Divine Justice In Dante's 5th Canto

Paolo and Francesca represented, or symbolize, sinful love by example. They show how an intrinsically noble emotion, love, if contrary to God’s law, can bring two essentially fine persons to damnation and spiritual ruin. Dante’s personal response of overwhelming pity should not blind us to the justice of the penalty. Dante describes himself as fainting at the end of Francesca’s recital, his purpose is partly to portray the attractiveness of the sin. Dante allows the lovers the bitter sweetness of inseperability in Hell, but they have lost God and thus corrupted their personalities; they can hardly be considered happy. In a sense, they have what they wanted; they continue in the lawless condition that

Unlike Celestine, Boniface wanted papal supremacy an ideology that Dante was strictly opposed to. According to Joanne Ferrante’s The Political Vision of the Divine Comedy, when Dante wrote a large part of the Inferno, Boniface had already passed. She states, “Boniface inspired the same kind of fierce hostility in much larger circles during his lifetime and many years after his death”. This shows how seriously he took these actions which also differentiate him from others of him time, Dante looked at the long lasting impact it had on society and how it all contributed to the disorder. Although, Boniface is not directly seen, in canto 19, the pilgrim encounters Pope Nicholas who is upside down with his head in the ground. Pope Nicholas who can’t see mistakes Dante for Boniface, “Are you already standing,//already standing there, o Boniface?” (Inf. 19. 52-53). He assumes that he is there to replace him, canto 19, focuses on Simony but Boniface goes beyond by letting the church start to sell “things of god” such as the

In the beginning of his journey through hell Dante is sympathetic and compassionate. Virgil names every soul that inhabits the Carnal to Dante. "I stood there while my Teacher one by one/ named the great knights and ladies of dim time/ and I was swept by pity and confusion" (V 70-72). Dante feels such pity and sympathy for the souls in the Carnal and their eternal suffering. He goes further to explain that you cannot control what you love, and questions how you could find fault with them. Dante then calls

Central to “Inferno” is the concept of contrapasso, the idea that the punishment one experiences in Hell is the reversal of one’s sin on earth: gluttons are forced to consume filth against their will; prophets and soothsayers have their bodies disfigured to turn their heads backwards; adulterers are forever forced to couple with their lovers; it is a poetic, medieval take on Exodus’s reciprocal punishment of “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” (King James Bible, Exodus 21:24). Within Canto XIII Dante meets those who have committed suicide: those that have taken their lives are “reborn” into bleeding, deformed trees upon which harpies feed and onto which harpies nest. There they remain forever, subject to all forms of abuse--and completely unable to abuse themselves again (as they did in life). While Dante’s intent may be to illustrate the justice of God’s punishment for sins done on earth, the forest of suicides found in Canto XIII questions the punishments delivered by God through the words and actions of the unfortunate souls found in this level, the words of our guide, Virgil, and our the words of our protagonist, Dante.

In the 24th canto of Dante’s “Inferno”, we see how Dante depicts forgiveness and the idea keeping an excellent mindset through troubling times by enlisting an epic simile. “The peasants who lack fodder then arise and look about and see the fields all white… go back to the house, walk here and here, pacing, fretting, wondering what to do… I saw my masters eyebrows lower, and my spirits fell and I was sorely vexed”. This quotation compares Virgil to a humble farmer: both are stumped by a seemingly impossible problem to conquer, are both mad that it’s happening and also that no matter what they can’t overcome it. However, both stories continue, “Despair falls from them when they see how the earth’s face has changed in in so little time… he stood and turned on me that sweet and open look”. We see that, like how the farmer is pleased to see that winter has finished so he can feed his herd, Virgil has seen that there is another way down. This simile that shows forgiveness is an important and underlying theme through the entire comedy. Had all of these people repented and asked forgiveness while still in their mortal life then they would have to suffer tar pits or hands bound by snakes. This is also a subliminal message to those that read it that he should no longer be banished from Florence.

Dante has a complaint with the current Pope Boniface. Dante believed Boniface was getting too involved and taking control over Florence. Dante believes Boniface was trying to take over with secular power. Dante in The Portable Dante uses different levels of Hell to show his view of the Catholic Church and what he thinks of the Pope.

“Then I turned to them again to speak and I begun: ‘Francesca, your torments make me weep for grief and pity, ‘but tell me, in that season of sweet sighs, how and by what signs did Love acquaint you with your hesitant desire?” (Canto 5.115-120). Dante expresses this to show how sorry for her or for them he feels.

     In Canto XI of Dante's Inferno, Virgil carefully explains the layout of hell to his student, Dante. Toward the end of his speech, Virgil says that "Sodom and Cahors" are "speak[ing] in passionate contempt of God," (XI, 50-51), and divine will thus relegates them to the seventh circle. The sin of the Sodomites is clear for Dante, who poses no question on the matter, sodomy perhaps being an obvious affront to God which the bible directly addresses. However, the sin of "Cahors," namely usury, is not clear to Dante. He asks Virgil to "unravel" the "knot" in his mind, since there is no obvious reason why a usurer - a money lender essentially - deserves any punishment at all for a crime

Dante’s Inferno is an epic poem that is clearly centered on his hate for Pope Boniface VIII. Dante’s “circles of hell” described so vividly in his poem are the result of Dante’s angst toward Boniface as he was once on top of the world until Boniface exiled him only because of his political opinions. Although, he does not clearly name Boniface in the epic he makes sure to include him in five obscure allusions. The first instance alludes to the incumbent pope before Boniface, Pope Celestine V, as the one “who made the great refusal” in the circle of neutrals; as he allowed Boniface to plant seeds of doubt in the months before he suddenly and unexpectedly resigned, leaving Boniface the Pope. The second allusion would place Boniface perfectly in the eighth circle, sixth pouch as the fraudulent sinner he was to prey on Celestine with his utter gift of fraudulent gab to gain a political position of power. The third, fourth, and fifth instances all point to his questionable practice of selling indulgences or absolution. So, therefore, just because he cannot directly mention Boniface in his epic due to him still being alive during the time of his writing, he still manages to make it a point to let him know there is a place for him in Hell.

The notion that the sinners Virgil and Dante meet are historical figures tempts readers to interpret Dante’s symbolism in a historical sense. Paul G. Chevigny, for example, argues that Dante’s view on betrayal originates from his ethical concerns in a “political milieu” (Chevigny, 790). For Dante, the most severe crime was the most human, the one that most clearly exhibits the misuse of free will: the betrayal of trust. Dante believes that crimes of betrayal were the most serious not only because they required the most deliberate practice of free will, but also because they did the most damage to the ethical net of obligations in society. As previously mentioned, Dante’s political role in Florence established his ideal of a stable society built among the trust of political leaders and their followers.

The lesson Dante wants to teach us is that making love when not married is a sin. In this poem he tells and shows us stories of different people who have made love without marriage and why they are in hell and y they are stuck together. In this poem Dante sees the souls who have sinned stuck together for eternity. Dante’s mentor tells him he may speak to them and they will come and listen. Dante starts out by saying, “O wind-worn souls, Come speak to us if it is not forbidden,”(line 80). When he says this all the souls turn from their convoy to approach Dante and speak to him. When they see Dante they sort of praise him and want to speak with him about anything. They speak to him asking him to speak to them about anything he wants. They say

“I came to a place stripped bare of every light and roaring on naked dark like seas wracked by a war of winds” (Canto 5 inferno), this when Dante goes into the second circle of hell and watches as the lustful are swirl around in this never-ending storm of lust. Dante is using this point of view to try and give a realistic vibe to the readers. He talks to Francesca and Paolo two lovers who were murdered after found having affair against Francesca husband Giovanni Malatesta. After talking to them Dante is starting to get a sense of how real his journey is, he is feeling overwhelmed Dante falls to the ground and pass is out. “And while one spirit Francesca said these words to me, the other Paolo wept, so that, because of pity, I fainted, as if I had met my death. And then I fell as a dead body falls.”(139-142)

By his noble speech the reader learns that political corruption can damn a man's soul. The punished sinners who suffered death for political reasons are of paramount importance to Dante. Accordingly, he shows in the suicide's circle of hell the extreme consequences of failure in political life. Pier committed suicide for the shame of losing his favored position as Frederick's counselor. This illustrates the ancient Roman concept of honorable suicide, which protests any unjust action that robs one of reputation.

In such discussion I only met with further obfuscation and confusion. Rather this initial difficulty can be overcome with some ease by consulting a letter Dante retrospectively wrote to his patron, Can Grande, where he offers the following guide in reading the whole `Comedy': ."..The subject then of the whole work, taken in the literal sense only, is the state of souls after death pure and simple. If however the work be regarded from the allegorical point of view the subject is man according as by his merits or demerits in the existence of his freewill he is deserving of reward or punishment by justice" . Dante is stating that the description of spirits which he meets in the other world carries implications about the moral significance of the type of behaviour which they exemplify. This is an important point and if we lose sight of it we lose sight of the poem and of what makes it historically significant. Indeed, I will argue that it is this underlying moral significance which makes the `Comedy' a work of the middle ages but a work for all time. Judging contemporary characters, through lyrical poetry, in consultation with the classics on a question that transcends his own time and place I feel qualifies the comedy as a work of great historical significance. However let us not digress untimely, rather I will now examine the contemporary experience which Dante's

In Dante Alighieri’s poem, The Divine Comedy, Dante’s quest to find Beatrice symbolizes the importance of allowing love to be ones guide to divine understanding, for this is the only action which is completely controlled by God. Dante argues that although we have desires for sinful actions, humans have the ability to control these desires and decide our own fate. Furthermore, he argues that even if humans commit sin in life, if they will redemption before being sent to hell, they have the opportunity to purify themselves of purgatory. Thus, for Dante, choice is an ever present and vital part of life, and therefore, fate does not exist. But love for Dante is different. Dante argues that love cannot be controlled or chosen. There is no