Why Dante Dammed Francesca Da Rimini
“Why Dante Damned Francesca Da Rimini.” By Peter LevineUniveristy of Maryland.
Through reading the text one will mostly understand and term Francesca Da Rimini as a tragic heroine though concurrently you could have sympathy on her due to the misfortunes she faces in the name of love. However, Dante criticizes her and challenges moral judgment that would have to be a merciful punishment to her. She judges her by use of philosophy and literature which has no space for adultery and lustful sins. Dante criticizes her in a way that she views hell as the best place. However, all she did to get this criticism was falling in love with her brother in law. She was only tricked to adultery after she was tricked into marriage. Nevertheless, she was murdered by her husband before she got any chance to repent for what she had done. The piece concentrates on judgments of Dante, who was always against Francesca Da Rimini through the text though she was not worse than the other people in the circle of lust to deserve such judgments (Levine…show more content… She was deceived into adultery, and the consequences can make you say she is a murder victim. The criticism of Dante is from the philosopher’s point of view although philosophers can have a different conclusion on matters, especially they can be different findings in the case of Francesca Da Rimini. What Dante does is arguing the point from the philosopher’s point of view and completely ignores the moral judgment (Levine 350). The work of Dante was influenced by philosophy, especially the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas since he was influential in his life. Aquinas argued that philosophy was a particular type of lust and that it was a mortal sin thus Dante had no reason to spare Francesca Da Rimini based on the sentiments of this philosopher (Levine
