I think there is a distinction to be made between sloth ('acedia") and psychological depression. Here is how Peter Kreeft put it, in his "Back to Virtue": "Saint Thomas defines sloth as "sorrow about spiritual good," or joylessness when faced with God as our supreme joy. He explains that this is matter for mortal sin because it is a sin against charity [i.e., love]. To understand this, we must remember that charity is one of the three theological virtues, or dispositions of the soul in regard to God, which attaches us to God. Faith, hope and charity are our spiritual glue. Whatever dissolves this glue is mortally sinful; whatever can remove faith, hope or charity can kill God's life in our soul. And sloth does just that. How? by robbing us of our appetite for God, our zest for God, our interest and enjoyment in God. Sloth stops us from seeking God, and that means we do not find him... Sloth is a sin of omission, not commission...To commit evil is at least to be playing the game, the only game in town, the game God is playing, though it is to play for the wrong side...Sloth simply does not play God's game, either with him or against him. It sits on the sidelines, bored while life and death are at stake. ...Relaxing is not sloth. The person who never relaxes is not a saint, but a fidget. Ironically, it is often just such a fidget who is guilty of sloth...why are we so busy? Why in this great age of time-saving devices, does no one have any free time? Why, now that we have technology to do our labor, is life emptier of leisure than it ever was in pretechnological societies? What are we hiding from ourselves with all this pointless and unhappyifying activism? We are hiding ourselves, we are hiding the God-sized hole in our hearts, the hole in the foundation of our existence. We try to paper the hole over with a thousand things, but they are all thin, and we know we will fall through the hole if we get too close. So we don't. We avoid God's absence as much as God's presence. We are slothful. ...we cover it up with a thousand busynesses. Thus, paradoxically, it is our very sloth that produces our frantic activism."
I know this is a year later so I'm not sure you'll see it, Beth, but if you do, I'd love to hear your (or anyone else's!) thoughts on the difference between the slothful here and the undecided in canto 3. I very much appreciate you sharing this distinction between acedia and psychological depression, particularly as sloth is one of the vices that seems most challenging to clearly, or perhaps consistently, define. Yet the more I read through the passage you shared, the more it seemed relevant to those in canto 3 who merely did not choose a side. Or would Kreeft/St. Thomas' definitions of sloth count them one and the same?
6:06. He's not saying that you should be condemned for being depressed (we call it an illness and medicalise it because of our materialist ontology. We think the chemical imbalance that results from the spiritual condition is what's causing the condition. We've put the cart before the horse) He's saying that this is the nature of your existence when you're depressed, you are in hell, he's not saying you should be condemned to hell.
I'm not sure that Dante's pairings must all be seen as strict opposites. Perhaps that is true for hoarders versus spendthrifts (misering or extravagance) because in Ciardi's version the text is translated as "opposite guilts" meeting "in their wretchedness." Opposites seems less true to me for the wrathful and the sullen, however. I don't accept the suggestion (but I will think about it) that the sullen are what today we would call depressed. I also don't accept that the sullen are those who repress their anger, but perhaps that is based on my making a distinction between conscious suppression and Freudian unacknowledged repression. Both the openly angry and wrathful person and the less demonstrative, but clearly upset or angry, sullen person can inflict their anger or malcontent on others. It is just carried out in different ways. I think saying that the sullen "speak their piece, end it, and start again" reflects how sullen persons constantly recycle their anger so that it is an enduring feature others can observe in them, like a mood they wear all the time. It always appears that they do have something bottled up which they won't let go of, in contrast perhaps to the more explosively wrathful person, but not necessarily an all around strict opposite.
"The comprehensive and rigidity of Dante's medieval understanding of sin and human existence. . ." She calls Dante rigid? That is a projection if I've ever heard one. Her rigidity manifests as the moralistic, therapeutic nonsense of our age, the love affair with self that leads us to believe the delusion that we progress by our efforts, by tapping "human energy." Her ideology isn't rigid?. That really cuts off discussion about the depths of the soul and man's natural tendency toward cravenness. Her "healthful" philosophy is what has caused the great angst of the 21st century. People are trapped in a hellish circle of attempting to heal apart from a true understanding of who we are--souls created by a loving God but lost from him by the unrepentant sin we bear and a lack of faith. Rather than confess the state of our souls we yack incessantly about how we are healing and improving and working on ourselves. In the futility of this thinking, we seem to absolve ourselves of culpability for what we commit against one another and God, because we are are just trying to do our best, a notion that leads to a living hell and to the one beyond. There is no redemption in what she says.
I wonder how the meaning of Pluto's utterances might be might be given a different slant if we understood the function of the archetype more broadly, to include a postive dimension? As mythic God of the Underworld he has both a destructive and a postive face, and an important role to play in the great descents we endure at predictable stages throughout the lifecycle. We die to our former selves and undergo a transformative opportunity in the dark of the Underworld, the realm of Pluto.
I think there is a possible problem at the beginning of Canto VII. It is true that Pluto is the God of wealth in Greek mythology. However, there is the possibility that Dante refers to Pluto god of the underworld, husband of Persephone (Proserpina, Perséfone). During the Middle Ages he was recognized with the wealth under the earth. Charon took the souls to the abode of Hades, just as in Canto III. In the antechamber of Hades and Persephone Minos appears as judge, as in Canto V. Hades's dog is Cerberus, as in Canto VI. And, according to Virgil's Aeneid, Hades was the father of the Erinyes (furies in Latin, Erínias, Furias) who appear in canto IX. I think there is a problem in some translations. It is true that Dante speaks of Pluto in his language, but Pluto according to Greece or according to Rome? In my opinion, and observing the context, it is clear that we are talking about Hades (Pluto, Plutón), God of the underworld, and not the Greek God of wealth Pluto.
I don't want to be pedantic but... chioccia is pronounced kiocchia. If you pronounce the ch in the English way it looses impact. The - Chioccia - is Italian for Mother hen. They make a squaking sounds when the sense peril for their brood. My humble opinion is that Dante uses - la voice chioccia - because of the sound to an Italian ear. And that's the difficulty of translating any classic in another language. The author wrote for is native language. I can see this because I can read Shakespeare in inglish. An Italian translation can give you only an approximation. Take for exame the translation of the classic Don Qixote. The poem start with the famous . En un lugar de la Manchia que no quiero accordarme. Every translator has a different version. Same as.... Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita... Translators of the Commedia say that it his difficult to make it ryme in the English language. Lord Byron found it very easy in the poem Don Juan.
I think there is a distinction to be made between sloth ('acedia") and psychological depression. Here is how Peter Kreeft put it, in his "Back to Virtue":
"Saint Thomas defines sloth as "sorrow about spiritual good," or joylessness when faced with God as our supreme joy. He explains that this is matter for mortal sin because it is a sin against charity [i.e., love]. To understand this, we must remember that charity is one of the three theological virtues, or dispositions of the soul in regard to God, which attaches us to God. Faith, hope and charity are our spiritual glue. Whatever dissolves this glue is mortally sinful; whatever can remove faith, hope or charity can kill God's life in our soul. And sloth does just that.
How? by robbing us of our appetite for God, our zest for God, our interest and enjoyment in God. Sloth stops us from seeking God, and that means we do not find him...
Sloth is a sin of omission, not commission...To commit evil is at least to be playing the game, the only game in town, the game God is playing, though it is to play for the wrong side...Sloth simply does not play God's game, either with him or against him. It sits on the sidelines, bored while life and death are at stake.
...Relaxing is not sloth. The person who never relaxes is not a saint, but a fidget.
Ironically, it is often just such a fidget who is guilty of sloth...why are we so busy? Why in this great age of time-saving devices, does no one have any free time? Why, now that we have technology to do our labor, is life emptier of leisure than it ever was in pretechnological societies? What are we hiding from ourselves with all this pointless and unhappyifying activism?
We are hiding ourselves, we are hiding the God-sized hole in our hearts, the hole in the foundation of our existence. We try to paper the hole over with a thousand things, but they are all thin, and we know we will fall through the hole if we get too close. So we don't. We avoid God's absence as much as God's presence. We are slothful.
...we cover it up with a thousand busynesses. Thus, paradoxically, it is our very sloth that produces our frantic activism."
I know this is a year later so I'm not sure you'll see it, Beth, but if you do, I'd love to hear your (or anyone else's!) thoughts on the difference between the slothful here and the undecided in canto 3. I very much appreciate you sharing this distinction between acedia and psychological depression, particularly as sloth is one of the vices that seems most challenging to clearly, or perhaps consistently, define. Yet the more I read through the passage you shared, the more it seemed relevant to those in canto 3 who merely did not choose a side. Or would Kreeft/St. Thomas' definitions of sloth count them one and the same?
How lucky I am. I am Italian and lived in England for 60 years. I can read Dante in the original Italian and Shakespeare in the original English.
6:06. He's not saying that you should be condemned for being depressed (we call it an illness and medicalise it because of our materialist ontology. We think the chemical imbalance that results from the spiritual condition is what's causing the condition. We've put the cart before the horse) He's saying that this is the nature of your existence when you're depressed, you are in hell, he's not saying you should be condemned to hell.
Informative and provocative. To consider this opposition throughout the work will be intriguing. Thank you.
Thank you Dr. Easterling. Your presentation is wonderful!
No, that isn't what was meant by sluggishness.
Explain please....
The sullen are better thought of as those who repressed their anger. Not depression.
@@wmcook right. Who refused to be motivated by righteous anger
I'm not sure that Dante's pairings must all be seen as strict opposites. Perhaps that is true for hoarders versus spendthrifts (misering or extravagance) because in Ciardi's version the text is translated as "opposite guilts" meeting "in their wretchedness." Opposites seems less true to me for the wrathful and the sullen, however. I don't accept the suggestion (but I will think about it) that the sullen are what today we would call depressed. I also don't accept that the sullen are those who repress their anger, but perhaps that is based on my making a distinction between conscious suppression and Freudian unacknowledged repression. Both the openly angry and wrathful person and the less demonstrative, but clearly upset or angry, sullen person can inflict their anger or malcontent on others. It is just carried out in different ways. I think saying that the sullen "speak their piece, end it, and start again" reflects how sullen persons constantly recycle their anger so that it is an enduring feature others can observe in them, like a mood they wear all the time. It always appears that they do have something bottled up which they won't let go of, in contrast perhaps to the more explosively wrathful person, but not necessarily an all around strict opposite.
Sullen also means sour, always negative, refusing to see the good in anyone or any situation
Thank you for an enlightening well thought out explanation of this Canto. Helped my ability to understand it much better.
🙄 Yeah no, lady. Sloth is not misunderstood depression.
"The comprehensive and rigidity of Dante's medieval understanding of sin and human existence. . ." She calls Dante rigid? That is a projection if I've ever heard one. Her rigidity manifests as the moralistic, therapeutic nonsense of our age, the love affair with self that leads us to believe the delusion that we progress by our efforts, by tapping "human energy." Her ideology isn't rigid?. That really cuts off discussion about the depths of the soul and man's natural tendency toward cravenness. Her "healthful" philosophy is what has caused the great angst of the 21st century. People are trapped in a hellish circle of attempting to heal apart from a true understanding of who we are--souls created by a loving God but lost from him by the unrepentant sin we bear and a lack of faith. Rather than confess the state of our souls we yack incessantly about how we are healing and improving and working on ourselves. In the futility of this thinking, we seem to absolve ourselves of culpability for what we commit against one another and God, because we are are just trying to do our best, a notion that leads to a living hell and to the one beyond. There is no redemption in what she says.
See my comment and quote from Peter Kreeft, above.
Well said. I think her comparison of the sin of sloth to today's conception of clinical depression further emphasizes the point you're making.
I wonder how the meaning of Pluto's utterances might be might be given a different slant if we understood the function of the archetype more broadly, to include a postive dimension? As mythic God of the Underworld he has both a destructive and a postive face, and an important role to play in the great descents we endure at predictable stages throughout the lifecycle. We die to our former selves and undergo a transformative opportunity in the dark of the Underworld, the realm of Pluto.
I think there is a possible problem at the beginning of Canto VII.
It is true that Pluto is the God of wealth in Greek mythology.
However, there is the possibility that Dante refers to Pluto god of the underworld, husband of Persephone (Proserpina, Perséfone).
During the Middle Ages he was recognized with the wealth under the earth.
Charon took the souls to the abode of Hades, just as in Canto III.
In the antechamber of Hades and Persephone Minos appears as judge, as in Canto V.
Hades's dog is Cerberus, as in Canto VI.
And, according to Virgil's Aeneid, Hades was the father of the Erinyes (furies in Latin, Erínias, Furias) who appear in canto IX.
I think there is a problem in some translations. It is true that Dante speaks of Pluto in his language, but Pluto according to Greece or according to Rome? In my opinion, and observing the context, it is clear that we are talking about Hades (Pluto, Plutón), God of the underworld, and not the Greek God of wealth Pluto.
I don't want to be pedantic but... chioccia is pronounced kiocchia. If you pronounce the ch in the English way it looses impact. The - Chioccia - is Italian for Mother hen. They make a squaking sounds when the sense peril for their brood. My humble opinion is that Dante uses - la voice chioccia - because of the sound to an Italian ear. And that's the difficulty of translating any classic in another language. The author wrote for is native language. I can see this because I can read Shakespeare in inglish. An Italian translation can give you only an approximation. Take for exame the translation of the classic Don Qixote. The poem start with the famous .
En un lugar de la Manchia que no quiero accordarme. Every translator has a different version. Same as....
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita...
Translators of the Commedia say that it his difficult to make it ryme in the English language. Lord Byron found it very easy in the poem Don Juan.
I don´t want to be pedantic either: "English", "Example", "Don Quijote", "En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme".
RIGIDITY