When we think of the luminary figures in history, it is difficult to separate the work from the man. We like to pretend that the work, so enlightening, so inspiring, so perfect, reflects the individual responsible for it. But it is never that simple. I can't tell you how many times i've had to reconcile my own need to elevate those who create the things that inspire me so, only to realize just how despicable, how flawed, how perfectly human are those authors. I would have hated to be around Miles Davis, a prickly bitter human being whose music aches with beauty. Michaelangleo's sculptures and paintings move me to tears, and yet I don't imagine I would enjoy being around him for more than an hour. And here we have Dante, a notorious jerk even among irrascable artists, showing his all too human side in Canto 6.
Canto 6 demonstrates why Dante is going on this journey. He has been exiled from his hometown of Florence, and is quite bitter about it. He is wandering in the dark forest because he put his allegiance behind the losing side of a power struggle for the control of Florence, and he is not happy about the results. So he attempts to castigate those who wronged him, even damning the city itself to hell, as some form of cathartis for his own misfortune. It is a very human impulse, but wow does Dante come across as bitter and damaged.
First a bit of backstory. Florence in the 13th century was really coming into its own as a powerful city-state. It was an economic center, much like New York is today. The currency for commerce was the Florin. The textile industry was about to take off. The pope, Boniface VIII, was in bed with the bankers of Florence, pushing his own agenda with some pretty spectacular power grabs to consolidate all political, economic, and spiritual decsions to be held under the papal jurisdaiction. The pope, like many of the industry leaders in Florence, recognized the prosperity of the city as an opportunity for power grabs. And Dante judges them all for it, castigating all involved to the circle of Inferno where simony and greed are punished. Now none of this would have made it into the Commedia were it not for the fact that Dante, in the power struggle between the White Guelphs, which Dante alligned himself, and the Black Guelphs, who were supported by the Pope (mostly because they wanted more direction from Rome than the white side who yearned for greater autonomy). When the Black side eventually triumphed, Dante was exiled, never to step on Florentine soil again.
Obviously, this traumatic experience scarred Dante, and he really had no course of action beyond protest and revenge through art. But one has to approach this canto with a certain sense of irony. Here's a poet, a very human man, writing a treatise on the fallible nature of man. This man devotes an entire section of Inferno to those who wronged him. The characters here are mostly ancillary and personal, with the exception of Pope Boniface VIII. The first soul he interacts with is a man named Ciacco, lost to history as merely an acqaintance of Dante's who wronged him. Gone are Homer, Aristotle and Aenas. Here comes Arrigo, Rusticucci, and Lamberti.
The imagery here is again quite striking. It is a bog, unceasing rain, hail and snow. It stinks. Cerebus, the three headed dog who guards the entrance to hell in greek mythology wanders around snarling, indiscriminitely clawing at greedy souls. But if I may allow a small chuckle, the great beast is pretty easily tamed. When he notices Dante and Virgil, he approaches them and roars. Virgil proceeds to almost casually throw a clod of dirt into his mouth. Immediately, Cerebus is satiated. Like a Doberman with a juicy raw steak, he pays no more mind to Dante and Virgil. This echoes Dante's own personal distaste for those who inhabit this greedy place. They are so easily swayed by the almighty florin. It didn't take much to placate those souls who removed the foundation from under Dante's feet. He is disgusted and shows his disgust through the pitiful place he has castigated those who wronged him to.
Beware the power of the poet. Long after you've been relegated to the footnotes of history, he will, again and again through each generation of readers, subject you to the filth and squallor of his vengeance.
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