Dante’s Sins

 

In canto 33, Dante remains in the ninth circle. Here, Dante is talking to more sinners, one of which calls himself Count Ugalino, describes himself being starved while locked in a cage with his four sons. There was nothing but a small window in a tower that he named the Hunger Tower. “A cage in which still others will be locked, had, through its opening, already showed me several moons, when I dreamed that bad dream which rent the curtain of the future for me.” (Dante, 33.25) Are the punishments given for each sinner just? Being left to starve to death and enduring the pain of having to go through it with his children is torture, many of the punishments in hell have been torturous. Dante’s torture is his entire journey through the circles into hell.

It seemed to Dante that Ugalino and his sons were torn by sharp fangs, as Ugalino recounts hi and his sons in the Hunger Tower, his sons asking for bread. This upset Ugalino, and “out of my grief, I bit both my hands; and they, who thought I’d done that out of hunger, immediately rose and told me: ‘Father, it would be far less painful for us if you ate of us; for you clothed us in this sad flesh that is for you to strip off.'”..” And they all ended up dying of hunger. Once Ugalino watched all of his children die, he goes blind. He could not eat, and could not bear to the offer his children gave him to eat them, so he also starved to death.

Dante and Virgil passed through the ninth circle, stepping over sinners submerged in ice except for their heads. They are freezing and Dante describes not being able to feel his face when he says “because of cold, my every sense had left its dwelling in my face, just as a callus has no feeling, nonetheless,” Dante is now questioning what is happening to him when he asks Virgil he responds telling him that he will be where he is supposed to be soon. He will soon know why the wind blasts from above. (Dante, 33.106) The sinners now tell Dante that the last place has been assigned just for him. Dante tries to level with the sinner named Fra Alberigo, who murdered guests with fruit he tended to badly, in order to enter the last layer into hell. Dante is about to enter the very last circle into hell, and he is about to discover what his sin was after all.

 

Canto 33: Further Progression in Dante’s Callousness towards Sinners

             In Canto 33, we find Dante and Virgil pass through the 9th circle of Hell, where traitors to their country, guests, and hosts are punished. Canto 33 is a continuation of Canto 32. Betrayal is the major theme of Canto 33 and because of how deep these sinners are placed in Hell, it is evident how deeply Dante, the author, feels towards those capable of deception.

              Dante sees Count Ugolino, another historical figure, savagely eating Archbishop Ruggieri’s head, an image of cannibalism. Ugolino was a political nobleman in Pisa whose politics went wrong. Ugolino tells Dante his account of the past. Dante finds out that Ugolino was imprisoned for treason along with his sons and grandsons. Ugolino plotted to take over Pisa, an act of betrayal against his hometown. But Ruggieri betrays the betrayer, Ugolino. Ruggieri punishes Ugolino and his family and denies them food, so the sons die of starvation. Ugolino must watch his sons die for his crimes. It is not fully clear if Ugolino eats his sons or not but he states “Then hunger proved more powerful than grief”, which can indicate Ugolino actually eating his dead children. While this interpretation is certainly viable, Dante, the poet, does not necessarily place Ugolino there for eating his children, but because of the selfish betrayal of his hometown. As we have seen throughout Inferno, according to Dante, the writer, the place a person comes from is an incredibly important characteristic and makes that person who he or she is. Therefore, Dante, the writer, finds that the betrayal of one’s hometown must be severely punished.

As Dante and Virgil continue, they meet Fra Alberigo and Bronca. They live on Earth but their souls were sent to Hell, another example of duality in Inferno. Fra Alberigo invited his brother over for dinner and had his family assassinated. Branca’s sin is similar to Alberigo’s because he killed his father-in-law. These sinners are cold enough to kill family members, therefore they must eternally be frozen. They are punished by laying on freezing ice on the river Cocytus and when they cry, their tears freeze. This type of imprisonment is compelling because Hell is constantly represented with fire. The harsh freezing ice can symbolize the callousness of the sinners. Fra asks Dante to “stretch out your hand and open my eyes” but Dante gladly refuses to help him remove the frozen tears so he can cry some more. Dante, the writer, states, “I did not open them for him; and it was courtesy to treat him boorishly” (148-149), meaning being hostile towards this sinner was like a gift to Dante. Dante’s refusal to wipe away the tears mirrors the themes of betrayal and disloyalty in this Canto. Dante, the pilgrim, promises Alberigo that he will wipe away his tears when he states, “If you wish me to help you, tell me who you are” (115) but he is misleading because he readily does not fulfill those words.

It is important to pay attention to Dante’s lack of empathy in the final cantos. As he gets closer to reaching God, Dante’s comprehension of sins is stronger and he is gratified to let the sinners hurt in hell for eternity. From the start of Inferno, Dante, the pilgrim, is on a journey where his attitudes change as he progresses through Hell. He feels compassion and pity for sinners like Francesca, but as the sins grow in severity Dante, the pilgrim feels apathy and hatred towards the sinners. Dante certainly feels no empathy for sinners like Ugolino and Fra Alberigo because of the magnitude of their sins, according to Dante the poet. As Dante reaches the end of his journey in Hell, his pity lessens with each ensuing sinner he encounters. At the beginning of Inferno, empathy overcomes Dante, and he cries and literally faints for many hurting sinners, but by the end of Inferno, he does not even allow the sinners to cry for themselves.

The Punishment of Satan/The Contrapasso of Lucifer

Dante and Virgil Encounter Lucifer in Hell, 1923 Giclee Print by Henry John Stock

In Canto 34, Dante is introduced to Satan, “the creature who had once been beautiful.” (17-18) Dante’s descriptions of Satan are haunting, so haunting that Dante pauses the dialogue to engage the reader stating: “I became frozen and feeble, do not ask reader, for I do not write it, and all speech would be insufficient.” (22-24) But Satan’s real punishment isn’t just his eternal fate in hell. He’s doomed to forever be one with hell, punishing not only Judas, Brutus, and Cassius, but also the other members of the 9th circle with the cold beats of his bat-like wings. In other words, he’s reduced to a mechanism of hell, equivalent to other beasts and lower forms we’ve seen in other Cantos, like Cerberus or Plutus from upper hell.

The contrapasso of Lucifer is very evident. Not only through his punishment, but Dante’s descriptions of Lucifer. Almost without exception Dante refers to Satan’s prior perfection, literally a “light-bearer,” the translation of Lucifer: “If he was as beautiful then as now he is ugly, when he lifted his brow against his Maker.” (34-35) This further develops the idea of his punishment. A rebel against God, he is now doomed to forever remain a mechanism of God’s divine justice. A punishment to others who also violated God’s divine authority.

Lucifer’s physical punishment also reflects this contrapasso. Massive in size, but rooted in ice, Lucifer is both incredibly intimidating but at the same time utterly docile. This is further illustrated by his utter silence throughout the canto, forced to continue God’s will and chew sinners for eternally with three mouths, a parallel to the trinity.

I think that the geology of lower hell is very interesting, especially in reference to Satan. As Virgil and Dante leave the 9th circle to exit hell, Dante describes how “I raised my eyes, thinking to see Lucifer as I had left him, and I saw that he extended his legs upward.” (88-89) I like to think that this is a reference to the 8th circle, 3rd Bolgia, in which the feet of simonists are engulfed in flame. In a certain way, Satan too used his position in a different context for personal gain.

Ultimately, I think that the punishment of Lucifer is a poetic and powerful transition into Purgatorio. I think that because of Lucifer’s silence in the Canto and his diminished state as a mechanism of hell reflects the punishment of sinners in the Anti-Inferno, who aren’t recognized at all. While Satan is recognized, he isn’t glorified or even dignified by speech, as other sinners have been. He’s simply condemned to his fate and eternally frozen in the absence of God’s light, and warmth.

Elements of the Inferno in As Above So Below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8xPTba541s&t=605s

^youtube video analyzing the movie in relation to Dante’s Inferno

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLq3zSm5SkQ

^clip from the final scene of the the movie, emerging from the catacombs/Hell

Part of what makes Dante’s Inferno such an important text is that it is still very relevant today.  One example of this is the movie As Above So Below, which adapts some important concepts from the Inferno into its structure.  Throughout reading the Inferno, various references the movie had made became clear and the youtube video provided highlights many of those examples as well as a more in depth look at how the entire movie follows some of the themes from the Inferno.  Rather than repeating the things mentioned in the video, there are some very important ideas in the movie that have clearly been taken from Dante’s work which were not mentioned or not adequately discussed in the video.

One of the most unmistakeable references to the Inferno comes at the end of the movie, where they exit “Hell” or the catacombs.  This scene directly correlates to the scene in the Inferno where Dante and Virgil leave Hell.  Throughout their journey through the catacombs, the characters were told that the only way out is down–just like Dante and Virgil, they must travel through all of Hell before they can leave.  The most striking similarity comes when the group jumps down a deep well with a sewer grate at the bottom; believing in gravity and the downward direction they have been headed in this whole time, they try to lift up the grate but find that to get out they must push it down.  This is the same as the Pilgrim’s realization that he is climbing down Lucifer and not up as he had thought: “I raised my eyes, thinking to see Lucifer as I had left him, and I saw that his legs were extended upward” (canto 34, lines88-89).  This similarity continues after the emergence from Hell.  Dante describes the Pilgrim’s emergence out of Hell as the moment “I saw the beautiful things the heavens carry, through a round opening” (canto 34, lines136-138).  Dante is describing the stars and showing the reader that he comes out of Hell back to earth, not directly to purgatory.  This image Dante gives us is almost exactly the same as the image in As Above So Below, since the group is upside down, when they push the sewer grate they are looking up at the earth–through a round opening–and see nothing but the night sky, a tree, and a street light.  This image is taken directly out of Dante’s writing.

One other similarity between the movie and the Inferno that is not discussed much in the video is the saying “as above so below” itself.  This saying comes from alchemy and is explained in the movie with an image on the wall in the catacombs, shown in the youtube video at 9:08, this part in the movie explains that it is a symbol meant to show the connection between heaven and earth in alchemy–“as it is on earth so it will be in heaven”.  However, this movie has nothing to do with heaven, since the catacombs are a metaphor for Hell, so it is clear that this image (which is upside down) is inverted to mean “as it is on earth so it will be in hell” in relation to the characters in the movie.  This theory (although here cited as from alchemy–a practice damnable in Hell by Dante’s standards) bears a striking similarity to the theory of the contrapasso in the Inferno.  The contrapasso is essentially a punishment which fits the crime and the word itself is specifically associated with the Inferno.  Using the structure of the words in the movie, one could use “as one was on earth, so they will be in hell” or “as one is in life, so they will be in death” as a synonym or explanation of Dante’s contrapasso.  Dante’s use of the contrapasso creates some of the most striking images in the Inferno.  For example, Ugolino and Ruggieri in canto 33: as Ugonlino was starved to death by Ruggieri in life, so Ruggieri is eaten by the one he starved in death.

The final encounter – the most terrifying or the most puzzling?

 

 

Suloni Robertson

Lucifer (with Brutus, Judas, & Cassius)

I found this photo in a Circle 9 Gallery , The University of Texas at Austin, http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/gallery12.html

 

 Dante’s journey through hell is slowly coming to an end. As he walks on sinners (literally) completely submerged in thick ice, he can barely see, through dense fog, an enormous shape slowly appearing on the horizon (similar situation to when he saw the giants). Both the pilgrim and the readers anticipate to finally see not only the greatest sinner of them all but also the most terrifying and ultimate punishment that takes place at the very bottom of hell. Dante builds the suspense with the pilgrim’s words: “How do I became frozen and feeble, do not ask, reader, for I do not write it, and all speech would be insufficient.” (Divine Comedy, Canto XXXIV v. 22-24). Will this encounter with “the emperor of the dolorous kingdom” (Divine Comedy, Canto XXXIV v. 27) go beyond sadness, anguish, despair and growing cruelty that we saw through the pilgrim’s eyes in previous cantos? Or are we, the readers, up for a big disappointment?

First of all, although the physical appearance of the fallen angel might look horrifying end extremely bestial at first glance, it doesn’t seem so scary after more thorough observation. Lucifer is completely isolated, trapped in a frozen lake from the waist down. He has three faces with three different colors (yellow – impotence, red – ignorance, black – hate), which mirror the Trinity. As Barollini described it: “In spiritual terms, Lucifer is the antithesis of the Divine Trinity: Lucifer spirates death where the Trinity spirates love.” He moves his gigantic bat wings bringing about freezing wind that keeps the ice from melting.

Besides, the king of hell, although repulsive and frightful, is completely immobile. He performs several functions, in a very mechanical and repetitive way, that make him look like a robot. He mechanically bats his wings and continuously munches on three damned souls (Judas Iscariot, Brutus and Cassius). The bloody tears that come out of his monstrous eyes also seem robotic because there is no emotion to be seen in his face (or faces in this case) The repetitive and ongoing movement makes Lucifer extremely predictable, monotonous but also powerless. It is obvious that he is nothing but an instrument operated by God’s hands.

Moreover, Lucifer is completely mute, unable to express himself in any way. He is deprived of any voice, emotion or reaction. There is no communication between him and the pilgrim, no involvement or any part, no interest. This is completely different from what was presented in previous Cantos. Dante was able to communicate with the damned souls who expressed their reaction to the situation they found themselves in. Some of them asked the pilgrim to remember them when he gets back to the living. The sinners in previous cantos have a voice, some show emotions, some tell their stories and some just choose to stay silent and be eternally forgotten.

To sum up, the last encounter between the pilgrim and the king of hell seems a little puzzling and powerless, although expected to be powerful and dramatic. The characters do not have any kind of relationship or communication due to the fact that Lucifer is only a mechanical beast performing robotic functions. It comes as a surprise that he is in fact utterly insignificant, immobile, sterile and mute. Who I believed to be the biggest sinner at the bottom of hell is not in fact one of those being endlessly tormented. He is nothing but a tool in God’s hands, like other devils in hell. He doesn’t participate whatsoever in Dante’s moral growth, which will eventually bring him closer to God, but he does provide a passage for the pilgrim and his guide to Purgatorio.

The transition from torment, sin & evilness to spiritual cleansing, unification & praise

In canto 33, the sinner who is chewing on his neighbor raises his head and tells Dante that he is Count Ugolino from Pisa and he eats the head of Archbishop Ruggieri (who imprisoned Ugolino and his sons in a tower, where they starved to death). Ugolino re-tells his story to Dante, by saying that starvation led Ugolino to gnaw at his own hands and his sons mistook this for hunger and offered their bodies as food, willingly sacrificing their own bodies. Ugolino states, “There he died; and as you see me, I saw the three fall one by one between the fifth day and the sixth; and I, already blind, took to groping over each of them, and for two days I called them, after they were dead. Then fasting had more power than grief” (Canto 33, lines 70-75). Dante cries out against Pisa because Ugolino was a traitor, but his sons were starved to death as a punishment for Ugolino’s betrayal in which Dante the author accuses the Pisan government of unjustly punishing Ugolino’s sons. Dante uses this individual’s story (Ugolino) as a way to criticize an Italian town; unlike Dante the pilgrim’s previous journey where he faints from the pity from Francesca and Paolo’s story, Dante is learning to moderate his responses in regard to the suffering souls of the sinners. But for Dante the author, Ugolino’s betrayal of his city does not negate or make invalid the fact that Ugolino loves his sons and the grief Ugolino felt for his sons was genuine. Moving on to the next ring, one suffering soul begs Dante to pull the layer of frozen tears from his face, so that he can cry once more (even though these tears will freeze over his face again and again). Dante agrees as long as the spirit tells him his name, which is Fra Alberigo. Friar Alberigo killed his own brother after inviting him to a dinner. Dante learns Alberigo is not dead, but that this region of Hell called Ptolomaea (which reserves souls for those who betray guests; the demon in this circle holds the souls even before they have died). The bodies of these people are then possessed by demons on earth. He points out another suffering soul to Dante whom is Branca d’Oria, who Dante knows to be alive. Dante’s sense of God’s justice is evident as Fra Alberigo asks Dante to scrape the ice from his eyes but Dante refuses, saying “I did not open them for him; and it was courtesy to treat him boorishly” (Canto 33, lines 149-150). This canto draws a contrast between Dante’s criticism of the Pisan government, which demonstrates the imperfection of human beings and God, whose punishments may seem pitiless but are always just.

 

In canto 34, Virgil and Dante are approaching Hell and the king of Hell –Satan. Satan has three faces: one red, one yellow, and one black. Satan also has three pairs of wings that beat which causes the great wind and freezes the river. In each mouth he chews a sinner—Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus, and Brutus and Cassius, who betrayed Julius Caesar. Virgil and Dante then climb up onto Satan’s monstrous body. Dante holds tight to Virgil as they make the perilous climb up Satan’s body (which isn’t the first time they climb up something steep; which occurs in Canto 24-25 — when they cross the bridge). Dante and Virgil finally reach an area in which they can rest. Dante looks out from it, expecting to see Lucifer’s head, but instead Dante the pilgrim sees his legs stretching up before him, as if everything is upside down. Also, instead of night, its now morning. Virgil says they have passed through Earth into the Southern Hemisphere, and because Satan fell to Earth from Heaven in this hemisphere, there is no land, just ocean. As a transitional segue, Virgil gives more information about the structure of the world as he and Dante move towards Purgatorio. When Satan fell from Heaven, Virgil says, his impact caused a pit to form on Earth which became Hell. Dante looks up and is able to see the bright stars in the sky, which he hasn’t seen since entering hell. The symbolism of the three heads represents Dante’s tendency to mix Christian figures (the holy trinity) with those from Greek and Roman history and mythology. The other demons of Hell express emotion(s), however, Satan, as the manifestation of damnation doesn’t explain his circumstances or express any emotion; instead Satan seems automatic in a mechanical way – hence his tears and his violent, chewing of the sinners. Perhaps Dante the writer does this as way to show that while many of the other sinners are affected by evilness, they still remain fundamentally human; which is something readers are able to see in Virgil and Dante as well. However, pure evil (like Satan) contains no traces of humanity. The imagery in the ending of this canto is visually appealing when Dante writes, “My leader and I entered on that hidden path to return to the bright world; and, without taking care for rest at all, up we climbed, he first and I second, until I saw the beautiful things the heavens carry, through a round opening. And thence we came forth to look again at the stars” (canto 34, lines 133-139).  Dante the pilgrim is no longer in a dark wood: but instead is exiting from the world of torment, suffering and sin and heading towards a world signaling God’s presence: emerging into the light of God’s love. He has to more to learn on his journey and has to move forward, but at the end of Inferno, the cantica suggests that Dante the pilgrim is no longer lost.

 

Canto 1 in Purgatorio an important soul appears which is Cato — Cato who was a Roman politician and known for his defiance of Julius Caesar. Cato questions Dante and Virgil asking Virgil why he is in Purgatory, since Virgil’s soul is designated to Limbo and Dante is not yet dead. Virgil explains to Cato that their journey is permissioned by the heavenly figure Beatrice whom asked Virgil to lead Dante through the afterlife. Cato orders Virgil to prepare Dante by binding his waist with a reed and washing him clean of the filth of Hell. Because Cato is a non-Christian, it seems strange he welcomes souls entering into Purgatory. Therefore, Cato would seem to belong with Virgil in Limbo. In addition, another, more perceptible problem is Cato’s death is suicide, which he chose rather than surrender to his enemy Julius Caesar. Traditionally, Catholic religion held suicide to be among the greatest of mortal sins, and Dante puts those who died by suicide their own special place in Hell (canto 13 with Pier Della Vigna). However, Dante the poet, makes an exception for Cato, whose suicide is excused and even proves the politician’s righteous nature. Canto 2 in Purgatorio, there is a flash of light from across the sea which signals the approach of an angel coming towards Dante and Virgil, a sight that overpowers Dante when he states, “When, for a moment, I’d withdrawn my eyes that I might ask a question of my guide, I saw that light again, larger, more bright. Then, to each side of it, I saw a whiteness, though I did not know what that whiteness was; below, another whiteness slowly showed” (canto 2, lines 19-24). This angel is guiding a boat which contains departed souls heading towards Mount Purgatory. The souls ask Virgil and Dante for directions, but Virgil admits he knows nothing of the geography when he states, “but we are strangers here, just as you are” (canto 2, line 63). Dante recognizes a friend, a musician named Casella (who is also a passenger of the boat). As Dante moves to embrace Casella, he is surprised because he grasps only air. Casella talks with Dante about life back in Italy then sings a song — Dante pleasantly listens to the soul when he says, “he then began to sing—and sang so sweetly that I still hear that sweetness sound in me” (canto 2, 113-114). Other souls join Dante in listening to the song but Casella leaves in a hasty departure. Although Dante is not dead yet, he is welcomed by the penitents with curiosity and politeness. This is one difference noted between Purgatory and Hell is that Purgatory is structured around this idea of fellowship with others, whereas the souls in Hell are cut off from God and from one another (like Farinata and Cavalcanti are in the same tombstone but don’t communicate and acknowledge each other). The damned are physically near one another, their sinful behavior causes them to be in a terrible form of solitary confinement. The singing from Cato and the souls listening also displays a type of form such as reciting psalms and singing hymns. Therefore, Purgatory consists of souls who come together in divine praise.

Blog post due on April 1

There is no particular instruction for this post, but you should aim at writing a “mini paper” (3 paragraphs with a thesis) following the checklist from Sylvan Barnett’s book A Short Guide to Writing about Art. It’s a good checklist even when you are not writing about visual arts.

You should blog about cantos 33-34 of Inferno and 1-2 of Purgatorio, unless you would like to discuss something from canto 26-29 that we haven’t discussed in class.

Reflective Post 1

Going through my blog posts I started to appreciate some of the changes I’ve made when writing a response to the work of Dante. I see a lot less discussion of the text in my earlier posts than I do in more recent published works, and I think that that’s a real and tangible improvement. I stand by the topics I’ve written about, though I think that as my perception of Dante and his Comedy have been refined and developed, so too have my topics of discussion. I think that I’ve made a lot of progress since my first post, and that I’ve better and more effectively engaged and built-off of the text in my posts.

Comparing my oldest and most recent work you can really start to see a lot of improvements. Not just in analysis, but also in how I engage with the text. I used a lot more quotes than I think was necessary in my first few posts. Not exactly a bad thing, but something I think could have been better considering my current works which rely a lot less on excerpts from the text, and more on an analysis of what Dante’s really saying through the Inferno. While the quotes establish a good dialogue and development of the text as I build up to my arguments, reflecting on them now I think these quotes really result in more of a summation than analysis. My second assignment on Canto 7 really shows this, especially through descriptions like “Just as these souls went against the will of Fortune, a device of God, they now take what they have (their weights) and collide and push against each other, a metaphor for their behavior on Earth.” While I stand by the post itself, which focuses on the degrees of sin and the idea of contrapasso, I think that my work has improved a lot from this base. I think that my analysis is a lot more thorough in recent posts than it was in posts like “Dante’s Vision of Contrapasso in the Punishment of Sin,” which isn’t to say that posts like these are bad, only that I’ve developed beyond them.

I noticed a main focus in my works, or a favorite topic at the very least. My favorite works so far are those which include Dante’s perception of God’s “Divine Plan,” and the construction of the Inferno with the intention of contrapasso. Dante’s exploration of contrapasso in the Inferno is something I find very interesting, as readers can probably tell from the numerous times that I’ve brought it up through my blog posts. My favorite post so far has likely been my analysis of the “Progression of the Recognition of Sin,” a post drawing a line between the sinners in the first couple bolgia and the “anti-inferno” from the first few Cantos of the Inferno. I think that the parallels between sin and punishment as well as the parallels between sinners in the Inferno (as I explore in my post) are fascinating, and it’s ideas like this that I feel really embody my development through these posts. In earlier posts, I think I was really just getting my footing in the Inferno. And now with a better understanding of Dante and the construction of his Inferno, I feel that a lot of my ideas are a lot more free-flowing and interesting, especially now that I’ve really solidified an interest in Dante’s work.

Ultimately I think my posts are improving, but they still need work. I think that my topics are improving in terms of thought, but in terms of writing I think I can still do better. A lot of my main shortcomings are a result of relying on the text a lot more than I should, and while I feel that I’ve definitely progressed a lot from that, I can certainly continue to improve.

Reflective Post 1

After reading my posts i realized that my first couple of posts were solely narrative posts as I failed to fully engage with the text. It was only during the next few that i was starting to engage and analyze the cantos. I noticed that my more successful posts were focused on Virgil as i find him to be a more interesting character than Dante.

Writing is definitely not my strong suit as bits of grammatical errors are sprinkled across my posts. Critical analysis and finding hidden meanings are things that I always struggled with, it never seems to click in my head. With a classical work such as The Divine Comedy it increases the difficulty of analyzing for me as now i must struggle to even grasp the most surface level understanding from the text. One thing that i should really improve upon is adding more text from the cantos into my posts to help support my analysis. There is also the lack of outside sources to draw from like Barolini’s comments or the comments from the book, these are insightful comments that have a much deeper understanding of Dante’s Divine Comedy and can provide me a better understanding of the text so i am able to grasp the topics and themes that Dante explores in his text.