/lit/ - Literature

When reading Dante, one should note that the voice of the poem changes sometimes between these archetypes:
>The Pilgrim, who wanders though Hell and Purgatorio
>The Poet
>The Prophet, in which Dante either as character or as author proclaims things of the present or the future
>The Judge, as whom Dante as the author has placed people in different levels of Hell, but also in character he makes some judgments.

Canto III could be summarised as follows:
>Dante and Virgil enter the gates of Hell. It should be noted here that this is where the famous passage comes:

All hope abandon, ye who enter in!”

>They first come to Vestibule of Hell that is outside Hell
>The Vestibule hosts those souls who lived for themselves, without infamy or praise, those who never took sides but their own
>It also hosts those Angels that didn't fight when Rebel Angers rebelled against God
>Virgil tells Dante why they are here and says that these souls and Angers are so reprehensible that not even Hell accepts them
>To further emphasize how awful they are, Virgil says the following, meaning they merit no mentioning in the poem, and not one sinner among them is identified, meaning that because these people lived such despicable and selfish lives, they are all now, as punishment, being literal nobodies outside Hell, stung by bees, and suffering other maladies.

No fame of them the world permits to be;
Misericord and Justice both disdain them.
Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass.”

>Dante, I think, makes also a political take with this, saying that we should all take a side and not stay neutral.

>Then, they come to the shores of riven Acheron, where the ferryman Charon comes to ferry the Damned to Hell.
>Charon tells Dante he doesn't belong here but Virgil says this is Divine Will and Charon agrees
>Another famous passage that comes actually from Virgil's Aeneid is here, saying how people live and die like leaves.

As in the autumn-time the leaves fall off,
First one and then another, till the branch
Unto the earth surrenders all its spoils;

In similar wise the evil seed of Adam
Throw themselves from that margin one by one,
At signals, as a bird unto its lure.

>Virgil also gives Dante a hint about Charon, saying that because Charon complained to Dante:

This way there never passes a good soul;
And hence if Charon doth complain of thee,
Well mayst thou know now what his speech imports.”

>Hinting, that Dante does not belong to Hell, (because he is saved).
>In the end of the Canto, they enter Hell and the experience is so overwhelming Dante passes out.

>>20498501
So they will never adapt the best parts of the series (books 4-6). Both lucky and unlucky.