The Ideological Content and Limitations of Divine Comedy

Divine Comedy is a work full of metaphors and symbols, but also full of distinct reality and tendency. Dante told Beatrice through his conversation that his main purpose in writing The Divine Comedy was to "benefit the evil society". That is to say, although the Divine Comedy adopts the unique form of medieval fantasy literature, its meaning and symbol often cause great controversy in interpretation, but its ideological connotation is extremely clear, that is, it reflects reality, inspires people, lets the world experience tests, gets rid of mistakes and achieves goodness and harmony. Dante lived in a historical period of social change. As a "poet with a strong tendency", he is bent on innovating politics and realizing his ideals and ambitions. However, he painfully saw that his hometown Florence became a victim of division and infighting, and the city was mired in partisan hatred, weak and degenerate day by day: in the years you remember, how many times have you changed laws, coins, officials and customs, and how many times have you changed the members of the municipal government! However, the turbulent reality of Italy and the scene of the tyranny and incompetence of feudal lords made his life miserable. Alas, slave Italy is a hotbed of pain. You are a lonely ship, and you lost your helmsman in the storm. You are no longer a housewife in the provinces, but you are reduced to prostitution! Therefore, Dante is more eager than ever to establish a centralized monarchy to restrain and control the rival city-states and feudal princes, to ensure that Italy becomes a unified and prosperous country, and to "achieve stable peace in the century and close the temple of Yano". At that time, Italy belonged to the Holy Roman Empire in name, but the emperor of the Empire usually came from a German vassal, who only exercised the rule of Italy in name. Dante criticized the emperors Rudolph I and Albert I for being only keen on expanding their power in Germany, but not coming to Italy to exercise their power, which actually plunged Italy into a state of political division and "barren imperial garden". After profoundly describing the political and social reality at that time, Dante severely exposed and criticized the religious theology that tried to dominate the Christian world and monopolized all cultures in the Middle Ages. He further developed the principle of separation of church and state expounded in Imperialism, and in view of the "Sun-Moon Theory" advocated by medieval theology, he vividly summarized his view of equality between church and state as "Two Suns Theory" in Divine Comedy: Rome has always had two suns for the benefit of the world, illuminating two roads respectively, the earthly road and the God road. This metaphor vividly shows that political power and religious power are two suns that respectively shine on earthly life and spiritual world, and should be independent, equal and cooperative in division of labor, rather than subordinate and fighting, and should not be integrated. What about now? Dante pointed out with infinite emotion: one sun destroyed the other, and both the sword and the cross were in the hands of one person. Due to the intrusion of religious power into political power, the function of mutual restriction and supervision between the two is lost, and the world suffers greatly from it. Even the church has "fallen into a quagmire and defiled its duties". Therefore, Dante expressed extremely strong hatred for the sins of the church's unbridled interference in Italy's internal affairs, undermining the peaceful reunification of the country, and the failures and misdeeds of the church monks in reversing good and evil and committing crimes. He denounced the Pope, bishops and priests for "doing business there day and night in the name of Christ", doing business in the clergy, extortion, extravagance and waste, persecuting Christians, and "putting the world in a miserable situation"; They are addicted to the lewdness of money, "cutting off the bread that God gave to the people everywhere", setting a "bad example" and leading the people to "go astray". Dante pointed out that monks who turned their backs on the teachings of the Bible threw St. Paul and St. Peter out of the clouds, turning the Vatican into "a blood ditch and a pile of garbage", "the temple into a den of beasts, and the vestments into sacks full of evil flour". Intriguingly, Dante punished greedy popes, bishops and priests on the fourth floor, and put Pope Boniface VIII, who was still alive and suppressed Florence and the regime, created turmoil and division in Italy and attempted to usurp secular power, into the eighth floor of hell, plunged into a deep cave and burned at the stake. Dante severely punished Boniface VIII by torturing political murderers in the Middle Ages, and predicted the prospect that justice would triumph over evil and that the church's interference in the secular situation would end. Dante's desire and emotion express the demand of the new citizen class to get rid of the bondage of medieval church and religious theology. Dante enthusiastically praised the significance of secular life and thought that secular life has its own value. In The Divine Comedy, he emphasized that man is endowed with "free will", which is "God's greatest proposition" and "God's greatest gift" to mankind. He encouraged the world to unswervingly follow reason in real life: come with me (Press: Virgil, a poet symbolizing reason) and let people talk about it. Be like a vertical tower, let the wind roar and the top of the tower will never move. The poem warmly praises the heroes with great ideals and strong will in history, and hopes that the world will follow their example, cheer up, avoid laziness, overcome all difficulties and obstacles and create their own destiny. In Dante's view, sitting on a velvet cushion or sleeping in a quilt will not be famous; I can only waste my life. It is one of the characteristics of Dante as the first poet in the new period to praise reason and free will, summon interest and struggle in the world and pursue the concept of honor. This concept of putting people first and attaching importance to the value of real life is in direct opposition to the idea that everything in the Middle Ages belongs to God and the afterlife advocated by religious theology. The Divine Comedy also reveals new ideas of opposing obscurantism in the Middle Ages, advocating culture and respecting knowledge. Dante praised people's talent and wisdom, especially for the classical culture rejected and denied by the church. In his poems, he regards Homer as "the king of poets", Aristotle as "the master of philosophers" and Virgil as "the sea of wisdom". He enthusiastically eulogized the story that Odysseus, the hero of Homer's epic, left his family, abandoned his personal happiness and went through hardships to sail to the ends of the earth to explore, and pointed out through Odysseus that you were not born to live like an animal, but to pursue virtue and knowledge. The social and political changes and spiritual and moral conditions in the historical period of Italy's transition from the Middle Ages to the modern society have also been truly and widely described in the Divine Comedy. What is commendable is that Dante has a clear and profound understanding of the egoism of the emerging citizen class, the pursuit of money, the usury of usurers and the evil of the emerging capitalist relationship, and severely condemns it. He pointed out that the nouveau riche of the citizen class is full of "arrogance, arrogance and luxury", and the idyllic quiet life is gone forever, because pride, jealousy and greed are the three sparks that make people burn. Dante is a great poet in the transitional period between the old and the new. The theological concept of Christianity, the prejudice of medieval thought and the contradiction of world outlook are also shown in the Divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy is full of enthusiastic praise for this life, but Dante regards this life as a preparation for eternal life in the afterlife. He exposed the failures and misdeeds of the church and monks, but he did not oppose religious theology and the whole church, and even put religious theology above philosophy and faith above reason. For example, he chose Virgil as his guide to visit hell and purgatory, used metaphorical reason and philosophy to guide human beings to know evil, and Beatrice as his guide to visit heaven, which shows that poets are still limited to faith and theology, and only by relying on faith and theology can human beings reach the perfect view of scholasticism. Dante's description of the heroic achievements of Odysseus' voyage exploration is one of the most dazzling poems in The Divine Comedy. Odysseus's words calling on the world to pursue virtue and knowledge have also become words of wisdom. On the other hand, Dante also showed the weakness of reason through Virgil's mouth: "Anyone who wants to see through infinite fantasy with our weak reason is really stupid or crazy." The tragic experiences of infatuated lovers Paul and Francesca described in The Divine Comedy were so sad and touching that Dante was so painful that he fainted because of their crying. Numerous painters, poets and musicians in later generations have created many excellent works of art based on this story. However, according to the moral standards of the Middle Ages, Dante took the young lovers as greedy sinners and put them in hell for punishment. He also placed Saint Ji Fang, the ancestor of asceticism, in a glorious paradise. The contradiction between Dante's rejection of medieval asceticism and old ethics and his recognition to a certain extent is fully reflected here. Dante's attitude towards feudal monarchs was often contradictory. He once condemned with indignation that there is no clean land in Italy and that "all cities in Italy are tyrants". In The Divine Comedy, he severely reprimanded the crimes of King Charles I of Naples and Sicily and King Philip IV of France. But in Dante's political ideal, the emperor is regarded as the savior to save Italy in danger. He often mentioned henry vii in The Divine Comedy, and thought that only this emperor was the "helmsman" who could set the correct course and go down the river for the Italian "boat alone" drifting in the storm, which reserved a glorious position for his prediction in The Divine Comedy Paradise. This is precisely under the specific historical conditions. The reflection of weakness and compromise of the disadvantaged citizen class. In order to resist the tyranny of the church, the original humanists had to seek the support and protection of the royal power. Divine Comedy is a work that has reached a high artistic level. Dante's descriptions of hell, purgatory and heaven are inspired and influenced by classical literature, especially medieval fantasy literature. For example, Virgil's description of the hero's going to the underworld under the guidance of a wizard in Aeneas, the medieval writer Da Verona's Ode to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Ba Bilong's Poems about Hell and Della Liva's Three Books all describe that evil souls are punished in hell and heaven is bright and happy. However, The Divine Comedy is not as rough, vulgar and illusory as the literary works in the Middle Ages. With rich imagination, profound theology, philosophical accomplishment and novel ideas, the poet designed a strict structure and clear levels for these three realms. He divided hell, purgatory and heaven into nine layers, which contained profound moral implications. He used different colors when describing different realms. Hell is the realm of punishing evil and promoting good, with a gloomy tone; Purgatory is the realm of repentance and hope, and the color turns to calm and tranquility; Heaven is a state of perfection and beauty, shrouded in splendor and magnificence. Multi-level and multi-tone image description expresses the poet's incisive and abstract philosophical and theological views, endowing these realms with great authenticity and strangeness without being subtle, subtle and profound, making people immersive. Divine Comedy is a colorful and vivid character gallery. As a master of this epic, Dante's hard-working character and rich and complex spiritual world are portrayed as the most subtle and full. Although Virgil and Beatrice are symbolic and moral, they still have their own distinct personalities. Virgil is a mentor, and in his care and teaching of Dante, he shows fatherly kindness and kindness. Beatrice, a lover, showed a gentle and solemn character like a mother in her help and encouragement to the poet. Dante is good at using extremely accurate and concise language to outline the appearance and personality of characters in dramatic scenes and actions. In the sad and tragic atmosphere, the poet described the loyal characters of lovers Paul and Francesca, and in the gloomy and resentful situation, the poet outlined the greedy and treacherous character of Pope Bonifaciu VIII. All kinds of thrilling and magical scenes in the Divine Comedy, all kinds of monsters in hell, such as three evil dogs devouring ghosts, strange birds flying over the forest of suicides, the king of hell with three different faces and three pairs of huge wings, and the nemesis covered in blood with a green snake on her head, are vividly outlined in Dante's pen. They are not only highly realistic artistic images, but also highlight the atmosphere of various specific environments in hell.