Into the fray of blog posts I return, withered from the recent drought. When will I learn my lesson? Eh, probably never. Anyway, a slew of topics has appeared after our very own Dante's Inferno presentation was finally showcased to the class. With a healthy bunch of Christians at our disposal, the debate was alive and everything I could have hoped for.
Time for the question: "Should Dante's Inferno be interpreted as a revenge fantasy?"
At first glance, the answer seems obvious: Of course it's a revenge fantasy, for he places so many of his ideological opponents, enemies, and critics in the depths of hell, brutally tortured. The thought of those people getting their "just due" must have been cathartic for Alighieri, especially since he was exiled from his homeland and family.
To as much of my own surprise as your own, I will attempt to formulate an argument against that notion.
I think the usage of people Alighieri despised is symbolic in some way, countering the idea of simple "revenge". In spite of him depicting their suffering as deserved and painful, he actively goes to converse with some of them. What could this mean? He may be implying that, despite the hatred you may harbor for your enemies, you should still try to understand why they are who they are. This could act as reinforcement for the theme of "returning to the straight path".
If you search for a deeper meaning in the text as I did, you will see why the limited label of "revenge fantasy" is undeserved, especially in the case of a complex poem like Inferno. There are many layers that make this text more than what this label entails.
I believe Dante used the tools that were available to him. Not so much that he despised these people, but that it is much easier to place a corrupt pope you know of in hell than it is to think of another person just as deserving of the spot. Alighieri had so much to think about when writing his masterpieces, I do not believe the people put in hell was at the top of his list. Alighieri's use of figures unknown to himself also justifies his use of known figures, it was just what was easiest for him to use since he must have spent so much time planning out the structure of the poem. His vast background in other texts helped in his endeavor of choosing the right person for the spot, but when it was needed he used people who knew as they were the easiest to explain and interpret.
ReplyDelete