The Degree Of Evil In Dante's Inferno

As human beings, we constantly make sinful mistakes and we seek to find the degree of how badly each sin really is. There are the individuals who seek to find these degrees or levels of severity in the context of what society deems fit and to conform to society’s needs. Then there are the spiritually involved individuals who seek the answer from a religious standpoint, in order to calculate where they stand in terms of the afterlife. This is where the great poet Dante Alighieri gave his input on the different sins of his time and the degree of evil that corresponds to each sin. He shared his thoughts with the world in his epic poem Inferno. Although he wrote about the sins of his time, it can be stated that sin is everlasting and unchanging.

If it was not for Dante’s “reverence”(456) towards key religious figures, which Dante suggest Pope Nicholas once showed the same type of respect to, he would have “harsher words than these”(456). Dante’s use of reverence adds a sense of irony as it contradicts with the objective of his response, which is to scorn Nicholas. It also displays that his passion and anger can be expressed with much more animosity, which can implicitly display to the reader how he dislikes simonists. It also adds a derisive tone because Dante points out that Nicholas was once like him who upheld his own reverence towards key spiritual figures. However, he quickly rescinds this statement as he describes his lust for greed in an elaborate style of diction. Dante tells Nicholas that his “avarice brings grief upon the world, crushing the good, exalting the depraved”(456). The diction that is used all set a tone of calamity and despair as they exemplify the evil that is being committed through simonists. The use of this type of diction also portrays Dante as personally knowing Nicholas and attacking him as if he personally did him wrong as well. It also embodies Nicholas as the pillar for all simonists and he attacks him verbally in such a