What the hell?!

Hey Humanitarians, today we ventured into the depths of Hell by exploring Dante's Inferno, part of the larger work of his Divine Comedy. If I was to give you a list of World Literature's most influential works, this would be at the top of the list.

If it's good enough for Don Draper, it's good enough for all of us. 

If anyone needs any Valentine ideas...

The Inferno, along a couple of other influencers, has forever shaped the way we visualize hell, punishment, and even the figure of Satan. The Bible is pretty vague when describing those three subjects, so Dante's imagination and interpretation became the basis for much of how we visualize hell in the years after and even in the modern sense. A couple of things to take away from our study of The Divine Comedy:

• Dante makes the point in the Inferno that sinners in hell CHOSE to put themselves in hell; they are not portrayed as repentant or regretful. In fact, they don't see anything wrong with their behavior and instead are often angry with God for throwing them in hell in the first place.
• Dante's version of Satan is a big, ugly brute, one who is so stupid that he's stuck in an icy lake. Quite a contrast from the suave, debonair Devil figure we often see in movies!
• One of the most important terms to remember from this work is the word contrapasso, or basically that the crime fits the punishment. How one chose to behave in life directly corresponds with the way they are punished in hell. For example, the wrathful are condemned to eternally tear each other apart, "limb from limb", over and over again. 

In other news, unless you've been hiding under a rock, you've heard that the Patriots, aka Tom Brady, won the Super Bowl AGAIN. Is anyone surprised? The Super Bowl had lots of cool commercials this year, but my favorite part was Lady Gaga. Her performance provided us with so many wonderful moments; check out a couple of them here.  

For my book of the week, I wanted to revisit one of the older works of literature that I loved in high school. Specifically, ever since I went to the Holocaust Museum over winter break in Washington D.C., it's been on my heart to reread Night by Elie Wiesel.

 

This book is so powerful, heartbreaking, inspiring, upsetting all in one. Elie Wiesel is a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps of Auschuwitz and Buchenwald, and this book details much of his experiences in those camps with his father. It's an INCREDIBLY hard read, but one that I hope you read in your lifetime.

Happy Tuesday friends! Virdin out.