The Moral Situation of the Reader of Inferno

(Robert Hollander)
One of the most difficult problems for a twenty-first-century
reader of the Comedy is to find a moral point of view from
which to consider the actions portrayed in the poem. Doing so
is not quite as problematic for readers of the last two cantiche, in
which those on their way to becoming saints in heaven and
those already there contribute to the establishment of a moral
ground that is unmistakable. Even a non-Christian reader can-
not overlook the essential moral meaning of these parts of the
work. Inferno, on the other hand, at least seems to be a far less
morally-defined space. Indeed, debates about how we are
meant to respond to the most attractive sinners whom we meet
in hell have been frequent features of nineteenth- and twenti-
eth-century discussions of the poem. This will not be an attempt
to review that debate, but only to describe its most salient fea-
tures.

The rediscovery of Dante in Europe at the end of the eighteenth

century brought his poem into a context that tended to reformu-
late its moral argument. Later Romantic readers only widened
this tendency. The understanding of Dante that we eventually
find in many authoritative late-nineteenth (e.g., Francesco De
Sanctis) and early-twentieth-century (e.g., Benedetto Croce) crit-
ics does not, one should probably agree, conform with the text
its author left us. How may we define this view of the poem? In
keeping with some of the most attractive tenets of Romantic
artistic values -- spontaneity of expression, vividness of por-
trayed emotion, gravity of subject matter, integrity of the
writer's feeling -- Dante became, as it were, a contemporary of
the Romantics. The core of such a view is located in the moral
point of view of the critic, not in that of the poem. In a not-very-
exaggerated shorthand, Francesca, one of the most beguiling of
Dante's sinners, replaces the sainted Beatrice as the guarantor of
the poem's (and the poet's) greatness; Dante becomes the unri-
valled portraitist of Great Feeling. The debate that continues
into our own day has its roots in the Romantic rediscovery of
Dante, one based particularly on readings of the most moving
figures in the Inferno: Francesca da Rimini (canto V), Farinata
degli Uberti (canto X), Pier delle Vigne (canto XIII), Brunetto La-
tini (canto XV), Ulysses (canto XXVI), and Ugolino della Gher-
ardesca (canto XXXIII), with Francesca, Ulysses, and Ugolino
representing perhaps the three most beloved and discussed of
Dante's Infernal characters.

It is not my purpose to argue that Dante's "sympathetic sinners"

are not indeed sympathetic, but that we, as readers, are meant
to avoid the trap into which the poem's protagonist himself sev-
eral times falls. We should try to honor the distinction the text
itself clearly draws, that between a narrator, who has had a
journey through the created universe, culminating in his vision
of God, and who, as a result, understands all things about as
well as a human being can, and a protagonist who moves, like
St. Augustine before him (in Dante's own formulation [Con-
v.I.ii.14]), "from not good to good, from good to better, and
from better to best," when at the last he becomes the narrator
([Par I 1-36]). Dante's poem creates some of its drama from the
tension that operates between the narrator's view of events (in
Inferno often represented by Virgil's interpretive remarks) and
that of the protagonist. What makes our task difficult is that at
some pivotal moments neither the narrator nor Virgil makes
clear judgmental statements of a moralizing kind. Instead, the
poet uses irony to undercut the alluring words of sinners who
present themselves rather as victims than as perpetrators of out-
rage in the eye of God. The commentary that accompanies the
text of the poem will frequently analyze the subtleties of Dante's
presentation of these sympathetic sinners. Here, speaking more
generally, I would like to resuscitate an old gloss of Guido da
Pisa (Guido.Inf.XX.28-30), who puts the matter succinctly: "Sed
circa miserias damnatorum, Sacra Pagina attestante, nulla com-
passione movetur. Et ratio est ista: In isto enim mundo est tem-
pus misericordie; in alio autem, est solum tempus iustitie" (But
the suffering of the damned should move no one to compas-
sion, as the Bible attests. And the reason for this is that the time
for mercy is here in this world, while in the world to come it is
time only for justice). If it was John Milton's task to "justify the
ways of God to men" (Paradise Lost I, 26), Dante before him had
taken on the responsibility of showing that all that is found in
this world and in the next is measured by justice. Everything in
God is just; only in the mortal world of sin and death do we
find injustice. It is the mark of Cain on most human agents. And
it is small wonder that Dante believes that it is only few alive in
his time who will find salvation ([Par XXXII 25-27]). Words for
"justice" and "just" recur frequently in the poem, the noun some
thirty-five times, the adjective, some thirty-six. If one were
asked to epitomize the central concern of the poem in a single
word, "justice" might embody the best choice.

In the Inferno we see the justice of God insisted on from the

opening lines describing hell proper, the inscription over the
gate of hell: "Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore" (Justice moved
my maker on high). If God is just, it follows logically that there
can be absolutely no question concerning the justness of His
judgments. All who are condemned to hell are justly con-
demned. Thus, when we observe that the protagonist feels pity
for some of the damned, we are meant to realize that it is he
who is at fault. This is perhaps the most available test of us as
readers. If we sympathize with the damned, we follow a bad ex-
ample. In such a view, the protagonist's at times harsh reaction
to various sinners, e.g., Filippo Argenti (canto VIII), Pope
Nicholas III (canto XIX), Bocca degli Abati (canto XXXII), is not
(even if it seems so to some contemporary readers) a sign of his
falling into sinful attitudes himself, but proof of his righteous
indignation as he learns to hate sin.

If some readers think that the protagonist is too zealous in his

reaction to some sinners, far more are of the opinion that his
sympathetic responses to others correspond to those that we
ourselves may legitimately feel. To be sure, Francesca is por-
trayed more sympathetically than Thaïs (canto XVIII), Ulysses
than Mosca dei Lamberti (canto XXVIII), etc. Yet it also seems to
some readers that Dante's treatment of Francesca, Ulysses, and
others asks us to put the question of damnation to one side,
leaving us to admire their most pleasing human traits in a
moral vacuum, as it were. I think it is better to understand that
we are never authorized by the poem to embrace such a view. If
we are struck by Francesca's courteous speech, we note that she
is also in the habit of blaming others for her own difficulties; if
we admire Farinata's magnanimity, we also note that his soul
contains no room for God; if we are wrung by Pier delle Vigne's
piteous narrative, we also consider that he has totally aban-
doned his allegiance to God for his belief in the power of his
emperor; if we are moved by Brunetto Latini's devotion to his
pupil, we become aware that his view of Dante's earthly mis-
sion has little of religion in it; if we are swept up in enthusiasm
for the noble vigor of Ulysses, we eventually understand that he
is maniacally egotistical; if we weep for Ugolino's piteous pater-
nal feelings, we finally understand that he, too, is centrally con-
cerned with himself.

Dante's risky technique was to trust us, his readers, with the re-
sponsibility for seizing upon the details in the narratives told by
these sympathetic sinners in order to condemn them on the evi-
dence that issues from their own mouths. It was indeed, as we
can see from the many readers who fail to take note of this evi-
dence, a perilous decision for him to have made. Yet we are giv-
en at least two totally clear indicators of the attitude that should
be ours. Twice in Inferno figures from heaven descend to hell to
further God's purpose in sending Dante on his mission. Virgil
relates the coming of Beatrice to Limbo. She tells him, in no un-
certain terms, that she feels nothing for the tribulations of the
damned and cannot be harmed in any way by them or by the
destructive agents of the place that contains them ([Inf II 88-
93]). All she longs to do is to return to her seat in Paradise ([Inf
II 71]). And when the angelic intercessor arrives to open the
gates of Dis, slammed shut against Virgil, we are told that this
benign presence has absolutely no interest in the situation of the
damned or even of the living Dante. All he desires is to com-
plete his mission and be done with such things ([Inf IX 88], [Inf
IX 100-103]), reminding us of Beatrice's similar lack of interest in
the damned.

Such indicators should point us in the right direction. It is a con-

tinuing monument to the complexity of Dante's poem and to
some readers' desire to turn it into a less morally- determined
text than it ultimately is that so many of us have such difficulty
wrestling with its moral implications. This is not to say that the
poem is less because of its complexity, but precisely the oppo-
site. Its greatness is reflected in its rich and full realization of the
complex nature of human behavior and of the difficulty of
moral judgment for living mortals. It asks us to learn, as does
the protagonist, as we proceed. His journey is the model for our
voyage through his text.

(February 1998)