The Divine Comedy: No Laughing Matter

You’re probably all disappointed to know that this post’s title is, in fact, a pun about the grim and increasingly tangible souls of Hell.

I mean, not even the poets are laughing here, and they arguably have the best deal of all among the condemned!  They get to live where the light is, right?  Though I do think it’s kind of weird that they get a big castle, which is the epitome of material reward.  Why would God give them a material reward for being awesome pagans?  Like…first of all, if they were so virtuous, wouldn’t they not be greedy and prideful and want a castle to live in?  They’d probably be more content with some books.  Second of all…yeah, again, I just find it weird that God would consider a castle to be the best thing He could give these cool pagan people, since I thought material goods wouldn’t really matter that much to the virtuous.  I mean, I just don’t see why God would consider it a reward.  (Although I guess that’s where the light is—well, what little light there is in Hell, anyway.)  But maybe Dante didn’t really think about that, and actually just wanted a castle to live in, in the case that he joined these poets.

Anyway.  So the souls/beings of Hell become increasingly more concrete as Dante ventures further and further through the nine circles (and then in Paradise, the beings aren’t really material at all), culminating in none other than Satan, who is frozen at the center of Hell.  And obviously, nobody in Hell is having a good time, but they become more and more despairing as Dante and Virgil go on.  Oh, well, I guess that in itself is a sort of contrapasso.  The worse the crime, the more weight it adds to a person’s life (or soul).  Wait—is that the theme of weight again?  I thought we left that behind with Kundera!  (*heavy sigh*)  I guess it’s some pretty heavy material we’re working with here.