Greed And Damnation In Dante's Inferno

Within the Second Circle of Hell, the souls of the Lustful swirl about in the wind, swept helplessly through the stormy air. Dante immediately feels sympathy for these souls, because they are basically damned by love. One soul named Francesca, tells to Dante how love was her downfall. Already married, she fell in love with Paolo da Rimini, her husband’s younger brother. One day they could not resist kissing, and Francesca’s husband had the young lovers killed. Now Paolo and Francesca are doomed to spend eternity in the Second Circle of Hell. Upon hearing this, Dante is overcome with pity and faints.

Throughout the rest of the pilgrimage, Virgil teaches Dante that he must learn not to pity the damned. While Virgil is not teaching Dante to be

The pilgrim is shocked to see his beloved teacher suffering in Hell, since it was he who fathered Dante’s writing career. Latini tells Dante to “follow your constellation” (Canto 15, line 55), and you will achieve success. However, this is a seductive lie, because to serve one’s own ego can only lead to unfruitfulness and damnation. For Latini, eternal life is fame, so in order to achieve immortality, a writer, must write for the sake of fame. This belief is what has earned Brunetto a place in Hell, because he was devoted to promoting himself, thus not living a fruitful life. This is why Latini is condemned to spend eternity walking in a scorched desert with fellow sodomites, because they too are considered to have been sterile and fruitless. Therefore, in order for an artist to be a fruitful creator, they must serve higher truths, realities beyond his own self-interest, but the greater the artist’s talent, the greater the temptation to fall into

That may sound charitable, but really it would have been Latini promoting himself through Dante. He only wishes to have gained more fame as the being the one who taught a famous writer. At this stage in his journey, Dante the pilgrim can’t fully appreciate is that Latini is only flatterer. Though Latini is not consciously trying to mislead Dante, or else he would have been in the circle of False Counselors further down, he really is misleading Dante into vanity and pity, which is opening himself up to sin. Again, the point of Dante’s journey through Hell is to restore his understanding of how sin works, and how we fall victim to it. Dante’s love for his old teacher, and his respect for his master’s authority, stand to trip Dante