English poets would have none of it, although they perfected their harmony by the study of its form.
While dealing with purgatory, heaven, and hell, nowhere is Christ the ever-present Redeemer and Comforter. Dante's imaginations of God's eternal justice are evidently referred to by Shakespeare,
'To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling[1].'
Beyond the general conception in the Divina Commedia, Dante professes personal principles as noble, which are, if put to the test of candid judgement, absolutely repulsive.
In canto xxxii, and still more in canto xxxiii, of the Inferno[2], he justifies the very worst nature which Italy's accusers condemn her for tolerating in her lowest classes—cunning, violence, and deliberate falsehood.
Often in the world we experience the delight of finding men better than their creeds. I have known Moslems with genuine affection for Christians and Jews, but there is ever the fire burning beneath which fanaticism may cause to burst into flame, and then reason and charity lose their power over the mind.
Such fanaticism Dante sanctified in adopting the adamantine sternness of the priestly dogma of the dark ages.
Michael Angelo was not alone among Tuscan painters
- ↑ Measure for Measure.
- ↑ See appended Notes.
