In recent discussions of Canto 8 of Dante’s Inferno, many scholars have argued about Dante the pilgrim’s controversial abuse of one of the wrathful sinners of the fifth circle, Filippo Argenti. The altercation between the two is viewed in numerous lights. From one perspective it is seen as unjustified (ira mala) because Dante is seen as guilty of the sin being punished for in this circle, but also because his response was wrongly motivated. Others state that Dante’s anger was righteous (ira bona) because there was proper reasoning behind it. Kleinhenz, one particular scholar, argues that Dante’s outburst at Filippo Argenti is a result of the praise Dante received after initially criticizing the sinner. In his book, Inferno 8: The Passage Across the Styx, he maintains that Virgil’s praise “is perhaps wrongly motivated and consequently, that Dante’s reaction to Fillipo Argenti in this canto is equally erroneous”. Kleinhenz alludes to this point in his interpretation of Luke 11:27, where a woman who is praising Jesus is correct in her exaltation of the Mother and Son, but her praise is inappropriate to the situation. By analyzing the parallels between Virgil’s praise and the biblical verse, Kleinhenz argues that both Virgil and Dante’s actions are inappropriate and therefore ira mala.
John A. Scott, however, views Dante’s outburst as being justified. In his book,Understanding Dante, Scott argues that Florence was very much a part of Dante’s life and that Filippo Argenti was an ostentatious man whose “arrogance and insolent display of wealth” as well as “corrupt nature” is viewed synonymously with Florence’s decline. Therefore Scott argues that Dante’s rage was appropriate because it was inspired by the new decadence of Fl...
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...is anger can be viewed as ira bona and ira mala simultaneously. Wishing further pain upon Argenti in order to receive further praise from his mentor is an unreasonable excuse, but trying to become a better pupil and person by doing as his mentor says is reasonable. Becoming furious as a human instinct is rational, whereas doling out punishments while you are only a human is not. Dante did not react to the sinner in the way that he did for only one reason, instead he had many reasons to respond as he did.
Works Cited
Alghieri, Dante. Inferno. New York: Oxford UP, 1996. Print.
John A. Scott’s Understanding Dante, Univ. of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana, 2004 (210-11)
Kleinhenz, Christopher. “Inferno 8: The Passage Across the Styx.” Lectura Dantis. Brown University. No. 3 Fall 1988 21 pars: 21 Sept. 2009 .
Dante and Virgil come across Filippo Argenti, a Guelph from Florence, and upon discovering his identity, they immediately treat him with great disdain and wish misery and harm upon him. Filippo is thought to be an enemy of Dante’s because he is from the opposing side in Florence and because his brother stole Dante’s possessions after he was exiled from the land. What this passage then poses is the question of whether Dante and Virgil are exhibiting righteous indignation or whether their wrath is unjustified. In other words, is it possible for anger to be legitimate or is it always wrong? Depending on how this instance is interpreted, the reader can either believes that they are justified in their vengeance or are committing the same sin they should be avoiding within the fifth circle of hell. Some may believe that their anger can be justified because of what Filippo did and who he was, since he was definitely not a very just man while living. They may come to the conclusion that Dante and Virgil did no wrong while harming Filippo and throwing him from the boat to be mauled because they had a reason for doing
Descending from the first to the second level of Hell, Dante witnesses the transition to greater agony and greater punishment for the damned. Overwhelmed by the sinner’s harrowing cries and the extensive list of seemingly innocent souls given to him by Virgil, Dante beckons for two lovers to approach him, desperate for some sense of comfort. The souls are known to be the historical figures Francesca de Rimini and her lover Paolo, forever trapped in the circle of lust due to their sinful adultery. Through her words spoken to Dante, Francesca shows how she feels she has been unjustly punished and is deserving of others’ sorrow, and Dante, despite his awareness that she is a sinner, pities her. A close reading of this passage is necessary to better understand Dante’s internal battle with showing compassion where it is not deserved and Francesca’s incessant denial of her sins.
...fraud. Given the persistent problems between the Ghibellines and Guelfs or the infighting among the Black and White Guelfs, bloodletting was the order of the day. Great blood feuds usually came about from trivial disputes such as stepping on a person’s foot that normally escalated exponentially to pitched battles on the streets. Many so-called aristocrats deeply concerned with their family honor powerfully influenced Florence's culture; these would be inclined to countenance bloodshed. Furthermore, they were quite hostile to those who sought power by alternate means such as wealthy merchants (mostly rich from usury) that did not use violence but instead fraud and corruption during earlier years of the Renaissance. This helps explain why Dante decided to position fraud and usury before violence given the circumstances in which he saw the political climate at the time.
Priest, Paul. "Allegory and Reality in the "Commedia"" Dante Studies With the Annual Report of the Dante Society.96 (1978): 127-44. JSTOR. Web. 09 May 2014. .
In analyzing this gradient of morality, it is useful first to examine a work from early literature whose strong purity of morality is unwavering; for the purposes of this discussion, Dante’s Inferno provides this model. It is fairly straightforward to discover Dante’s dualistic construction of morality in his winding caverns of Hell; each stern, finite circle of Hell is associated with a clear sin that is both definable and directly punishable. As Dante moves downwards in this moral machination, he notes that
Dante’s Inferno, Indiana Critical Edition. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1995. Williams, Charles. A. A. The Figure of Beatrice: A Study in Dante.
Rudd, Jay. Critical Companion to Dante: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work. New York. 2008. Print.
...ards monstrous figures and sympathy towards those who seem to be tortured unjustly. In his perverse education, with instruction from Virgil and the shades, Dante learns to replace mercy with brutality, because sympathy in Hell condones sin and denies divine justice. The ancient philosopher Plato, present in the first level of Hell, argues in The Allegory of the Cave that truth is possible via knowledge of the Form of the Good. Similarly, Dante acquires truth through a gradual understanding of contrapasso and the recognition of divine justice in the afterlife. Ultimately, Dante recognizes that the actions of the earthly fresh are important because the soul lives on afterwards to face the ramifications. By expressing his ideas on morality and righteousness, Dante writes a work worth reading, immortalizes his name, and exalts the beliefs of his Christian audience.
Moreover, Dante, the narrator of the Inferno, has succeeded in not only telling the frightening story of the Inferno, but also pointing out the importance of the relationship between human’s sins and God’s retribution, using the monsters as the symbols for each kind of sin and its punishment throughout the progress of the story, which teaches his readers to be well aware of their sins through the literature – a part of humanities; the disciplines that teach a man to be a human.
Dante Alighieri presents a vivid and awakening view of the depths of Hell in the first book of his Divine Comedy, the Inferno. The reader is allowed to contemplate the state of his own soul as Dante "visits" and views the state of the souls of those eternally assigned to Hell's hallows. While any one of the cantos written in Inferno will offer an excellent description of the suffering and justice of hell, Canto V offers a poignant view of the assignment of punishment based on the committed sin. Through this close reading, we will examine three distinct areas of Dante's hell: the geography and punishment the sinner is restricted to, the character of the sinner, and the "fairness" or justice of the punishment in relation to the sin. Dante's Inferno is an ordered and descriptive journey that allows the reader the chance to see his own shortcomings in the sinners presented in the text.
When we are first introduced to Dante the Pilgrim, we perceive in him a Renaissance intellectual, who despite his intelligence and religiosity has lost the “path that does not stray” (I.3). Having thus lost touch with the tenets of orthodox Catholicism, a higher power has chosen for him to undertake an epic journey. (The devout are able to identify this power with the one Judeo-Christian God, while pagans and sinners often attribute the impetus behind the Pilgrim’s voyage to fate.)
Inferno is the first and most famous of a three part series by Dante Alighieri known as the Divine Comedy that describes his journey to God through the levels of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise written in the early fourteenth century. Scholars spanning over nearly seven centuries have praised its beauty and complexity, unmatched by any other medieval poem. Patrick Hunt’s review, “On the Inferno,” states, “Dante’s extensive use of symbolism and prolific use of allegory— even in incredible anatomical detail—have been often plumbed as scholars have explored the gamut of his work’s classical, biblical, historical, and contemporary political significance” (9). In the story, each of the three main characters, Dante, Virgil, and Beatrice, represent
Dante’s Inferno presents the reader with many questions and thought provoking dialogue to interpret. These crossroads provide points of contemplation and thought. Dante’s graphic depiction of hell and its eternal punishment is filled with imagery and allegorical meanings. Examining one of these cruxes of why there is a rift in the pits of hell, can lead the reader to interpret why Dante used the language he did to relate the Idea of a Just and perfect punishment by God.
...ion. Dante cites now-historical and mythological figures to exemplify the sins and to make for the better understanding of sin to even the most inept of readers. This work stands alongside The Bible as one of the greatest religious-literary masterpieces of all time.
... Moreover, such belief in human reason signifies Dante's hope towards a bright society and the pursuit of God’s love as the other part of self-reflection. In conclusion, a great deal of tension and contrast between “dark” and “light” in The Inferno helps us to explore Dante’s self portrait—he fears dangerous desires and sinful darkness, but shows much courage and hope towards life since he nevertheless follows his guide Virgil to dive into horrible Hell. As shown in Canto I, such emotional reaction to dark and light symbols lays a great foundation for developing Dante’s broad and universal traits as his journey progresses.