I realize after having gone over my notes from this week I have done a sort of deconstruction of Dante's Divine Comedy which attempts to raise readers to transcendent heights and focus love on the love of God. Especially during Canto VI-XI, Dante's exile due to the black guelphs power modivates Dante to send all those who have betrayed him into the exile of hell. In this sense the poem is also an exposition of the value of the higher human faculties, which contrasts at times rather vividly with the apparently harsh autocratic fates that are assigned to some characters--who do not seem quite deserving of what is inflicted upon them. Here I find tention between absolute faith in the judgment of God and human reason and compassion which sometimes conventional theology throughout, it is clear Dante has difficulty in avoiding the depiction of characters for whom he has a secret sympathy. Virgil even disaproves of his compassion, arguing that God's justice is always correct and if God carries out his anger through punishment, so should Dante.
Dante offers such a perspective almost in spite of himself that his poem transcends the mind and becomes relevant to all ages and cultures. As a rule of thumb, when one finds one's instinctual convictions about how to proceed in conflict with one's theories and set of rules, something is wrong. It is with the greatest trepidation readers attempt to understand Dante's "myth."
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