This is for the benefit for all who love lofty poetry, and all who are curious about Dante's Divine Comedy.
I once took a humanities class where we read Dante's Inferno. I thought I hated Dante.
Now I know better. I love Dante. I hated Hell.
People like me who love lofty and beautiful things should not read Dante's Inferno without reading the rest of the poem, without reading Purgatorio and Paradiso. If you love beauty, you owe it to yourself to not stop at Inferno. If you love beauty, you will hate Hell, but you will love Dante. To find the beauty you have to read on to Purgatorio and Paradiso. Dante's Hell is someplace we are meant to see and move on. For lovers of beauty and refined wisdom it is important that we move on to the rest of the poem. Dante's Commedia was called Commedia because it is a journey from darkness to light. If you are like me and you love beauty and refined wisdom, you owe it to yourself to not stop at the darkness, to experience the Comedy, the rise from Darkness to Light.
If you are like me, you will hate Hell. But you will love Dante.
If you continue reading, Hell will be the Darkness out of which you are lifted, out of which you are lifted to experience the Light.
If you are like me, you will love the Light.
And one more thing: if you think that Dante does not have forgiveness in his heart, you have not read Purgatory. If you think that a Pagan can't reach Dante's Paradise, if you think that in Dante the greatest sins cannot be forgiven, you haven't read Purgatory.
If you are like me, you will love the Light, and once you taste the slightest bit of the light, you will love Dante.
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson