Revisiting Dante’s Divine Comedy, for the first time since I was a precocious teenager with literary aspirations, I am astonished and excited by the utter genius of this work. Words escape me. There’s simply nothing quite like it in any language from any period.
And I am excited by the lessons implicit there. Lessons I wouln’t have understood on my first reading. In Dante’s first extended encounter in the Inferno he meets Francesca da Rimini – a perfect example of someone not willing to accept responsibility for her actions. “It’s not my fault.” “Love made me do it.” “What I read about Lancelot and Guinevere made me do it.”
.. an interesting idea – that other than Francesa being doomed to eternal damnation for her adultery, her actual experience of hell consists of her refusal to take responsibility for her actions or their consequences.
Is it hyperbole to suggest that being unwilling to take responsibility for the consequences of our actions is a kind of hell, endlessly self-perpetuating? Its essence is the blindness that keeps us stuck where we are. If we can’t take responsibly for the situation we’re in, we’re unlikely to take responsibility for getting out of it, or changing it.
So whenever you get into blaming, explaining, and complaining, remember Francesca da Rimini and Canto V of the Divine Comedy.
