The Divine Comedy: The Concept of Justice Through the XXVIIIth , XXXIIIth and XXXIVth Cantos and the Law of "Contrapasso" in Dante's "Hell"
Journal Title: Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi - Year 2016, Vol 56, Issue 1
Abstract
Dante Alighieri, one of the masters of Italian and world literature, depicted Hell as a platform where human beings who had been corrupted would face their sins, and in this way he tried to warn humanity. Dante refused to define the various types of punishment in "Hell" as different reflections of the law of "contrapasso". He also stressed the necessity that this term should be set free from a limited understanding of justice put forth by Aristotle and other theologians. While the poet devised the types of punishment, which acquired a concrete aspect in “Hell”, he gave priority to their association with the crimes committed in this world. According to him, regarding the principle of "contrapasso", the punishment should not only be relevant to the crime but also be linguistically relevant and memorable to the criminal. The aim of the poet is to reason the inevitablity of the judgement through the law of "contrapasso". To sum up, it is crucial to scrutinize the causality of "contrapasso" together with Dante's religious acquisitions, so as to render the message of The Divine Comedy, which is inspired by the political and social context of its period, comprehensible.
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Özge PARLAK TEMEL
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