In Canto 15 of Inferno Dante speaks with his former mentor Ser Brunetto Latini. His sin is not named, but it is sodomy. He is in Hell for eternity for being homosexual.
Dante is respectful as he speaks and the conversation only ends when Latini must return to his torments. As I re-read Inferno this time, I am more aware of Dante as the author. He chose to map his eternity on the science and theology current in the late 13th Century. But even with an orthodox eternity this is a world Dante creates.
Every person he puts in Hell, Purgatory, or Heaven is up to him. Dante had no way of knowing that the poem he wrote would be written about and read more than any other book except the Bible, but he could assume a very wide readership among Florentines and other Italians. His is the first epic written in vernacular Italian, so his readership could be much wider than for books written in Latin.
And all who read his book would know that Latini was homosexual. Dante had to know many people who were homosexual, so why does he choose his mentor for the spokesperson of this level of Hell? He shows respect in his imagined conversation, but how respectful is it to single out one you claim to love for eternal condemnation?
I went to a folk concert a long time ago. A woman came to the stage and said her first song would be about the guy who just broke up with her. The song was very funny, and very clear about the man's faults; her use of shortcomings was brilliant. She said before she sang "If you hurt a woman with an audience, everyone will know your name." I heard Taylor Swift has sold millions in that genre.
I understand better why Dante condemns his enemies, but Canto 15 makes me wonder why he chose his mentor for Hell.
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