Breaking the Rules

Go back to your science, which teaches that the more

A creature is perfect, the more it perceives the good--

And likewise, pain. The accursed' people here

Can never come to true perfection;

Instead, they can expect to come closer then than now 

Canto XI (97-101)

This to me expresses Dante's struggle to understand the difference between reason and faith. Dante's struggle with what is perfect, or logical, is contrary to the truth and faith that boxes and condemns those who are stuck in hell. Dante explains that hell is a trap from which many seek to get out of by aiming at perfection--or science. but rather that those governed by hell are not governed by science but rather by what was once good.

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What their condition was who populate

A fortress so guarded, I cast my eye around

As soon as I was in--and saw a great

Plain filled with woe and torment.

Canto IX (97-100)

If I was deaf and I saw a picture of J.R. Tolkien's Mordor and Dante's gate and fortress I think the two would be the same. In the "Inferno" the fortress gate is heavily guarded. Likewise the gates to Mordor are heavy, and left to the guard of the nocturnal horrors. Tolkien says that when you enter through the gates you come onto a plain on which the armies of Mordor camp in evil revelry. Likewise it seems that the Plains behind the fortress gate in "The Inferno" are inhabited by woe and torment. I rest my case that J. R. Tolkien took some of his imagery from "Dante's Inferno."

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In order that hereafter the sight alone

May be sufficient, you will hear what rules

Determine how and why they are constrained.

Canto XI (18-20)

This is Dante's whole concept of hell. Dante asserts that life is governed by rules. He says that each level is black and white, when in fact, people like Pope Anastasius should be categorized in more then one level. Dante scientific reasoning is that each sin can be classified and therefore the sinner can follow the classification. What the connection between the sin and the sinner does, is provide a tangible suffering, a suffering that does not leave gray. In this way Dante aligns himself with the church that at the time of his life was selling indulgences. Maybe Dante's referral to rules is simply mocking the inability, or the incredulity of what the church represents.