Dante's Inferno: Canto the Canto Is Moving Essay

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Dante's Inferno: Canto

The canto is moving in that it depicts the passionate love of one for another and how, even once killed, both will stay together for eternity. No wonder that this canto and the love of Francesca for Paolo have remained a favorite of classical artists. And yet I am left with confused conclusions regarding what Dante wants to convey. On the one hand, he puts the lovers in Hell, but on the other hand he faints for them and seems to feel more suffering and empathy with these citizens of Hell (that even seem, through their love, to triumph over their surroundings) that it seems as thoguh Dante criticizes the ruthlessness of their suffering and may even condemn it as senseless. Torn between the fervently religious mores of his time that perceived even meek extra-marital love as adulterous and between his own romantic experiences, it seems to me that Dante sides with the lovers and attempts to arouse our sympathy for them and denunciation of their suffering.

Analysis fo the Canto shows us that on the one hand, Dante places the lovers in Hell indicating that even thoguh Francesca was married to an elderly, deformed person (and by the description we infer that she likely felt little love for him) and even thoguh the lovers seemed to feel pure love for oen another, rather than lust, and their sin was merely a kiss, yet Hell was their destination. In this way, Dante seems to have considered their love, even in its muted restrained form, adulterous and, therefore, a sin. Dante, we can say, was, after all, a product of his time.

Nonetheless, consider too that they were placed in the second orbit of Hell, the least severe of all levels, and that their murderer was destined for the most severe of all. In this way, Dante seems to imply that their adulterous affair, thoguh not totally forgiven, could at least be understood whilst the murderer was irreversibly denounced. So severe was it that murderer was, in fact, relegated to the lowest level of all. Whilst "Love has conducted us unto one death" comments Francesca, "Caina waiteth him who quenched our life!"

That Dante seemed to have a soft spot towards the lover's situation could be seen from the various descriptions accorded the scene.

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For instance:

My voice uplift I: "O ye weary souls!

Come speak to us, if no one interdicts it."

The lovers floated towards him, and Dante enthuses:

As turtle-doves, called onward by desire,

With open and steady wings to the sweet nest

Fly through the air by their volition borne,

So came they from the band where Dido is,

Approaching us athwart the air malign,

So strong was the affectionate appeal.

The depiction reminds one of angels and is intended to evoke pity in us. Their being hand in hand, eternally together and the glances of love exchanged between the couple also make them endearing. And then there is Dante's faint:

And all the while one spirit uttered this,

The other one did weep so, that, for pity,

I swooned away as if I had been dying,

And fell, even as a dead body falls.

Dante, undoubtedly, allies himself with the lovers and makes us feel along with him the hardness of their suffering, which seems out of balance to their crime. In a way, Dante too may be indicating that the lovers, being together forever, will be victorious over Hell. That their love helps them prevail.

Dante himself, as shown in the Purgatorio, experienced desire, and, consequently, saw romantic love as being too powerful and almost impossible o control. He, therefore, excused those who were unfaithful to their spouses, particularly if the breach were relatively minor. Love to him mastered all and we may perhaps read this in his prose. ..

Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving,

Seized me with pleasure of this man so strongly,

That, as thou seest, it doth not yet desert me;

Love has conducted us unto one death

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