darknation
kiwifarms.net
- Registrado
- 15 de Nov, 2023
A series of autistic literature lectures, and hopefully "passionate" debate afterwards on the merits of said lecture. I know some of you shits are students, so feel free to post your own.
DANTE AMONGST THE HOMOSEXUALS
Canto 15 of Inferno has troubled scholars for a while now: most of them get all fuckity-twisted about the sin being punished (sodomy et al.), try to relate 14th century ethics to modern morality (a mistake: they ought to be comparing religious belief from the two eras) and usually get hung up on the obvious Sodom / Gomorrah parallels (fire falling from the sky to punish the sodomites). And most follow in the footsteps of Eliot, who rightly notes Dante speaks of the sodomite he meets (Brunetto Latino) with respect and affection: indeed, this is the only sinner in the Inferno that Dante has anything like a cordial relationship with.
The question that is fucking with the academics is why.
Mr. Eliot asserts that Dante, in writing the Inferno, placed himself between a rock and a hard place: if the cantos are meant to inspire man to reason – religious reason & political reason & rational discourse – it follows that it is only through reason that mankind can understand God. Dante must therefore prove himself to be reasonable, and without hypocrisy.
And yet, a lot of the Inferno describes Dante attacking sinners & those he considers irrational (religiously, politically, & in discourse) in a somewhat irrational manner. The cantos are, in many ways, the precursor to the modern diss track – although Dr. Dre never went as far as to boil fakeass niggers in lakes of liquid shit, or have Easy-E chewed on for eternity by the literal mouth of Satan like AIDS-flavoured bubblegum.
Eliot says that, in order to appear fair and balanced, Dante was forced to include people he loved and respected in Hell. He says that Dante's conflicted emotions about Latino do not indicate sympathy for homosexuals, which is not exactly compatible with 14th century religious thought, but sympathy for the person. Love the sinner, not the sin, blah blah. Eliot points to the final lines – which describe the departing Latino as “One who runs as if he were winning, not losing” – as evidence that Dante regrets placing Brunetto here in Hell, and would take him out if he could.
The general mystification from Kirkpatrick, Gray, Eliot, et al. seems to be how enlightened Dante is in his mindset, re: homosexuality. This is true, but missing the point.
It might help at this point to give a broad overview what Dante (and the church) consider to be the problem with homosexuality: it's a crime against nature, if the definition of nature is simple God's will. The gist is that God made man, and God made woman to be man's partner. This is the divine plan: rejecting that plan by sleeping with other men is rude, considering all the effort God went to to make us some pussy.
We'll also need a quick definition of poetic parataxis: in short, it is the juxtaposition of two opposite and irreconcilable notions or elements (fire-ice, living-dead, &c: note that poetic parataxis is different from parataxis in prose). The Italians use this rhetorical device a lot, especially in their poetry. The old cliché of love poetry, eg:
The heat of your love burns me as ice.
Life is death,
My head asks you why deny me my hole;
I need my hole, else I will surely die
Thou art cruel in love.
Bitch lasagna.
It's the usual Italian hyperbole (see wailing outside of Juliet's balcony because she won't fuck you for details), and has been a part of Italian poetry since Italians had poetry. It's based entirely in emotion, and thus to Dante is irrational, and so is to be despised (Dante's trying to improve the Italians, lest we forget: not only is he writing in the vernacular to improve his native tongue, but he jettisons other old Italian conventions – such as parataxis – as being an impediment to rational discourse.)
Dante's ruminations on Beatrice are the precise opposite of this irrational hyperbole: his poetry to the (dead) object of his affections is unremittingly courtly, and serves to move the intellect forwards. It is full of rational discourse, and absent of the parataxic hyperbole found in the poetry of horny Italians.
Such is the poetry of Dante. But what of the poetry of Brunetto?
Ah, yes, the unlucky damned one also was a poet and writer, one of the Italian old school. And his poetry was filled with parataxic, emotional shit.
Now, consider where Dante has placed Brunetto, beneath the fire that falls as snow. Consider Brunetto's characterization: he is weirdly unconcerned with the fact that he is being cooked for eternity by hellish skyfire, he doesn't really give much of a monkey's about it, truth be told. He is, oddly, presented as quite at home in this circle of Hell. Brunetto's chief concern is that, when Dante returns to Earth, he publicise Brunetto's books and works to a wider audience.
Books and works. Bad poetry, icy-fire and life-in-death love-hate Italian bullshit. If we are to take Brunetto's poetry at face value (and Dante must have) then Brunetto has always been in Hell, hence his bizarre no-fucks-given attitude about the fact that snow-fire is burning him (un)alive. It always has, even in life, by the parataxic poet's own admission.
The implication is that Brunetto has never known God (because gay), and has never seen God's light, and so suffers the ministrations of Hell without complaint. He has never known different. In this, Brunetto is better-off even than those pagan souls in Limbo (Virgil et al.), who witness God's light from a great distance but cannot, by fact of their pre-Christ birth, attain said light. They covet it, live through desire, but hopelessly.
Fire that falls as snow = parataxic.
Men in love with men = parataxic.
Rational discourse and poetry = parataxic.
The damned and legacy on earth = parataxic.
Emotion & reason = parataxic.
Loving the sinner, not the sin = parataxic.
A running man who is both winner & loser = parataxic.
Dante (as champion of the vernacular) both loves and hates latin – that he selected Latino as his example is probably not a coincidence. And Dante is well aware of the seemingly irreconcilable nature of the narrative here – its irreconcilable, parataxic nature is the entire fucking point of the damn thing. To steal a line from Milton, viz: explaining the ways of God to man, the poetic parataxism on display here is part of God's plan. Satan – EVIL – was created by God to further the greater GOOD; God is cruel to be kind.
God is Love; but simultaneously, God created the Inferno.
* * *
To my esteemed and beloved publisher:
Now that we have established my credentials as a scholar – in the process disinterring Eliot and cutting the papal ring from his fucking finger – can you motherfuckers stop whining about fucking homophobia and think that maybe you ought to trust me I know what I am doing go back to sucking each other's cocks please thank you.
DANTE AMONGST THE HOMOSEXUALS
Canto 15 of Inferno has troubled scholars for a while now: most of them get all fuckity-twisted about the sin being punished (sodomy et al.), try to relate 14th century ethics to modern morality (a mistake: they ought to be comparing religious belief from the two eras) and usually get hung up on the obvious Sodom / Gomorrah parallels (fire falling from the sky to punish the sodomites). And most follow in the footsteps of Eliot, who rightly notes Dante speaks of the sodomite he meets (Brunetto Latino) with respect and affection: indeed, this is the only sinner in the Inferno that Dante has anything like a cordial relationship with.
The question that is fucking with the academics is why.
Mr. Eliot asserts that Dante, in writing the Inferno, placed himself between a rock and a hard place: if the cantos are meant to inspire man to reason – religious reason & political reason & rational discourse – it follows that it is only through reason that mankind can understand God. Dante must therefore prove himself to be reasonable, and without hypocrisy.
And yet, a lot of the Inferno describes Dante attacking sinners & those he considers irrational (religiously, politically, & in discourse) in a somewhat irrational manner. The cantos are, in many ways, the precursor to the modern diss track – although Dr. Dre never went as far as to boil fakeass niggers in lakes of liquid shit, or have Easy-E chewed on for eternity by the literal mouth of Satan like AIDS-flavoured bubblegum.
Eliot says that, in order to appear fair and balanced, Dante was forced to include people he loved and respected in Hell. He says that Dante's conflicted emotions about Latino do not indicate sympathy for homosexuals, which is not exactly compatible with 14th century religious thought, but sympathy for the person. Love the sinner, not the sin, blah blah. Eliot points to the final lines – which describe the departing Latino as “One who runs as if he were winning, not losing” – as evidence that Dante regrets placing Brunetto here in Hell, and would take him out if he could.
The general mystification from Kirkpatrick, Gray, Eliot, et al. seems to be how enlightened Dante is in his mindset, re: homosexuality. This is true, but missing the point.
It might help at this point to give a broad overview what Dante (and the church) consider to be the problem with homosexuality: it's a crime against nature, if the definition of nature is simple God's will. The gist is that God made man, and God made woman to be man's partner. This is the divine plan: rejecting that plan by sleeping with other men is rude, considering all the effort God went to to make us some pussy.
We'll also need a quick definition of poetic parataxis: in short, it is the juxtaposition of two opposite and irreconcilable notions or elements (fire-ice, living-dead, &c: note that poetic parataxis is different from parataxis in prose). The Italians use this rhetorical device a lot, especially in their poetry. The old cliché of love poetry, eg:
The heat of your love burns me as ice.
Life is death,
My head asks you why deny me my hole;
I need my hole, else I will surely die
Thou art cruel in love.
Bitch lasagna.
It's the usual Italian hyperbole (see wailing outside of Juliet's balcony because she won't fuck you for details), and has been a part of Italian poetry since Italians had poetry. It's based entirely in emotion, and thus to Dante is irrational, and so is to be despised (Dante's trying to improve the Italians, lest we forget: not only is he writing in the vernacular to improve his native tongue, but he jettisons other old Italian conventions – such as parataxis – as being an impediment to rational discourse.)
Dante's ruminations on Beatrice are the precise opposite of this irrational hyperbole: his poetry to the (dead) object of his affections is unremittingly courtly, and serves to move the intellect forwards. It is full of rational discourse, and absent of the parataxic hyperbole found in the poetry of horny Italians.
Such is the poetry of Dante. But what of the poetry of Brunetto?
Ah, yes, the unlucky damned one also was a poet and writer, one of the Italian old school. And his poetry was filled with parataxic, emotional shit.
Now, consider where Dante has placed Brunetto, beneath the fire that falls as snow. Consider Brunetto's characterization: he is weirdly unconcerned with the fact that he is being cooked for eternity by hellish skyfire, he doesn't really give much of a monkey's about it, truth be told. He is, oddly, presented as quite at home in this circle of Hell. Brunetto's chief concern is that, when Dante returns to Earth, he publicise Brunetto's books and works to a wider audience.
Books and works. Bad poetry, icy-fire and life-in-death love-hate Italian bullshit. If we are to take Brunetto's poetry at face value (and Dante must have) then Brunetto has always been in Hell, hence his bizarre no-fucks-given attitude about the fact that snow-fire is burning him (un)alive. It always has, even in life, by the parataxic poet's own admission.
The implication is that Brunetto has never known God (because gay), and has never seen God's light, and so suffers the ministrations of Hell without complaint. He has never known different. In this, Brunetto is better-off even than those pagan souls in Limbo (Virgil et al.), who witness God's light from a great distance but cannot, by fact of their pre-Christ birth, attain said light. They covet it, live through desire, but hopelessly.
Fire that falls as snow = parataxic.
Men in love with men = parataxic.
Rational discourse and poetry = parataxic.
The damned and legacy on earth = parataxic.
Emotion & reason = parataxic.
Loving the sinner, not the sin = parataxic.
A running man who is both winner & loser = parataxic.
Dante (as champion of the vernacular) both loves and hates latin – that he selected Latino as his example is probably not a coincidence. And Dante is well aware of the seemingly irreconcilable nature of the narrative here – its irreconcilable, parataxic nature is the entire fucking point of the damn thing. To steal a line from Milton, viz: explaining the ways of God to man, the poetic parataxism on display here is part of God's plan. Satan – EVIL – was created by God to further the greater GOOD; God is cruel to be kind.
God is Love; but simultaneously, God created the Inferno.
* * *
To my esteemed and beloved publisher:
Now that we have established my credentials as a scholar – in the process disinterring Eliot and cutting the papal ring from his fucking finger – can you motherfuckers stop whining about fucking homophobia and think that maybe you ought to trust me I know what I am doing go back to sucking each other's cocks please thank you.
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