COMPASSION FOR THE SOULS WHO INHABIT HELL :: essays research papers

Dantes Inferno is a 14th- century poem that seems mensurable to cause the greatest possible pain to a 20th-century humanist, or to anyone who is attracted to Christianity because of its pathos and belief in the possibility of redemption. The God of the Inferno has precious secondary compassion and no forgiveness. He was the God who not only turned a blind eye to Belsen, however also exercised great ingenuity in constructing His witness blood-chilling concentration camp, where sinners should suffer, not only during their brief spicys, but for all eternity. What is particular about Dantes God is that He consigns sinners to their particular carrousel in Hell according to an immutable tariff of offences. No guardianship is paid to mitigating circumstances, or the thought of doing justice to the individual soul in front the Divine Court. Hell, in short, was made on exactly the lines that the present nursing home Secretary would wish to impose on our present sentencing system. How do we placate the enjoyment of a great poem with what must seem, to many of us today, a repellent 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 pursuit of cognition and the good". But such sensible humanism is, apparently, no go 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 definition, John Freccero deals with past attempts to enjoy the poem without revulsion. Coleridge discuss us to "suspend disbelief" and enjoy the poetry without accepting the theology. Erich Auerbach suggested we resolve "Dantes didactic intent from his power of representation", and held that the reality of the condemned characters overwhelmed their allegorical meaning. perchance we should simply remember how Dante suffered from the ruthless power-seeking and political intrigue in Florence and expect Hell as an accurate picture of politics today. George Steiner, the distinguished novice and polymath, has suggested in his book In Bluebeards Castle that the Holocaust is the Christian idea of hell made real and that the most knowledgeable guide to the camps is truly Dante. Robert Pinsky, the recently appointed poet laureate of the United States, was asked to comment on this model in an interview in The Forward that marked the publication of the poets acclaimed translation of Dantes Inferno.