their sensibilities. Dante hears
the story of Paolo and Francesca, and he’s so
overcome that he faints yet again.
Love vs. Lust
The relationship between the two
has always been somewhat difficult.
Dante juggles “the ennobling
power of attraction toward the
beauty of a whole person and the
destructive force of possessive sexual
desire.”
It’s striking to see those who
abandoned reason so soon after
those who lived for its pursuit; the
contrast between the first two circles
couldn’t be clearer.
Love vs. Lust (cont’d)
Dante seems to distinguish between
those who feel lust and those who act on it;
it may be impossible to control our hearts,
but it is possible to govern our bodies.
He shows that this line is a very fine one
indeed; interestingly, his ideas echo
Sternberg’s, i.e., that those who tell stories
of romance and desire help corrode the
sensibilities of those who read them.
This is the first place where an
unrepentented sin is punished in Hell.
Limbo’s not really a place of
punishment, whereas the Vestibule lies
outside of Hell.
Love vs. Lust (cont’d)
Its location, however, is appropriately
ambiguous.
On the one hand, its placement marks
it as the “least serious” sin (it’s farthest
from Satan, who lies at the center).
On the other hand, it’s the first one we
see, and therefore the first thing we
associate with serious wrongdoing.
If anything, Dante presents this
wrongdoing as a war between instinct
and learned behavior, a war those who
end up in the Second Circle lose; some of
the other sins aren’t so “lucky.”
Minos
Minos, like Charon before him, is a remix – a
figure from classical stories who Dante infuses
with new detail and characteristics.
There were two Minoses in classical
literature, both of which ruled over Greece’s
Crete, but we only care about the first one.
The older Minos, son of Zeus and Europa,
was known as the “favorite of the gods”
because of his wisdom and commitment to
law.
Once he died, his reputation earned him the
position of supreme judge of the underworld.
His duty was to hear the testimony of new
souls, and to make sure their accounts aligned
with their destinies.
Minos’s long tail, which he wraps around
his body a number of times equal to the soul's
assigned Circle, is Dante's invention.
Famous Lovers
The stories of the lustful souls Dante identifies in
Canto V share certain elements: romance, beauty, sex,
and death.
Passion overwhelms these figures or leads
directly to their downfall.
Dido, for example, was the queen of Carthage until
her lover – Aeneas – abandoned her in order to
continue his mission (establishing a new society in
Italy); she was so grief-stricken that she committed
suicide.
Cleopatra, the legendarily beautiful queen of
Egypt, committed suicide in order to keep the man
(Octavian) who defeated her lover (Antony) from
capturing her.
Semiramis, another ancient and powerful queen
(of Assyria), was rumored to have been killed by an
illegitimate son; as legend has it, she had also
legalized incest for her own benefit, which gives a
new meaning to “illegitimate” here.
Famous Lovers (cont’d)
Helen of Troy, famed as the most beautiful
woman alive, played a direct role in the Trojan
War’s origins; once she was abducted by Paris
and dragged back to Troy, her countrymen
came after her, and she betrayed the Trojans by
helping the Greeks carry out their attack.
Achilles was the most formidable Greek
hero among the forces who laid siege to Troy.
And Tristan was King Mark’s nephew, and
Isolde Mark’s fiancée.
The two mistakenly drank a love potion that
had been intended for Mark and Isolde, and
fell completely in love with one another.
Enraged, Mark shot Tristan through with an
arrow, and he then clutched his lover so tightly
that she died in his arms as well.
Francesca and Paolo
Raffa:“Francesca da Rimini and Paolo
Malatesta are punished together in hell for
their adultery: Francesca was married to
Paolo's brother, Gianciotto ("Crippled John").
Francesca's shade tells Dante that her husband
is destined for punishment in Caina – the
infernal realm of familial betrayal named after
Cain, who killed his brother Abel – for
murdering her and Paolo. Francesca was the
aunt of Guido Novello da Polenta, Dante's host
in Ravenna during the last years of the poet's
life (1318-21). She was married for political
reasons to Gianciotto of the powerful
Malatesta family, rulers of Rimini. Dante may
have actually met Paolo in Florence (where
Paolo was capitano del popolo--a political role
assigned to citizens of other cities--in 1282),
not long before he and Francesca were killed
by Gianciotto.”
Francesca and Paolo (cont’d)
“Francesca, according to Boccaccio, was
blatantly tricked into marrying Gianciotto, who
was disfigured and uncouth, when the
handsome and elegant Paolo was sent in his
brother's place to settle the nuptial contract.
Angered at finding herself wed the following day
to Gianciotto, Francesca made no attempt to
restrain her affections for Paolo and the two in
fact soon became lovers. Informed of this liaison,
Gianciotto one day caught them together in
Francesca's bedroom (unaware that Paolo got
stuck in his attempt to escape down a ladder, she
let Gianciotto in the room); when Gianciotto
lunged at Paolo with a sword, Francesca stepped
between the two men and was killed instead,
much to the dismay of her husband, who then
promptly finished off Paolo as well. Francesca
and Paolo, Boccaccio concludes, were buried –
accompanied by many tears – in a single tomb.”
Lancelot and Guinevere
Raffa: “The story of Lancelot and
Guinevere, which Francesca identifies as the
catalyst for her affair with Paolo, was a
French romance popular both in poetry and
in a prose version known as Lancelot of the
Lake. According to this prose text, it is Queen
Guinevere, wife of King Arthur, who kisses
Lancelot, the most valiant of Arthur's Knights
of the Round Table. Francesca, by giving the
romantic initiative to Paolo, reverses the
roles from the story. To her mind, the entire
book recounting this famous love affair
performs a role similar to that of the
character Galahad, a friend of Lancelot who
helps bring about the adulterous
relationship between the queen and her
husband's favorite knight.”