Dantes Purgatory Essay

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Introduction

An epic poem, Dante’s purgatory remains one of the poet’s most popular works. This second section of Inferno proceeds to recount Dante’s encounters as he ascends Mount Purgatory with Vigil as his companion. It is important to note that the ascent (and related experiences) effectively serves to culture Dante on the mercy of God and the life of a Christian so as to cleanse and therefore rid him of his sins as he continues with his journey to meet the Creator. This text concerns itself with an interpretive question around Dante’s Purgatory.

Discussion

In Dante’s Purgatory, 9 levels of purgatory have been presented. These include “stubbornness, repentant, pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice (coupled with its counter-sin, prodigality), gluttony, and lust” (Mandelbaum, 1982, p. 110). Before selecting a circle of Purgatory that I have important questions about, it would be prudent to highlight each of the said stages in brief.

To begin with, stubbornness is presented as being at the mountain’s base. Here, Dante and Vigil come across souls that were so stubborn to adhere to the laws of God and thus delayed their Christian lives. These are punished by being held for a period that exceeds the length of their stubbornness by thirty times. Next, at the second stage (i.e. repentant), the two poets come across kings who had long died but had been negligent during their reign on earth, persons who did not repent during their stay on earth, and persons whose deaths were violent but were able to repent at their very last moment. In the third stage (i.e. pride) Dante and Vigil encountered persons whose lives on earth were prideful. Residents in the terrace have arched backs resulting from carrying heavy loads. The fourth stage (i.e. envy) is full of penitents whose lives were spent desiring the things that other people possessed to the extent that they would go to any extent to deprive the rightful owners of the said possessions.

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The resulting punishment for the envious is the sewing of their eyes such that they have no vision of where they are going. Next, the fifth stage (i.e. wrath), comprises of souls of persons who were full of wrath and who lacked gentleness. These souls are condemned to wander in a thick cloud of dark smoke. When it comes to sloth, i.e. the sixth stage, the poets encounter persons who were not only indolent, but also idle and lazy. The punishment for those in the seventh stage (i.e. the materialistic and greedy) comprised of lying face-down with feet as well as hands tied up. The ninth stage of gluttony comprises of gluttonous souls who are being punished by being made to experience intense thirst and hunger. Lastly, we have lust as the ninth stage. Here, we have souls who did not hold chastity in high regard. The punishment prescribed as a consequence was the order to run right through a flame wall while calling out chastity examples.

The circles I would be selecting in this case are avarice and pride, which happen to be the seventh and third stages respectively. As it has been pointed out above, the seventh stage comprises of souls that were avaricious. These were people who had their lives clouded by uncontrollable desire as well as greed for material gain and/or wealth. On the other hand, the third circle comprised of persons who, during their entire earthly lives, were prideful. For this, their sins had to be purged with the punishment of carrying heavy loads on their backs. Sculptures lined the terrace walls but the condemned souls did not have a view of them. In this case, we have “the thirteen examples of punished pride: Satan, Briareus, the Giants, Nimrod, Niobe, Saul, Arachne, Rehoboam, Eriphyle, Sennacherib, Cyrus, Holofernes,….....

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References

Mandelbaum, A. (Ed.) (1982). The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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