FREE ESSAY ON THE CONCEPT OF LOVE IN DANTE'S PURGATORIO

THE CONCEPT OF LOVE IN DANTE'S PURGATORIO

The Concept of Love in The Purgatorio
A significant idea contained within Dante's The Divine Comedy is the Augustinian concept
of ordered and disordered love. Each realm of the afterlife symbolizes the type of love
the inhabitants exercised while they were living on earth. For example, the Inferno
represents disordered love, since the souls in Hell exhibited little love for mankind and
little acknowledgement of God. Because the kind of love Hell symbolizes is the worst type
that anyone could possess, it is located nearest to the center of the earth, farthest
away from God. On the other hand, Paradise, which is situated closest to God, represents
ordered love. This area is reserved for those who treated their neighbors well and felt
connected to God. Although they sinned during their lifetimes, they fully repented long
before death. However, Purgatory is unlike Paradise or the Inferno. Since the inhabitants
of Purgatory were those who started to repent later in their lifetimes, but still often
only thought of their own individual needs and corporeal pleasures, it only makes sense
that this world be in between Heaven and Hell. Purgatory, being a gray area (that is,
neither all good or all bad), represents a type of love that lies somewhere in between
complete order and complete disorder. Based on the Seven Deadly Sins, each cornice in
Purgatory contains a varying amount of ordered love and disordered love. However, the
nearer the cornice is to Hell, the more disordered love it represents.
According to Dante, three main types of love are depicted in Purgatory. These include bad
love, too little love, and immoderate love. Bad love, the worst of the three, coincides
to the first three Cornices that represent the sins of pride, envy, and wrath
respectively. Therefore, since the First Cornice contains those who were too proud during
their time on earth, they also exhibited the most disordered love in comparison with the
other six sins. They spent more time exalting themselves than they did caring for others
and developing a relationship with God. As their punishment, they, crawling by under such
burdens as we at times may dream of, (Canto XI, lines 26-27) are forced to carry enormous
boulders on their backs. Since they held their heads high during their time on earth,
they are now being debased to the ground, a physical punishment to a psychological
behavior. In fact, all of the penalties created by Dante in The Purgatorio are directly
related to the sin committed. The Proud cared more about their own gains than anyone
else's, a sin that, in Dante's eyes, is the worst of the Seven Deadly Sins. 
Continuing with the idea of bad love, Dante then explains envy, represented in the Second
Cornice. Like pride, this sin is also extremely egocentric, as the envious person wishes
he could take the good fortunes of others for his own personal gain. Once again, the
sinner is spending more time on himself, hindering his ability to develop good relations
with God and mankind. Envy, which in modern times is described as the green-eyed monster,
is generally a sin one commits with his eyes. For, if a person were blind, he would not
be able to comprehend what is supposedly missing from his life. Therefore, Dante depicts
the sinners as having their eyes sewn shut, forced to support one another in a way they
never did while living.
Finally, wrath, the least of the bad loves, is exemplified in the Third Cornice. Since
wrath is often carried out as a form of anger because of vengeance, it lacks all
humility, polluting the true spirit of God. Meekness, the inverse of wrath, is depicted
by the souls' chanting The Litany of The Lamb of God, a constant reminder of an important
ideal. Also, the entire realm is filled with darkness and smoke, which Dante describes as
having a sting [that] was more than the eyes could stand. (Canto XVI, line 7) Because
these sinners tainted God's spirit while living and blocked the light of the Lord, their
penalty is to reside in a defiled environment lacking all sunlight. Like the other two
types of bad love, wrath also involves a form of self-love. However, since it is located
in the Third Cornice, it involves less disordered love than either pride or envy.
The second type of love explored in The Purgatorio is termed too little love, which lends
itself exclusively to the sin of sloth. In general, these slothful people just did not
have enough love. They chose to live life slowly with indifference and laziness. In
contrast, this form of love is not nearly as severe as bad love because they did not try
to debase their neighbors. Rather, they just did not possess any strong opinions
(positively or negatively) for mankind or God. They recognized the ideals that all humans
should strive for, but they decided simply not to pursue them. As their punishment in the
Fourth Cornice, they have to hurry up the mountain with all the zeal that they lacked
while living. 
Finally, the last type of love depicted by Dante is immoderate love, the kind that is too
excessive and satisfies corporeal needs rather than spiritual. However, since Dante knows
that the flesh is weak, a mere entrapment of the soul, he forgives these bodily sins to
some extent. This is the main reason why these last three cornices, containing the most
ordered love, are closest to Paradise. The first type of immoderate love described is
avarice, in the forms of hoarding and wasting. The avarice souls, dwelling in the Fifth
Cornice, are stripped of all possessions and are forced to lie in the dirt. This sin is
considered the worst of its kind because the hoarders and wasters are not even gaining
any sense of satisfaction from their practices, even if it were to be temporal. They seem
to have no motive for being so obsessive about money.
In contrast, in the sin of gluttony, at least the guilty individuals did gain some sense
of satisfaction while on earth. However, they too were blameworthy of surrendering to
material things. Since they ate and drank in excess while living, their reprimand in the
Sixth Cornice is complete emaciation, a horrific physical punishment. Since they abused
food and drink, now they must starve as a purification mechanism to ascend into Heaven. 
The last sin involving immoderate love is lust, depicted in the Seventh Cornice. The
lustful people were those who abandoned the spirit for the flesh, surrendering to the
body instead of God's love. Like gluttony, out of selfishness, they decided give in to
pleasures rather than to worship the Lord sincerely. In order to gain entrance to
Paradise, they must chant examples of chastity to purge themselves. However, Dante
probably views this sin as the most ordered because he realizes that some human
behaviors, especially an aspect of nature, are extremely hard to control. 
Therefore, in Dante's The Purgatorio, love is depicted temporally rather than
spiritually. It is an in between kind of love because these sinners did find God, but too
late in life to cleanse themselves of all their corporeal sins. In fact, the Seven
Deadly
Sins of pride, envy, wrath, avarice, gluttony, sloth and lust all share one significant
aspect in common. They involve man loving self-pleasures more than God. In each case this
sort of love lies in between order and disorder. Whether these indulgences are physical
or psychological, they are hindrances to achieving the ultimate end of man, which is
happiness. Since (according to Aquinas) happiness comes from God, only by truly loving
and honoring Him can one ascend into Paradise. These temporal pleasures prevent man from
developing a good relationship with God. As punishment, God makes these sinners wait in
Purgatory in the same way they made Him wait. In many cases self-love has been the main
reason why spirits are forced to repent in Purgatory. However, although the sinners did
not know how to love in the proper manner while on earth, they are given another chance
to ascend into Heaven via Purgatory. They realized their mistakes later in life, but this
self-recognition proves that they have the potential to become better people, if not in
the flesh, then in the spirit.