Dante’s Inferno: How Being Whole Makes a Person Feel Pleasure and Pain

October 1, 2021

There was an interesting part in Canto Six of Dante’s Inferno which talked about how being whole transforms the way a person experiences emotions. Dante writes, “He: “Turn to your philosophy again, // which shows that when a thing at last is whole // it feels more pleasure—so it feels more pain”” (Canto 6, Ln. 105-7). This passage stuck out to me because it spoke to the idea that as a person gets closer to wholeness, that person has the capacity to feel things deeper. I always thought that as a person became more whole, they would feel pleasure and love better, but it never struck me that the same would be true of the other emotions, specifically pain. I think it makes sense, though, that as a person is able to understand and process what they are feeling, they will have the capacity to feel things stronger. It is a difficult passage to read, because it highlights the fact that just because a person is more whole, it does not mean that they will have freedom from pain. It also made me think about the nature of God, because it reminded me that God, who is perfect wholeness and unity, is still said to feel pain. He feels pain because of the love he has for his creatures. This feeling of pain from a place of wholeness contrasts with another passage in Dante’s Inferno which reads, “so badly had her grief twisted her mind” (Canto 30, Ln. 21). This passage talks about a girl who went mad over grief. This is an unhealthy response to pain from a place of not being whole. I think that the key distinction here is that the way that we feel pain and passion when we are whole is a fruitful way that helps us process and move forward with our spiritual and emotional growth.