Seminar paper from the year 2025 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: A, University of Delhi (St. Stephen's College), course: BA English Hons., language: English, abstract: The basis for this proposal emerges from the assertion, that attempted codifications of morality lead to comprehensions of ethics that are transient in nature. They get composed within a certain religious, social, economic, and political environment- the evolution of which may lead to many of their specificities becoming obsolete. This proposal also suggests looking at these texts as manifestations of the desire to promote basic human values, such as compassion. My primary source will be Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy with a particular focus on the first part, Inferno composed in the first quarter of the 14th century in the vernacular language of Tuscany. This text has been chosen as it captures a pivotal point in European history- a time just preceding the Renaissance, that shows the dichotomous relation of present in a Europe redefining itself, between the Church and its proclaimed Classical history, especially in its varied treatment of the epic poets. The epic poem also captures the poet’s frustration with the Church’s increasing involvement in political matters. The prejudice in the didactic author’s teachings is also particularly reflected here, as he himself is the protagonist of his epic. Secondary sources such as J.A. Berthoud’s introduction to the epic poem shall be drawn upon to facilitate the analysis of the text. C.A. Dinsmore’s review on W.H.V. Reade’s volume on the moral system in Dante discusses how the latter describes that Dante’s structuring of Hell breaks away from the notion of the Seven Deadly Sins, in a manner that sins such as that ‘Failure of Heresy’ are described. Reade also points out that the moral systems in the first two parts of the Divine Comedy are also different. Derek Davis in his essay discusses the existing papal dissensions with the city-states of that period. An analysis of these sources will allow the assertion of the Divine Comedy as a work that, though like other attempts at the explanation of ethics, aims at the admirable goal of preserving basal human aspirations, fails in the same departments due to biases and an impermanence of social constructions- such as the conception of religion, politics, and sexuality.
