Copia di Purgatorio, Canto 33,

As Dante meets with Beatrice in canto 30 of Purgatory, and especially as he starts his journey to Paradise, a great contrast is built. Not only in the contrast between heaven and hell which itself is heavily evident, but also in Dante’s perception of both. A concept I found interesting is how Dante’s comprehension of God’s Divine will in Cantos 32-33 of Purgatory is a struggle to say the least. The waters of the Lethe (Canto 33 Purg., 96) and their impact on Dante are just one example, and in Beatrice’s own words; “the school that you have followed and may see if what it taught can comprehend what I have said – and see that, as the earth is distant from the highest and the swiftest of the heavens, so distant is your way from the divine,” (Canto 33 Purg., 85-90) or in other words, Dante’s perception of the way things work is exclusive to the human experience, and because of this he struggles to comprehend the “highest and swiftest” of divine will. This idea is further illustrated in Canto 1 of Paradiso, in which Dante describes the incredible sights he sees as he enters heaven, so incredible that “our intellect sinks into an abyss so deep that memory fails to follow it,” and he is unable to remember the sights, and is only left with the knowledge that they were beyond the human eye.

I found this idea interesting, especially considering how the sins of those in Inferno are not hard to perceive by Dante. He even finds himself relating to many of them and reacting to them emotionally, despite the advice of Virgil that pity for the sins of others is in it of itself a sin. The only real struggle Dante describes in Inferno is accurately capturing the nature of punishment, a severe contrast to the latter cantos of Purgatorio and those of Paradiso. I found this poetic, because it argues that the sins of Inferno are well situated in human perception and experience, while the light of God and his true intentions are far beyond our gaze.

Dante’s perception of Heaven and Hell is a mechanism through which poet Dante expresses the relativity of the human mind. He presents sin and punishment as something human perception is accustomed to, an element in our nature. Whereas in Paradiso, he demonstrates that divine will and the ultimate nature of heaven are truly beyond our gaze grounded on earth. In a certain way, Dante’s own sin and affiliation with it because of human nature is exactly what holds him from the actuality of God’s divine will.

Sidenote: My final paper will be an analysis of Contrapasso throughout Inferno, and its representation in art. I plan to go into depth on four major artists and their interpretations of Contrapasso in Inferno in addition to Dante’s descriptions of Contrapasso during his journey and after the last judgement. Finally, I hope to tie all of this together with an additional theme in Inferno: the relation between Art from Nature, and Nature from God.

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