Lit201 - lect 2 - Dante's Inferno (Important - holy sonnets of Jean Dam)

Canto 32-33

The relationship between Ugulino and Pagocini

His reaction here is of contempt, but the success of the verse induces pity and sympathy in us. If not for the couple, but certainly for the children.

We also see a symbol which becomes increasingly important and that is that hell becomes a place of terrible cold the closer you get to the center. And the principle reason is it's the furthest removed from God's love and of course God's love is something warm and comforting, therefore, hell is a freezing wasteland and we see bodies lodged in ice in progressing degrees, from bodies covered waste deep to shoulder deep. We get a sense of this increasing bone cold chill. Hell is associated with fire but also with ice, ice that burns.

Canto 32
The ice cold river

"Oh most miscreant rabble, better you had been born as goats or sheep"

"the way frogs seem to croak their muscles leaning"

Dante uses images of rural life to describe spiritual realities.

There is the idea of symbolic retribution but also of persisting.

He just told Dante that if he does not weep over what is happening he must be cruelty himself, but now, he himself is not weeping and the action is taking place, which ironically, shows him as the sinner.

This line either suggest Ugilino ate his children, or, more generally, it just means he died (overcome by starvation). And it has been suggested by Wallis Faldy that somebody who was guilty of cannibalism would have their own treatment for that sin.

Symbolic retribution - he died of startvation and know for eternity he feeds of the person who denied him food - it is also an inversion of the eucharist - a source of eternal life whereas the aforementioned is a sign of eternal damnation.


"The gift of being able to cry"