Analysis: Dante and Joyce take different paths with the Divine Comedy and Ulysses, but their journeys are deeply connected
In 1302, Dante Alighieri was exiled from Florence due to accusations of corruption. Banned from ever returning, he was forced to travel across Italy, relying on the hospitality of various courts and protectors. This personal exile became a powerful symbol of the human condition and inspired his timeless work, the Divine Comedy, a journey that also tells the story of a man seeking redemption far from his homeland.
In 1904, James Joyce decided to leave Dublin for good. While no one forced him to leave or stopped him from returning, he saw his city as a place that was stagnant and stifling. Much like Dante centuries earlier, Joyce turned his exile into a creative force, using it as a way to gain a clearer understanding of the human condition and write a masterpiece like Ulysses. For both, exile was not just physical separation but a mental and existential journey to explore the world and their paths in life.
It is no coincidence that Joyce chose Italy as his new homeland. For him, it was more than just a refuge. It represented the heart of a culture he admired, where language had reached its creative peak through Dante. Living there allowed him to immerse himself in the very context that gave birth to the Divine Comedy and to breathe in the timeless art Dante had crafted.
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Joyce began studying Italian at the age of 12, and he discovered the Divine Comedy when he was 15 years old. During his time at University College Dublin, the priest Charles Ghezzi introduced him to Dante and other poets like Guido Cavalcanti. Dante became a key influence for Joyce, and the Divine Comedy, with its innovative language and universal themes, left a lasting imprint on his writing.
One of the key aspects of Dante that deeply influenced Joyce was his concept of universality. For both, literature becomes a way to explore the human condition and break the boundaries of time and space. In Dante's work, universality is expressed through his journey from sin to redemption, symbolising the shared human experience of struggle and transformation. Similarly, in Ulysses, Joyce captures the universal nature of life’s challenges, portraying Leopold Bloom’s ordinary day in Dublin as a profound and symbolic journey, elevating the everyday into something extraordinary.
The structure of Ulysses mirrors that of Dante’s Divine Comedy, where Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso trace a journey from darkness to light, from guilt to redemption. Joyce divides his novel into three parts that echo this progression. In the Telemachia, Stephen Dedalus is trapped in his own Inferno, weighed down by guilt for not fulfilling his mother’s last wish, feeling lost and disconnected. The second part, Odyssey, mirrors a purgatorial journey, as Leopold Bloom walks through the streets of Dublin, facing the challenges and everyday struggles of life. Finally, the Nostos, Bloom’s return home, symbolises reconciliation, a moment of healing and a step toward reuniting with Molly.
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In Ulysses, echoes of Dante’s Divine Comedy can also be found in the structure of individual episodes. In the Hades chapter, the link between the living and the dead evokes a descent into hell, with Bloom contemplating the fragility of life. In Circe, the reader is immersed in a dreamlike world filled with nightmares and distorted visions, reminiscent of the struggles and purification of purgatory. Here, the characters confront their fears, moving towards self-understanding. This resolution comes in the final three chapters, where Bloom finds peace in his return home and in his relationship with Molly, representing his personal paradise. Just as Dante reaches divine beatitude, Joyce concludes his novel with a sense of human fulfillment.
Dante and Joyce take different paths, but their journeys are deeply connected. Both explore the soul, society and language to examine the human condition. While Dante seeks spiritual salvation, Joyce pursues a more secular redemption. In the end, they both show us that whether literal or symbolic, the journey is the key to understanding ourselves.
In Dante’s Divine Comedy, the journey he undertakes starts from his personal experiences but becomes something universal. The famous opening line Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita (Midway upon the journey of our life, Inferno I, 1) uses the word "our" to represent all of humanity, showing that the search for salvation and understanding is a common thread shared by everyone.
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Inspired by this, Joyce tells the story of Leopold Bloom, an everyman who navigates the streets of Dublin in 1904 while dealing with existential struggles and reflections. In doing so, Joyce not only adapts Dante’s message to a modern context but also highlights the enduring relevance of the Divine Comedy, where each sin Dante described still resonates in his own society. Over the course of a single day, Joyce transforms Dublin into a universal reflection of the human experience, illustrating how Dante’s themes transcend time.
The Divine Comedy, still studied and cherished after 700 years, continues to captivate readers, just like Ulysses, which will keep resonating with future generations. Both Dante and Joyce offer complementary views of the same journey: the quest for knowledge and self-awareness. Their works, enduring and universal, remind us that the path to self-discovery is one that belongs to everyone.
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
