Welcome to Gaia! ::

I'm not sure where to begin with Dante Alighieri. However, his "Divine Comedy" has always captivated me - the Inferno, in particular.

The imagery alone is shocking, but the ideas within the levels of Hell are what intrique me.

First, the fact God punishes souls, calculating their placement so "justly" in each level of Hell, I find extremely objective. Each sin is treated with varying levels of gravity but I find this divine justice not justified at all. In fact, I feel Virgil, Dante's companion throughout Hell has unwavering, constant wisdom of divine punishment by accepting divine justice the way it is and aceepting that every sin is proportional to their punishment.

The reason I find Dante's ideas objective here is because coming from a christianity viewpoint, all sins are punished the same.

I can't help but feel many of Dante's ideas in Inferno are littered with not hate agaisnt Christianity, but hate against the Church.

Notice how each level of Hell holds sinners of one of the "7 Deadly Sins". No where in the bible are the "7 Deadly Sins" talked about. The "7 Deadly Sins" were actually a manifestated idea by Chruches in the eighth century. And if anyone knows anything about Dante's past living in Florence Italty in the fourteeth century, he was persecuted by political figures and exiled. The church during this time in Italy was incredibly influencial and held politcal weight.

In fact, if anyone remembers who Dante saw in the last level of Hell, this Hell was filled with political betrayers as well as christian betrayers. This I took as an understanding that politics and churches were closely intermingled, especially for Dante during his lifetime.

So I can't help but feel the Inferno is, though a classic piece of literature with Christian merits, also a bitter representation of his anger against the Church and his exile from Florence.

Does anyone have anything else to comment on this? I'd be interested to hear.

Not to be stubborn, but I have to disagree with Dante's resentment against the Church and Florence. I believe he held a lot of resentment toward these two. In his personal life, he was betrayed - thus I see the allegory between his life and characters in Inferno, placing betrayers in the lowest level of hell.

By the way, I indeed had a guide - my AP English teacher. I'm relaying a lot of what he taught us, but that which I also agreed with. I might not be making myself clear in trying to make my points.

Regardless, I'd be very interested to hear more about your paper contains. I can tell you have great passion and greater knowledge about Dante's work than I.

When you have the extra time, I would appreciate hearing futher explainations regarding your ideas about Inferno.

In the meantime, you've inspired me to seek more information about Dante. Hopefully next time, I'll have more information to share with you. I never considered Dante's Inferno containing ideas that relate to ontology, for instance. I'm going to look more into this topic (i feel like i'm picking out one tiny detail out of so much, but it's a start).

If you have any thing to share about this particular issue, please share.

Below if the paper i wrote for second year humanities about the first book of Dante's divine comedy. I have also included my sources. I would like to warn everyone that this has been submitted to a recognized institution and to use it, or any part of it, is academic plagiarism.

Sin and the Organization of Dante’s Hell.

Hell, the first canticle of the Divine Comedy, is Dante’s poetic rendition of what the afterlife is like for people who never find their good. The sinners in hell, like the people in purgatory, are trying to find their good. In hell, however, everyone is mistaken about what the final good is. The different ways people are mistaken about the Good are different types of sins. Dante’s descriptions of sins and organization of hell are an explanation of how people fail to understand the Good. Hell is divided according to the three different ways sinners are mistaken in their attempts to find the Good. The sinners in upper hell, the incontinent, desire ends that could be considered good, such as human relations or food and drink and use no specific means to achieve these things. In incontinence, the sinners’ mistake is that they do not use reason to govern their desires. Because they do not use reason, the sinners have no self-control. They consume as much of what they desire as possible, mistaking individual goods for the final good. The sinners in nether hell, the violent, use reason, but they let it be controlled by their desires. They choose harm intentionally as a means to achieve what they desire. Their mistake is allowing reason to be governed by desire rather than governing desire through reason. The people in lower hell, the fraudulent, pervert reason. The fraudulent choose sin for its own sake, and choose harm as an end. The images used to portray each type of sinner, as well as Virgil’s explanations of sins, demonstrate where the sinners’ faults are.
The organizing principle of Dante’s version of hell is desire. The sinners in hell desire to be there. Dante represented the sinners’ desire to be in hell poetically in his third canto. In this canto, the fictional Dante was amazed to see that the sinners rushed into hell. The sinners were in a hurry to reach their afterlife, even though there was no hope in it for them. The sinners rushed into hell because their will was fixed at death. Although the activities in hell seem much less pleasant or appealing than sins do in life, the activities in hell are simply disillusioned versions of the sins in life. When the sinners’ wills are fixed they continue to choose their sin, even though the sin in hell is stripped of the illusions it had in life.
The sinners in hell still see their sin as their good. This means that they choose to be in hell. Sinners choose their place in hell by choosing certain sins in life. In life, the incontinent chose things that could properly be considered goods. For example, the lustful desired love and human relations, but sought these things for physical pleasure with no regard for the circumstances. Dante showed that the lustful are incapable of decisions in his poetic description of them. Dante portrayed the lustful as trapped, fluttering in an endless whirlwind, unable to decide where they go. He described them as being bound by lust, since they are governed by it. Since the lustful are bound by lust, they must accommodate anyone who entreats them by the power of love. The fictional Dante entreated Paolo and Francesca, the examples of lust, in this way. The lustful cannot choose because they did not choose in life. They are void of reason.
This lack of reason and control is common to all incontinence. Dante presented another example of this when he presented the gluttons. The gluttons eat an endless supply of mud because they crave quantity even though they have no desire to consume mud. The incontinent crave quantity, detached from particulars. They allow their desires to take control, ignoring reason completely.
The violent, unlike the incontinent, use reason to achieve what they want. Their mistake is that they allow their reason to be governed by desire. Dante demonstrated that violence is separate from incontinence in several ways. The first is that he distinguished violence from wrath and sloth. Dante showed that the wrathful and sullen are angry or desperate but do not choose harm. The violent, in contrast, choose harm. The second way Dante distinguished violence from incontinence is that he included the wall of Dis. This giant wall divides the circles of incontinence from the later circles. Dante also uses the character Virgil to directly say that violence is less blameworthy than violence and fraud. Incontinence is separate because it is less blameworthy.
Incontinence is less blameworthy precisely because the sins of incontinence are void of reason. Reason is a faculty particular to humans and higher beings. To use reason wrongly is to make oneself worse using one’s best faculty. The incontinent are incapable of choosing anything specific because choosing one thing rather than another requires reason. The incontinent are flawed because they allow their desires to make them forget their reason. Other sinners, on the other hand, use reason to make themselves worse people and thereby tarnish their own best faculty.
The violent and the fraudulent choose harm because they believe it will make them happy. The violent and fraudulent believe that other humans are in competition to obtain the Good. They believe this because they think the Good is achieved through exhaustible, material things. This is, however, a terrible mistake. As Dante explained through Virgil in Purgatory, the second canticle of the Divine Comedy, the Good is not exhaustible. Human beings’ participation in the Good makes it grow; the Good can not diminish. Choosing harm, then, is a failure to understand what the nature of the Good is.
The violent, unlike the fraudulent, choose harm only as a means to an end. The violent sinner is trying to achieve something through his violence. Examples of what the violent may be trying to achieve are power or honour. This is true even when the harm is not done to other people. Sinners who are guilty of violence against the self, such as those who committed suicide, tried to send a message through their deaths. Dante demonstrates this in his portrayal of the wood of suicides. The sinners in the wood of suicides are in the shape of trees, and can only speak when they are injured. The suicides can only speak when they are injured because they spoke through self injury in life. Pier delle Vigne, Dante’s example of suicide, speaks to the fictional Dante only when injured. Della Vigne killed himself to assert his innocence, thinking that harming himself would give him a voice. Della Vigne attempted to restore his honour by killing himself. He allowed his reason to serve his desire for honour. Della Vigne did not, however, choose harm for its own sake. This is what distinguishes the violent from the fraudulent.
While the violent allow their reason to serve their desires, the fraudulent pervert reason entirely. The fraudulent choose harm, not only as a means, but also as an end. They choose harm void of any other goods. An example of this is the sinners in the circle of the treacherous. Camicion de’Pazzi, Dante’s example of the treacherous, reveals the identity of many other treacherous people trapped with him in the circle of the treacherous. He does this even though it pains him greatly to have to reveal his own identity, because he takes pleasure in the pain of others. It is clear, however, that he does not consider his own pain a good and therefore must not actually believe pain to be a good.
Choosing ends without believing that the ends are good is a complete perversion of reason. Human beings aim towards happiness, and are naturally inclined to direct themselves towards things they consider good. The fraudulent are not simply mistaken as to what good is, but have corrupted their reason and believe that happiness can be found in ends which have no good at all. The fraudulent pervert reason. Since reason is the best part of a human being, perverting ones reason makes this person the worst sort of person. The fraudulent make themselves into the worst sort of people, and are in the worst part of hell for this sin.
The parts of hell correspond to the corruption of a person’s soul. Hell is also divided by desire. These two explanations of the division of hell are actually one in the same. Since sinners desire the sins they choose, hell is divided by desire. People corrupt their own souls by choosing the sins they choose. Different types of sin, categorized as incontinence, violence, and fraud, corrupt a person’s soul in different ways. Sinners choose their sins and, thereby, choose their place in hell.
-----------------------------------------------

Dante, Inferno, III, 52-87; tr. Dorothy Sayers, The Comedy of Dante Alighoeri the Florentine, Cantica I, Hell (L’Inferno) (Hammondsworth: Penguin, 1949), pp. 86-87; Dorothy Sayers, tr., The Comedy of Dante Akigheri the Florentine, Cantica I, Hell (L’Inferno) (Hammondsworth: Penguin, 1948,) p. 89.
Dante, Inferno, V, 37-78, tr. Sayers, pp. 98-99.
Dante, Inferno, VI, 4-12; tr. Sayers, p. 140.
Dante, Inferno, VII, 112-130; VIII 76-78; XI, 82-84; tr. Sayers, p. 113, p. 118, p. 136.
Dante, Purgatorio, XVII, 85-139; tr. Dorothy Sayers, The Comedy of Dante Alighoeri the Florentine, Cantica II, Purgatory (Il Purgatorio) (Hammondsworth: Penguin, 1955), pp. 198-200.

Dante, Inferno, VII, 37-100, tr. Sayers, pp. 150-152.

Dante, Inferno, XXXII, 52-68, tr. Sayers, pp. 272-273.

Also, if you're interested, I'll go back and read the part about the fraudulent and explain why it may be divided that way. It's obviously not an exact science, but my group and I discussed it extensively.