Throughout Dante's Inferno and Purgatory, the theme of love is often addressed. Between the two works it becomes clear that Dante's notion of love is divided into two parts: Natural Love and Elective Love. Natural Love does not err, that is, it will not lead you into sin and is intertwined, if not interchangeable, with the concept of Divine Love. God is, however, a loving God and gives us the power of choice, and therefore we also love electively. Elective love leaves us free to love anything, anyone, however we want, and we must learn to desire worthy things if we are to live without sin. Not understanding it or moving away from it leads us to make mistakes. Natural Love inspires Elective Love, and if we do not learn to strive for Natural Love, then we end up in Hell; Likewise, if we learn too late, we must take time to repent. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In the second canticle of the Divine Comedy, Dante's definition of love takes on a theological position. In Purgatory (specifically in cantos 21-24), Love is described as something that ultimately comes from God. This natural love is virtuous and, by following it, we cannot sin. This notion of pure love is best illustrated in Virgil's interaction with the shadow Statius. As the pilgrim climbs higher on Mount Purgatory, we reach the fifth terrace, on which the misers and prodigals seek forgiveness. Towards the end of Canto 21 we meet Statius who has just finished his time in Purgatory. Before his death he had read Virgil and attributes his salvation to Virgil's writing. When the pilgrim and his guide first meet Statius, he does not recognize Virgil and explains that he would gladly spend more time repenting if it meant he could meet Virgil (Purgatory 21, 100-102) – ironic, considering he expresses these desires directly to Virgil. Discovering that he is in the presence of Virgil, Statius bends down to embrace him (Purgatory 21, 130). Virgil scolds him because they are shadows and cannot hear. Here we see that Statius' love for Virgil is so great that he forgets their emptiness (Purgatory 21, 135). This example of natural and noble love is further explained by Virgil in Canto 22. He speaks of Natural Love, saying that, "Love, kindled by virtue, always kindles more love, until its flame appears without" ( Purgatory 22, 10-12). Stating that his affection for Statius "was greater than I had ever felt for an unseen person" (Purgatory 22, 16). This speaks of a love that inspires and encourages, born of virtue. It is based on nothing other than the fact that Statius' love for Virgil was born of good intentions and therefore grew within Virgil himself. We know that Statius' love is noble because God allowed it to join Virgil in Hell. This virtuous love, coinciding with the end of his time in Purgatory, shows us that Statius has learned to desire worthy things unlike what he did in life. In life, Statius was wasteful and "loved" too much. This idea that we can love too much or too little is another way that elective love can lead us astray. Another way this division of love is illustrated is in Dante's encounter with Bontaguntia. While the two converse about the "Sweet New Style", Dante tells him that he is "one who, when Love breathes inside me, notices it, and to that measure that inside dictates, I go to signify" (Purgatorio 24, 52-54). By this Dante means that when love inspires him, he must make it known through poetry. Bontaguntia realizes that this is what prevented him from being a poet of the new style. WhileDante and his contemporaries were moved to write by Divine Love, their predecessors wrote simply by Divine Love. Further on in Purgatory we meet heterosexuals and homosexuals. Their crime in life was that they did not observe human law. The example used - Pasiphae, who fell in love with a bull and disguised herself as a cow so that the bull would run towards her (Purgatory 26, 41) - describes how, when given in to Elective Love, it can actually pervert Natural Love. Love. Guinizelli explains that they are here because they followed their appetites like beasts (Purgatory 26, 83) and gave in to primordial lust. This discussion of primal love in Purgatory brings up an interesting connection to the gates of Hell. The Gates proclaim that Hell was created by the "Primal Love" of Divine Power. Knowing what we now know about primordial, animalistic love and its ties to elective love, we can assume that the inhabitants of Hell have broken completely with human law. Because of their inability to understand love – which according to Dante is the key to keeping elective love on a worthy path – our poor sinners end up in Hell. This distinction between distorting love and completely misunderstanding it is best explained by going back and looking at Hell. In Hell, the idea that we pervert love by choosing to walk away is clearly defined. This is not to say that the choice is a conscious or calculated one. By simply not making the effort to understand or learn what they don't understand, people are making a choice. In some cases these souls do not even know that they do not grasp the right understanding and this incorrect firmness condemns them to eternity. Instead of striving for bliss, they strive to satisfy human vices, thus turning their backs on virtue. For example, the Gluttons of Canto 6 loved excessively and replaced beatification with worldly good. Those guilty of sloth, the gloomy ones of Canto 7, were guilty of loving too little. In Canto 26, the pilgrim meets Ulysses, who betrayed love by promising his crew virtue (Inferno 26, 112-120), something that no voyage would have achieved. Love is born from virtue and therefore, by transforming virtue into a human vice, love is perverted. The most poetic example of all, however, is the lustful Francesca. Stuck in the "hellish vortex" of the third circle of Hell, she is guilty above all else of having perverted love. Francesca betrayed true love by completely failing to understand it. In his speech to the pilgrim he explains to the pilgrim that: Love, which soon kindles in the noble heart, took this for the beautiful / person who was taken from me; and the way still hurts me. / Love, which does not forgive anyone loved to love in return, has grasped me with its / beauty so strongly that, as you see, it still does not abandon me. (Hell 5, 11-105) Here Francesca claims that love "grabbed" Paolo once he saw Francesca's beautiful body. She also claims that because Paul loves her, he had no hope of rejecting her affection since Love “forgives no one.” Therefore Francesca's reciprocation is no more voluntary than Paolo's desire. The obvious “Easter egg” here is that almost nothing in this speech represents Francesca's original thoughts. He is inspired by the fiction of his time, be it Lancelot du Lac or Dolce Stil Novo. Before we know it, we feel great sympathy for Francesca, but once it's pointed out, it's our first clue to her true sins. His moving but "plagiarized" speech reveals nothing about Paul, not even his name. Francesca is "in love" with Paolo's charm and beauty. Francesca "subdued reason to [her] lust" (Inferno 5, 38) and renounced the ability to learn.By misunderstanding lust as Love, Francesca has distorted its ideal. His second mistake lies in the fact that he does not admit his guilt, and instead blames the very Love (here we must assume that he means Divine Love, not the Elective), which should inspire us. He believes that his was a "noble love", something that cannot be true because, if it had been noble, he would not have confused his longing with true Love. So why is Francesca chosen among all the other sufferers in this circle? After all, it is here that figures such as Cleopatra, Dido and Semiramis are damned, guilty of crimes far worse than Francesca's lust. This is where the differences between natural love and elective love become clear. Francesca claims that love was forced upon her by the Almighty, arguing that since she was loved, nothing would save her from returning the love, regardless of her virtuous intent. We have the feeling that love is imposed on the person and based on physical attributes. Later in Purgatory we learn from Virgil that true love has nothing to do with appearances and that love does not need to be reciprocated on principle. Virgil, on the other hand, tells us that if someone loves us virtuously, as if emerging from Natural Love, then this love will also be inspired in us. Love does not impose itself on anyone and is not its agent at all. We, as human beings, are the doers and can only inspire, not force, love in others. This notion further separates Natural Love from Elective Love, for in the case of Natural Love, the love of the Almighty is a given, though not forced. Virgil's last description - "until his flame appears outside" (Purgatory 22, 12) - makes us understand why Ulysses' retaliation had to be consumed in the flame for a desire "that burns him inside" (Inferno 26, 47 -8). His desires, virtuous or otherwise, consumed him and were neither expressed nor acknowledged. Just as Dante, the pilgrim, “went to signify” (Purgatory 24, 52-4), once inspired by Love, so Ulysses should have done. Perhaps then he would have understood that Love's true intentions arise from virtue instead of seeing virtue as the end of love. The sins mentioned above, Gluttony and Sloth, are discussed in both Songs. The disparity lies in the soul's ability to understand that it has strayed. In Hell, the condemned never think that their concept of love is wrong, nor do they realize that they have strayed. They believe that what they were looking for was the true end of love, in the case of the Gluttonous, or that they failed to fully appreciate Natural Love, in the case of the Lazy. On Mount Purgatory the souls realized they had drifted away and returned to Natural Love, but their perversion of love prevented them from being blessed. That is to say, they realized their mistakes, but it was simply too late. Through these examples Dante shows us how Natural Love, which does not err, can lead to Elective Love and sin. Natural Love, which concerns beatification and the Almighty, is the path we must choose through Elective Love; however, since Elective Love is elective after all, this does not always happen. The biggest mistake you can make here, as Francesca shows us, is to completely misunderstand Love, because knowledge is the path to bliss. A perceived “hole” would be the idea of ​​unrequited love. If, as Dante claims throughout the Divine Comedy, all love must be reciprocated in some form, what then of those rejected lovers? This is where our sinners go astray. This supposed unrequited love is simply a person's lack of understanding of the true nature of Love, the true nature being that Love comes from the Almighty; since even Hell is built by this Love, all love is.