Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The Power of Writing




We talked about this a little bit in class, but you have now read some pieces of The Inferno. What do you think about the power Dante had as a writer to create this fictional hell and place people in it from his contemporary culture? Do you think it was ethically correct for him to do this? Would you enjoy a chance to have this sort of power in writing? What are your thoughts on this text?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dante did have a lot of power in his writing. Then again, all authors do. I also think he had a right to talk about who he wanted to. It's the whole freedom of speech thing. It may have made him look like a jerk, but he chose to look like a jerk. I would love this writing power, were I not positive placing Mr. Rockholt in hell would get me a month of detention.
-David Hannah

Anonymous said...

I think that at the time "The Inferno" was written, it really bad people think about what they were doing. Now we know that all sins a equally in God's eye, but back then they may not have known that. So by having different sinners have different punishment, I think that Dante really made the people think. It made people realize that if they continue to do this or that, that they will end up the same the people in the book did and they didn't want that.

Graham

Anonymous said...

I thought that it took a lot of guts for Dante to put certian people of his time in hell. His point of putting pope and other people of the Catholic church in hell was to show that no person was imune from going no matter what their religious of political standin. I thought that he was also trying to make a point about the corruption that was taking place in the church at the time.

Barrett T.