“Dante” Blog
Due April 7th
World Literature
• Megan Braine •
••Hell••
Inferno addresses the definition of hell in a horrific and unpleasant place. For example the poem reads, “Many tongues, a terrible crying, words of sadness, accents of anger, voices deep and hoarse, with sounds of hands amongst them, making a turbulence that turns forever, in that air, stained, eternally, like sand spiralling in a whirlwind.” (III:22-69) From this single piece of writing from the poem, we can infer that the definition of hell within this poem is horrific. When reading, “These wretches, who never truly lived, were naked, and goaded viciously by hornets, and wasps, there, making their faces stream with blood, that, mixed with tears, was collected, at their feet, by loathsome worms.” (III:58-69), I can witness the suffering going on within hell. The way the poem address hell, I perceive that it is the for the people who didn’t praise god, and only managed themselves. “This is the miserable mode in which those exist, who lived without praise, without blame. They are mixed in with the despised choir of angels, those not rebellious, not faithful to God, but for themselves.” (III:22-69) Furthermore, the people who are in hell don't believe in fate, hope, or any god. They are very hopeless people who live in such a dark mindset. “They have no hope of death, and their darkened life is so mean that they are envious of every other fate. Earth allows no mention of them to exist: mercy and justice reject them: let us not talk of them, but look and pass.’” (III:22-69) Inferno addressing hell with such vouger and descriptiveness, really allowed me to picture what it’d look like. Which is dark, flammable, loud, violent, and more. “‘Woe to you, wicked spirits! Never hope to see heaven: I come to carry you to the other shore, into eternal darkness, into fire and ice. And you, who are there, a living spirit, depart from those who are dead.’” (III:70-99)
Megan, your interpretation of what Dante's Inferno represents is very relatable to the way I saw into it myself. I felt that Inferno made hell seem like noting but violence and sadness and basically any humans worst nightmare. The depiction of hell, I feel was very parallel to a traditional standpoint that the religions who have Christianity as their base belief. Dante's Inferno went into extreme depth for each realm of the hell he traveled through and what exactly each the souls of each realm were there for. I believe that Inferno was meant to characterize hell as it would be conceived of what each individual sinner would feel it was like, instead of just a completely horrific scene. I personally interpreted Dante's travels through hell as a look into the repercussions of the sins that the soul acted out while they were alive and what Lucifer felt was the appropriate punishment for them. Such as the souls chasing around the flag within the outer realm of hell, because they decided to never fully commit to either good or evil. This lead to torment on their part to constantly be aimlessly chasing around a flag with no goal end in sight. Dante's Inferno I feel was meant to show a darker side to the idea of hell, but also to be interpreted as everyone's own idea of what hell would be for themselves. It seemed as though each realm was specially personalized for the specific sin committed.
ReplyDeleteGood response here: Dante does indeed depict Hell as a place where the particular punishment fits the individual sinner. It is a real symbolic, psychological landscape of suffering and punishment that he creates. See if you can figure out WHY he chose the particular punishment for a particular sin. Think symbolically!
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