HUMANITIES 2: Sections 3 and 4

December, 1949

But those souls, who were weary and naked, changed color and gnashed their teeth, soon as they heard his cruel words. They blasphemed God and their parents, the human race, the place, the time and the seed of their sowing and of their birth. Then, all of them bitterly weeping, drew together to the evil bank, which awaits every man who fears not God. Charon the demon, with eyes of glowing coal, beckoning to them, collects them all; he beats with his oar whoever lingers.

As in autumn the leaves depart one after the other, until the bough sees all its spoils upon the earth, in like wise the evil seed of Adam throw themselves from that shore (one by one, at signals, as the bird at his recall). Thus they go over the dusky wave, and before they have landed on the farther side, already on this a new throng is assembled.

Dante, Inferno, Canto III

Charon, the dread ferryman, guards these flowing streams, ragged and awful, his chin covered with untrimmed masses of hoary hair, and his eyes a steady flame; his soiled raiment hangs knotted from his shoulders. Himself he plies the pole and trims the sails of his vessel, the steel-blue galley with freight of dead; stricken now in years, but a god's old age is lusty and green. Hither all crowded, and rushed streaming to the bank, matrons and men and high hearted heroes dead and done with life, boys and unwedded girls, and children laid young on the bier before their parents' eyes, multitudinous as leaves fall dropping in the forests at autumn's earliest frost, or birds swarm landward from the deep gulf, when the chill of the year routs them overseas and drives them to sunny lands. They stood pleading for the first passage across, and stretched forth passionate hands to the farther shore.

Virgil, Aeneid, Book VI

1949-50

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

HUMANITIES 2a

I. (1 hour)

Write a single essay, discussing what seems to you characteristic of Milton's style and thought in the following passages from *Paradise Lost*. Relate your answer closely to the passages themselves.

The Building of Pandaemonium (Book I):

Anon out of the earth a Fabric huge
Rose like an Exhalation, with the sound
Of Dulcet Symphonies and voices sweet
Built like a Temple, where Pilasters round
Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid
With Golden Architrave; nor did there want
Cornice or Frieze, with bossy Sculptures grav'n,
The Roof was fretted Gold. Not *Babylon*,
Nor great *Alcamo* such magnificence
Equall'd in all thir glories, to inshrine
*Belus* or *Serapis* thir Gods, or seat
Thir Kings, when *Egypt* with *Assyria* strove
In wealth and luxury...

The hasty multitude

Admiring enter'd, and the work some praise
And some the Architect.

Adam describes the creation of Man (Book VIII):

Straight toward Heav'n my wond'ring Eyes I turn'd,
And gaz'd a while the ample Sky, till rais'd
By quick instinctive motion up I sprung,
As thitherward endeavoring, and upright
Stood on my feet; about me round I saw
Hill, Dale, and shady Woods, and sunny Plains,
And liquid Lapse of murmuring Streams; by these,
Creatures that liv'd, and mov'd, and walk'd, or flew...
"Thou Sun," said I, "fair Light...

Tell, if ye saw, how came I thus, how here?
Not of myself; by some great Maker then,
In goodness and in power preeminent;
Tell me, how may I know him, how adore,
From whom I have that thus I move and live,
And feel that I am happier than I know."

II. (80 minutes)

It has been said that all the works read in this course have to do with the scope and nature of human freedom. How central, in fact, is this problem to each of the five works? How does each poet attempt to resolve the problem?

III. (40 minutes)

State what seems to you meaningful or characteristic in each of the following passages:

1) *Anchises and Aeneas in the underworld (Aeneid VI)*: Then lord Anchises: "Souls, for whom second bodies are destined and due, drink at the wave of the Lethean stream the heedless water of long forgetfulness. These of a truth have I long desired to tell thee and shew thee face to face, and number all the generation of thy children, that so thou mayest the more rejoice with me in finding Italy." — "O father, must we think that any souls travel hence into upper air, and return again to bodily fetters? why this strange sad longing for the light?"

2) *Achilles chases Hector around the walls of Troy (Iliad XXII)*: And there beside the springs are broad washing-troughs hard by, fair troughs of stone, where wives and fair daughters of the men of Troy were wont to wash bright raiment, in the old time of peace, before the sons of the Achaians came. Thereby they ran, he flying, he pursuing. Valiant was the flier but far mightier he who fleetly pursued him.

3) *Odysseus calls back to Polyphemus (Odyssey IX)*: "Cyclops, if any one of mortal men shall ask thee of the unsightly blinding of thine eye, say that it was Odysseus that blinded it, the waster of cities, son of Laertes, whose dwelling is in Ithaca."

4) *Virgil addresses Dante (Inferno, Canto VII)*: "Son, now thou seest the souls of those whom anger overcame; and ... under the water are folk who sigh, and make this water bubble at the surface. ... Fixed in the slime, they say: 'Sullen were we in the sweet air that is gladdened by the Sun, bearing within ourselves the sluggish fume; now we are sullen in the black mire.'"

Final. January, 1950.

233

HUMANITIES 2 - All sections of Messrs. Knotts and Peirce - Dec. 1949

Dante Paper Assignment

Write an essay of about 1200 words on *one* of the cantos suggested below.

This is not a research problem. In writing this essay you should rely entirely upon your own reactions and insights. The questions for each canto are intended merely as guides for reading and are not to be used as a pattern of organization.

The paper is due on or before the last lecture of the course on December 20.

I. Inferno, Canto XIII

1. How are the scene and the punishment appropriate to the sin here represented?

2. Carefully note the images. What is their function, with regard to mood, action, descriptive clarity?

3. What is Dante's reaction to the sinners? How is Pier delle Vigne presented, as an individual or as a representative type? How would you account for this presentation? Is it characteristic of Dante's usual method?

II. Purgatorio, Canto XXX

1. What is this canto's allegorical significance in the Divine Comedy?

2. How do the scene and the imagery prepare the reader for the departure of Virgil and the appearance of Beatrice?

3. What is Dante's reaction to the event? Can you distinguish here the reactions of Dante the man from those of Dante as the Christian soul?