Classic Club Spin #24

Last Classic Club Spin#24 ended on number 18. Under that number, I have Dante's The Divine Comedy of which the book is divided into three parts. Earlier I finished Hell and for this month I read Purgatory. I have started Heaven which I should finish at the end of the week.

It is not an easy book to read, but, I did find it more interesting than I thought.  I am trying to read more of the most famous classical literature, and this is one of them.  Even if I am not able to appreciate it like a professor in literature, it nevertheless gave me pleasure. 

Cannot say I really will be able to analyse it, but there are others who can. On Wikipedia, you can find this summary of Dante's meaning with The Divine Comedy.

"The narrative takes as its literal subject the state of souls after death and presents an image of divine justice meted out as due punishment or reward, and describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise or Heaven, while allegorically the poem represents the soul's journey towards God, beginning with the recognition and rejection of sin (Inferno), followed by the penitent Christian life (Purgatorio), which is then followed by the soul's ascent to God (Paradiso). Dante draws on medieval Roman Catholic theology and philosophy, especially Thomistic philosophy derived from the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. Consequently, the Divine Comedy has been called "the Summa in verse". In Dante's work, the pilgrim Dante is accompanied by three guides: Virgil (who represents human reason), Beatrice (who represents divine revelation, theology, faith, and grace), and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (who represents contemplative mysticism and devotion to Mary). Erich Auerbach said Dante was the first writer to depict human beings as the products of a specific time, place and circumstance as opposed to mythic archetypes or a collection of vices and virtues; this along with the fully imagined world of "The Divine Comedy", different from our own but fully visualized, suggests that the Divine Comedy could be said to have inaugurated modern fiction."

 It gives a strong feeling of how important and strong religion was in those days. When you read Hell and Purgatory and meet all the lost souls there, you cannot help but think they regret what they did during their lives. The Comedy is a travel through the afterlife, looking at the bad and the good sides of it. I wonder if the people who read it when it was published, had second thoughts of the way they lived their lives? I guess not.

“To course across more kindly waters now

my talent's little vessel lifts her sails,

leaving behind herself a sea so cruel;

and what I sing will be that second kingdom,

in which the human soul is cleansed of sin,

becoming worthy of ascent to Heaven.”

Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio

“Madness it is to hope that human minds

can ever understand the Infinite

that comprehends Three Persons in One Being.

Be satisfied with quia unexplained,

O Human race! If you knew everything,

no need for Mary to have borne a son.”

Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio