Post – Session Reflection
I’m currently reading Dante’s Inferno and although the book is heavy with theological and philosophical allegory. The premise of the book focuses on Dante who has lost his way, in the forested wilderness and ultimately is trying to find his way to truth and God, through his journey through hell and purgatory through his spiritual guide Virgil, to reach his love Beatrice. Inferno for me represents the obstacles in finding, forming dramatic friendships, knowledge, learning the pinnacle of that agapeic love and hate relationship which is knowledge and links not only to Plato’s symposium but the idea of dramatic friendship. The characters Dante and Beatrice are interchangeable and represent both the student and the teacher, the only character that remains the same is Virgil who represents Knowledge. Although I haven’t finished reading the book a lot of the themes resonated with earlier readings on how we through teaching connect not only to ourselves, peers but how the journey is symbolic for the journey that we as educators and students often find ourselves existentially and educationally. I have summated the two main characters, their journey, and how this links to the teaching context.
Thirty-five years old at the beginning of the story, Dante—the character as opposed to the poet—has lost his way on the “true path” of life; in other words, sin has obstructed his path to God. The Divine Comedy is the allegorical record of Dante’s quest to overcome sin and find God’s love; in Inferno, Dante explores the nature of sin by traveling through Hell, where evil receives punishment according to God’s justice. Allegorically, Dante’s story represents not only his own life but also what Dante the poet perceived to be the universal Christian quest for God. As a result, Dante the character is rooted in the Everyman allegorical tradition: Dante’s situation is meant to represent that of the whole human race.
His traits are very broad and universal: often sympathetic toward others, he nonetheless remains capable of anger; he weeps at the sight of the suffering souls but reacts with pleasure when one of his political enemies is torn to pieces. He demonstrates excessive pride but remains unsatisfied in many respects: he feels that he ranks among the great poets that he meets in Limbo but deeply desires to find Beatrice, the woman he loves, and the love of God. Dante fears danger but shows much courage: horrified by Hell, he nevertheless follows his guide, Virgil, through its gates. He also proves extremely emotional, as shown by his frequent fainting when he becomes overly frightened or moved. As the story progresses, Dante must learn to reconcile his sympathy for suffering with the harsh violence of God’s justice; the deeper he proceeds into Hell, the less the agonies of the damned affect him. Virgil encourages him to abhor sin and not pity the justice meted out to sinners; Dante must achieve this level of stringent moral standards before he may begin his journey to Heaven, played out in Purgatorio and Paradiso
Dante
In Dante’s Inferno Dante’s character mirrors, the inner complexity of not only being vulnerable in the process of finding truth but the arbitration between excessive pride, anger, and the deep desire to progress. I think that the character description of Dante represents all of us the human race and in the educational context the youthful hubristic attitude in thinking that we know everything. Without knowledge, we are lost, and sometimes the process to find ourselves ultimately requires us to start at the depth of irrationality, uncertainty which can “proves to be extremely emotional, where we can sometimes be overly frightened, moved’ shaped by our experiences negatively or positively. “Dante fears danger but shows much courage”- This is emphasised in the “Courage to Be “by Paul Tillich- “
The book opens with a discussion of the concept of courage in several philosophical and theological contexts. Tillich reviews courage with respect to fortitude, wisdom, self-affirmation, and existence itself, drawing respectively on Plato and Aquinas, the Stoics, Spinoza, and Nietzsche. Tillich understands courage as “rooted in structure of being…it must be considered ontologically in order to be understood ethically” (1). The “courage to be,” specifically, is “the ethical act in which man affirms his own being in spite of those elements of his existence which conflict with his essential self-affirmation” (3). It is the affirmation of one’s essential nature, and its analysis must precede an understanding of such attributes as faith, wisdom, and joy. Courage involves “striving toward self-preservation or toward self-affirmation [that] makes a thing what it is,” and is a definitively virtuous process of careful reasoning and intentionality (21). Even though life is ambiguous above all, “courage is the power of life to affirm itself in spite of this ambiguity, while the negation of life because of its negativity is an expression of cowardice” (27)”
The only character besides Dante to appear all the way through Inferno, Virgil’s ghost is generally taken by critics to represent human reason, which guides and protects the individual (represented by Dante/Everyman) through the world of sin. As befits a character who symbolizes reason, Virgil proves sober, measured, resolute, and wise. He repeatedly protects Dante from hostile demons and monsters, from Charon to the Centaurs; when he appears powerless outside the gates of the city of Dis in Canto VIII, his helplessness appears very ominous, signifying that Lower Hell offers far darker dangers than Upper Hell. Virgil’s reliance on the angelic messenger in this scene also symbolizes the fact that reason is powerless without faith—an important tenet of Dante’s moral philosophy and one that marks Inferno as a Christian poem, distinct from the classical epics that preceded it. In the fullest sense of the word, Virgil acts as Dante’s guide, showing him not only the physical route through Hell but also reinforcing its moral lessons. When Dante appears slow to learn these lessons—such as when he sympathizes with sinners or attempts to remain too long in one region of Hell—Virgil often grows impatient with him, a trait that humanizes this otherwise impersonal shade.
Virgil
Virgil optimises the journey of truth and the fortitude for knowledge. I think that in relation to dramatic friendship Virgil’s character dramatizes the guidance and reassurance teachers provide for their students. Virgil acts as Dante’s guide, showing him not only the physical route through Hell but also reinforcing its moral lessons- it’s important to emphasise that the destination aspect of the journey is also less important because knowledge presents itself in all forms not only in the educational aspect. Being vulnerable symbolizes the fact that reason is powerless without faith—an important tenet of Dante’s moral philosophy, being able to trust your peers, teacher’s mean’s allowing them to transcend the invisible barriers and for them in return for them be accepting. Virgil often grows impatient with him, a trait that humanizes this otherwise impersonal shade, I think that as teachers sometimes opportunity may present itself where teaching maybe stressful it may take form in trying to get through to a particular student, or personal life may actually impact how we approach teaching. It’s important to take a step back to remember that though we are educators we are firstly human.
Bibliography
https://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/inferno/character/virgil/
http://people.bu.edu/wwildman/tillich/resources/review_tillich-paul_couragetobe.htm
P. Tillich, The Courage To be, Second Edition. New Haven, Yale University, 2000 (1st ed. 1952). 197 pages.