> Dante is clearly writing in the expectation that his intended audience of learned men will know these references and understand their relevance,
We just replaced the Bible and Homeric texts with Star Wars and marvel. Everybody at the time would know the biblical allusions even if they were illiterate.
> many conditions that nowadays are routinely cured or prevented would have been inevitably fatal; not all of the souls in the Comedy who died in their thirties and forties
Are they confusing average lifespan for typical lifespan? Isn’t this contradicted by the later paragraph in the same article?
We just replaced the Bible and Homeric texts with Star Wars and marvel. Everybody at the time would know the biblical allusions even if they were illiterate.
> many conditions that nowadays are routinely cured or prevented would have been inevitably fatal; not all of the souls in the Comedy who died in their thirties and forties
Are they confusing average lifespan for typical lifespan? Isn’t this contradicted by the later paragraph in the same article?