contrappasso dante

TITLE: THE CONTRAPPASSO
The Divine Comedy was written by Dante Alighieri ,approximately between 1306 and 1309, when Dante was under the final sentence of exile. Historical thought is that the first seven songs, of hell, were started before Dante left Florence, and that only at a later time when the writings were sent to him he continued to write them.
Hell is conceived by Dante as a giant chasm in a conical shape that opens from Jerusalem to the center of the earth. Hell is divided into nine concentric circles that extend up to the frozen lake of Cocytus , where Lucifer, the prince of darkness, had been put.
The initial structure of hell opens with the Antinferno where the angels are punished because in the battle between God and Lucifer they remained neutral; with them the slothful are also punished, they are those people who during their lives have never stood on the side of good or bad.
After the Antinferno is Acheron and with him we enter the first circle called Limbo, where we find the souls of children who die without receiving baptism, and all those who were born before God, but that followed all the good habits of humans . They are devoid of physical torment but are psychologically tormented for not having known the true God. The beginning of true Hell, characterized by the most terrible physical pain, starts at this point . To determine the punishment of the damned Dante draws on medieval legal tradition and the practice of the law of his time. The criterion of punishment is called ‘’contrappasso’’ . By contrappasso (but Dante is one- p) , we mean the correspondence, the relationship between guilt and penalty attached to the various sinners. The first example of contrappasso is in canto III, where the slothful, who never took a position, do not ever pursue an ideal and are doomed to run without stopping behind a streamer with no meaning . They are pierced by wasps and hornets , which stimulate them as they never had been stimulated during their lives in. In this case, the relationship is clearly in opposition to other similarities, such as in Canto V , the lustful, who in life had been transported by the breeze of passion and in hell are caught in a hellish storm that never stops . So those who comment on Dante speak of a retaliation for opposition or contrast , and an analogy :
• by analogy , the penalty is equal to sin : for example, the lustful , that are left overwhelmed by the passion of love and now are overwhelmed by a storm ;
• by contrast , the penalty is the opposite of sin : for example, the sloths (those who have never taken sides ) are forced to run for eternity behind a white banner . This is actually the application of an ancient principle of law and morality, the law of retaliation ( affirmed several times in the Bible) , which consisted precisely in imposing on the offender the same kind of damage he had caused to others ( it is the same as the Mosaic Law according to the formula an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth) . In addition to the biblical tradition , Dante also refers to other precedents of this kind. It is a theoretical formulation in the scholastic philosophy of St. Thomas (according to which the sins must be treated with the penalties to the contrary, that is, in the opposite direction) and a practical application in literature. The explicit mention of the term " contrappasso " you have in song XXVIII .
In the fifth canto we find Dante and Virgil in the second circle, controlled and operated by Minos, who judges the souls of sinners and destined to the various circles of hell depending on their guilt. The guardian of the second circle , Minos, the legendary King of Crete , confesses the damned , applies the divine sanctions and distributes them in the various circles of hell, grabbing them with his tail and throwing them down at the destination they deserve. Minos is transfigured by Dante into a grotesque monster , in the light of medieval folk culture : he growls like a dog and punishes mercilessly. After being able to overcome this mythological guardian , Dante understands that he is among those who suffer the sin of lust in the course of their existence, a well-known sin to the poet himself . His master shows several illustrious souls that wander around them, continually dragged here and there by an incessant wind : this is the punishment that they must serve . The tradeoff says that as in life they were dragged by the passion of the senses now they are driven by a storm .
The poet 's attention is directed particularly to Paolo and Francesca. Francesca da Polenta was married to Gianciotto Malatesta of Rimini , who was lame and clumsy and who had a beautiful brother Paolo . Paolo and Francesca fall in love but Gianciotto discovers and kills them.
We have just experienced one of the most famous songs of the Divine Comedy where the two protagonists Paolo and Francesca were killed. The next song will speak instead of people who have committed suicide : The canto 13. We are now in the second circle of Dante's seventh circle of hell the area in which the most violent are punished. It is divided into three sections , which are the violent against others, against oneself ( suicides and spendthrifts ) and against God, Nature and art ( blasphemers, sodomites , and usurers ) .

And in my opinion is interesting to note that according to Dante and according to the Catholic mentality of the time; suicide is a sin more serious than murder, because it represents a total rejection of life, seen as the greatest gift of God. We also note that the spendthrifts have the same punishment as the suicides.To destroy their own heritage is a kind of suicide and takes away dignity from man .
Then , seeing as the places of Dante's Inferno are often difficult to conceptualize, the poet calls for a greater understanding for the reader, a real-world environment . He chooses the Maremma , characterized (at that time ) by a patchy vegetation , of low shrubs and spiky hedges . Here begins a dialogue between Dante and Virgil. The latter, including the desires of Dante , invites him to break a branch of a bush that is close to him to help him realize truth . So the branch of Pier della Vigna breaks (not Pier della Vigna’s bush, because the bush is the soul, infact not only words come out the the bush but also blood) and so and the intricate dialogue full of figures of speech begins . The condition of suicides is fully expressed by the Pier della Vigna at verse 37 with a “chiasmo” , " uomini fummo, e or siam fatti sterpi " ( noun + verb + verb + noun ) , and already from this verse we can understand the contrappasso : the suicides are transformed into plants, the shape of the inner life , because they have rejected their human condition by killing themselves. Therefore (by analogy )they are not worthy to regain their body , even when the day of Judgement arrives.
The song 33 speaks of another large group of those sinners that Dante respects the least and who are therefore placed in the lowest circle near Lucifer : the traitors .
Dante therefore condemns the traitors to the lowest part of hell because they are despicable beings who practice falsehood , deceit and betrayal . They are low and degraded specimens of life , and their place in the geography of hell is just the mirror of their degradation : below them, there is no other category of the damned.
Among the four types of traitors there is no substantial difference because they all live in the ice , albeit in different positions. And there is no substantial difference even between the four frozen areas that host them , among which there is no evidence of any sharp boundary , in contrast to other areas of hell.
The tradeoff in song 33 is difficult to define . Almost all scholars have thought of a retaliation by analogy : the traitors have shown coldness of heart in life, and are forced to live in hell in the ice.

Some have thought , however, that the ice where they will live eternally as traitors is in contrast with the fire of charity which should animate the hearts of men , in which case we would be facing a form of retaliation for contrast.

Ugolino says that , after several months of being imprisoned in the tower of Gualandi , which because of its history was called " tower of hunger." Dante called it muda , which, according to Buti, " is a place where they hold birds ", that is to change their feathers . The tower is a dark and dreary place where the only light that penetrates is that of the moon at night with its rays filtering through a small hole , it makes it even more frightening , ghostly , eerie .

Ugolino while he was imprisoned in the tower of hunger had a terrible and frightening dream , a harbinger of doom . So the story will cover the last days of imprisonment and death. Ugolino dreamt that the Archbishop Ruggieri attended a wolf hunt , led by himself and by Gualandi , by Sismondi and Lanfranchi , accompanied by hungry bitch dogs ready, deft and experienced in the pursuit of prey. After a brief chase , the wolf cubs and his sons were reached by the dogs , bitten on the hips and torn to the flesh . This was a premonitory dream , which represent the feelings , fears , fearful expectations that had lived like phantoms of the mind of Ugolino even before the dream . After the premonitory dream which takes place during the night , we are on the first day : the Count realizes that the transition from dream to reality has marked the bitter awakening that makes him take note of the substantial truth of what he dreamt of. Aside from the fact that the dreams of the morning were considered truthful , there is the impact of the true reality that pushes Ugolino to read the warning signs in the dream of the tragedy. And indeed he hears his sons crying from hunger.

Dante curses Pisani for having condemned , not the father, but the innocent boys to a merciless end . One feels a certain pity for them while the father does not seem to feel any emotion .

Ugolino continues the narrative. The boys woke up to the new day and expect the daily food , while the Count hears the door being nailed from the outside , which meant clearly being condemned to death by starvation . So Ugolino looks into the boys faces without speaking , and most importantly , without crying because he feels petrified with grief and anxiety.

Through Ugolino , Dante now has one of the most intense pages of poetry of the Divine Comedy and of Italian Poetry. It is a dialogue between a desperate father and his sons not clearly aware of the fate which they are to meet , because the poet , poetically transforming the reality, as we have said, presents them smaller than they actually were. A dialogue of silence and a few expressions. And above all it is a story that moves jerkily towards his spannung , ie the most distressing moment of the drama. The story ends with the desperation of a father who from hunger starts to eat the dead bodies of his children.

This is the penultimate canto of the Divine Comedy followed by the song 34 where we meet Lucifer. After the description of Lucifer and of the various characters of song 34 Dante wrote, '' ed uscimmo a vedere le stelle.'' So in this way Dante leaves Hell forever.