Why Does Dante Consider Sodomy Worse Than Homicide & Suicide?
New Oxford Review ^ | Anne Barbeau Gardiner
Dante's Divine Comedy, the most sublime religious poem the Christian West has produced in two thousand years, provides us to this day with profound insights into human nature. In the Inferno Dante provides us with a vivid, unforgettable image of what Christians have always believed about sodomites. He places them in the seventh circle of Hell, the fiery circle of the violent, far below the lustful heterosexuals of the second circle. Why this big separation? The answer is extremely important and revealing. Dante wants us to understand that homosexuals do not suffer in life from a deficiency of the will, as lustful heterosexuals do in failing to control their natural urges. Rather, they engage in a willful defiance of Nature. Indeed, Dante presents them as violent against Nature.
It is Dante's geography that contains the central meaning of his great poem. So first, let us see the …More