Divide Comedy By Dante Essay, Research Paper

A significant idea contained within Dante’s The Divine Comedy is the Augustinian

concept of ordered and disordered love. Each realm of the afterlife symbolizes

the type of love the inhabitants exercised while they were living on earth. For

example, the Inferno represents disordered love, since the souls in Hell

exhibited little love for mankind and little acknowledgement of God. Because the

kind of love Hell symbolizes is the worst type that anyone could possess, it is

located nearest to the center of the earth, farthest away from God. On the other

hand, Paradise, which is situated closest to God, represents ordered love. This

area is reserved for those who treated their neighbors well and felt connected

to God. Although they sinned during their lifetimes, they fully repented long

before death. However, Purgatory is unlike Paradise or the Inferno. Since the

inhabitants of Purgatory were those who started to repent later in their

lifetimes, but still often only thought of their own individual needs and

corporeal pleasures, it only makes sense that this world be in between Heaven

and Hell. Purgatory, being a "gray area" (that is, neither all good or

all bad), represents a type of love that lies somewhere in between complete

order and complete disorder. Based on the Seven Deadly Sins, each cornice in

Purgatory contains a varying amount of ordered love and disordered love.

However, the nearer the cornice is to Hell, the more disordered love it

represents. According to Dante, three main types of love are depicted in

Purgatory. These include "bad love", "too little love", and

"immoderate love". Bad love, the worst of the three, coincides to the

first three Cornices that represent the sins of pride, envy, and wrath

respectively. Therefore, since the First Cornice contains those who were too

proud during their time on earth, they also exhibited the most disordered love

in comparison with the other six sins. They spent more time exalting themselves

than they did caring for others and developing a relationship with God. As their

punishment, they, "crawling by under such burdens as we at times may dream

of", (Canto XI, lines 26-27) are forced to carry enormous boulders on their

backs. Since they held their heads high during their time on earth, they are now

being debased to the ground, a physical punishment to a psychological behavior.

In fact, all of the penalties created by Dante in The Purgatorio are directly

related to the sin committed. The Proud cared more about their own gains than

anyone else’s, a sin that, in Dante’s eyes, is the worst of the Seven Deadly

Sins. Continuing with the idea of "bad love", Dante then explains

envy, represented in the Second Cornice. Like pride, this sin is also extremely

egocentric, as the envious person wishes he could take the good fortunes of

others for his own personal gain. Once again, the sinner is spending more time

on himself, hindering his ability to develop good relations with God and

mankind. Envy, which in modern times is described as the "green-eyed

monster", is generally a sin one commits with his eyes. For, if a person

were blind, he would not be able to comprehend what is supposedly

"missing" from his life. Therefore, Dante depicts the sinners as

having their eyes sewn shut, forced to support one another in a way they never

did while living. Finally, wrath, the least of the "bad loves", is

exemplified in the Third Cornice. Since wrath is often carried out as a form of

anger because of vengeance, it lacks all humility, polluting the true spirit of

God. Meekness, the inverse of wrath, is depicted by the souls’ chanting

"The Litany of The Lamb of God", a constant reminder of an important

ideal. Also, the entire realm is filled with darkness and smoke, which Dante

describes as having a "sting [that] was more than the eyes could

stand." (Canto XVI, line 7) Because these sinners tainted God’s spirit

while living and blocked the light of the Lord, their penalty is to reside in a

defiled environment lacking all sunlight. Like the other two types of "bad

love", wrath also involves a form of self-love. However, since it is

located in the Third Cornice, it involves less disordered love than either pride

or envy. The second type of love explored in The Purgatorio is termed "too

little love", which lends itself exclusively to the sin of sloth. In

general, these slothful people just did not have enough love. They chose to live

life slowly with indifference and laziness. In contrast, this form of love is

not nearly as severe as "bad love" because they did not try to debase

their neighbors. Rather, they just did not possess any strong opinions

(positively or negatively) for mankind or God. They recognized the ideals that

all humans should strive for, but they decided simply not to pursue them. As

their punishment in the Fourth Cornice, they have to hurry up the mountain with

all the zeal that they lacked while living. Finally, the last type of love

depicted by Dante is "immoderate love", the kind that is too excessive

and satisfies corporeal needs rather than spiritual. However, since Dante knows

that the flesh is weak, a mere entrapment of the soul, he forgives these bodily

sins to some extent. This is the main reason why these last three cornices,

containing the most ordered love, are closest to Paradise. The first type of

"immoderate love" described is avarice, in the forms of hoarding and

wasting. The avarice souls, dwelling in the Fifth Cornice, are stripped of all

possessions and are forced to lie in the dirt. This sin is considered the worst

of its kind because the hoarders and wasters are not even gaining any sense of

satisfaction from their practices, even if it were to be temporal. They seem to

have no motive for being so obsessive about money. In contrast, in the sin of

gluttony, at least the guilty individuals did gain some sense of satisfaction

while on earth. However, they too were blameworthy of surrendering to material

things. Since they ate and drank in excess while living, their reprimand in the

Sixth Cornice is complete emaciation, a horrific physical punishment. Since they

abused food and drink, now they must starve as a purification mechanism to

ascend into Heaven. The last sin involving "immoderate love" is lust,

depicted in the Seventh Cornice. The lustful people were those who abandoned the

spirit for the flesh, surrendering to the body instead of God’s love. Like

gluttony, out of selfishness, they decided give in to pleasures rather than to

worship the Lord sincerely. In order to gain entrance to Paradise, they must

chant examples of chastity to purge themselves. However, Dante probably views

this sin as the most ordered because he realizes that some human behaviors,

especially an aspect of nature, are extremely hard to control. Therefore, in

Dante’s The Purgatorio, love is depicted temporally rather than spiritually. It

is an in between kind of love because these sinners did find God, but too late

in life to cleanse themselves of all their corporeal sins. In fact, the Seven

Deadly Sins of pride, envy, wrath, avarice, gluttony, sloth and lust all share

one significant aspect in common. They involve man loving self-pleasures more

than God. In each case this sort of love lies in between order and disorder.

Whether these indulgences are physical or psychological, they are hindrances to

achieving the ultimate end of man, which is happiness. Since (according to

Aquinas) happiness comes from God, only by truly loving and honoring Him can one

ascend into Paradise. These temporal pleasures prevent man from developing a

good relationship with God. As punishment, God makes these sinners wait in

Purgatory in the same way they made Him wait. In many cases self-love has been

the main reason why spirits are forced to repent in Purgatory. However, although

the sinners did not know how to love in the proper manner while on earth, they

are given another chance to ascend into Heaven via Purgatory. They realized

their mistakes later in life, but this self-recognition proves that they have

the potential to become better people, if not in the flesh, then in the spirit.