As a high school student I was assigned Dante’s Inferno. Well, selections from, although being an overachiever I did read the whole thing. Unfortunately, this is no way to go about doing things, although in hindsight I oughtn’t be surprised that our glorious public education system prefers to teach children about Satan, or to dwell on sin without repentance or redemption.
Pictured: Divine Retribution. Not Pictured: Divine Mercy.
The benefit to only reading Inferno is that it’s easy. Both of the other poems contain extensive and often oblique astronomical references, for one thing. The imagery and allegory is also more complex, although more so in Paradiso. Unfortunately, limiting a reader to Inferno makes Dante, not to mention God, come across as somewhat petty. This is related to the larger problem, that of teaching about sin without redemption.
It’s all well and good for modern students to gloat about how unenlightened it is to consign sodomites to a burning desert in the 7th Circle of Hell. How many go on to read in the Purgatorio of the sodomites who joyously greet their womanizing counterparts as brothers in penitence before ascending to Heaven? A handful of specialists and eccentrics, that’s who. Such it is for every other category of sinner in the Comedy. In addition to the contrast between the repentant and the damned, of course, is that between the angels and the demons. And the nature of suffering in Hell and Purgatory.
The Paradiso is more difficult than the Purgatorio, and much more mystic. Perhaps it should not be imposed on disinterested schoolboys. But if you’re going to make someone read about damnation, you ought to make them read about repentance and purification as well.
The Paradiso does have its merits. Who wore this better?
Apparently the Italians do, as a matter of course, teach the entire Divine Comedy to schoolchildren over the course of several grades. No surprise there. Should English-speaking grade schools do this? Probably not, although that will have to wait for another post.
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