Dante's Divine Comedy
Dante and civilisational decline. A dispatch on disillusionment in politics
Dante lived through a period of almost total social collapse. Civil war and city-state terror, practiced by the church as much as secular powers, drove him into exile for the last 20 years of his life. For a while, he lost everything. But then, through the trauma, he regained a ground and rediscovered the fullness of life.
The Divine Comedy is the product of that transformation. The journeys through hell, purgatory and paradise hold nothing back, be that terrible tortures of extraordinary delights. He wrote for himself, for his readers including us, but also as a warning to his time and future times, such as our ours.
So what has Dante got to say to now? What does his analysis illuminate? Much, I think, as I explore in this thought.
For more on Dante and my own book see - https://www.markvernon.com/books/dantes-divine-comedy-book
My earlier thoughts on Plato, Aristotle and Jesus are at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts.
Dante lived through a period of almost total social collapse. Civil war and city-state terror, practiced by the church as much as secular powers, drove him into exile for the last 20 years of his life. For a while, he lost everything. But then, through the trauma, he regained a ground and rediscovered the fullness of life.
The Divine Comedy is the product of that transformation. The journeys through hell, purgatory and paradise hold nothing back, be that terrible tortures of extraordinary delights. He wrote for himself, for his readers including us, but also as a warning to his time and future times, such as our ours.
So what has Dante got to say to now? What does his analysis illuminate? Much, I think, as I explore in this thought.
For more on Dante and my own book see - https://www.markvernon.com/books/dantes-divine-comedy-book
My earlier thoughts on Plato, Aristotle and Jesus are at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts.