Compassion for the Souls Who Inhabit Hell

Dantes Inferno is a 14th- century poem that seems calculated to beget the expectantest possible pain to a 20th-century humanist, or to anyone who is attracted to Christianity because of its lenity and belief in the possibility of redemption. The God of the Inferno has curious little compassion and no forgiveness. He was the God who not only turned a blind eye to Belsen, simply also exercised great ingenuity in constructing His own blood-chilling dumbness camp, where sinners should suffer, not only during their brief breaks, but for all eternity. What is contingent about Dantes God is that He consigns sinners to their particular circle in Hell according to an immutable tariff of offences. No aid is paid to mitigating circumstances, or the idea of doing justice to the individual someone before the Divine Court. Hell, in short, was made on just now the lines that the present Home Secretary would wish to impose on our present sentencing system. How do we reconcile the enjoyment of a great poem with what mustiness seem, to many of us today, a nauseous theology? Ulysses may best capture our own views in his speech to his sailors. He celebrates the dignity of man and says: You were not bornto live as a mere brute does/ But for the credit line of knowledge and the good.

But such sensible humanism is, apparently, no better than the excuses of the gluttons and the adulterers. Ulysses is condemned as a thief and must suffer in Hell. In an admirable Preface to Robert Pinskys translation, arse Freccero deals with past attempts to enjoy the poem without revulsion. Coleridge advised us to freeze out disbelief and enjoy the poetry without accepting the theology. Erich Auerbach suggested we separate Dantes didactic intent from his power of representation, and held that the reality of the condemned characters overwhelmed their allegorical meaning. peradventure we should simply remember how Dante suffered from the ruthless power-seeking and political intrigue in Florence and take... If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com

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