Dante's Mid-life Crisis

Paper Summary:

A paper which introduces the term 'mid-life' crisis. It shows how 14th century poet, Dante, described his own mid-life crisis in his famous work, "The Divine Comedy" and that ever since the existence of a mid-life crisis has been postulated, Dante;s experience as described in the opening canto of "Inferno", has become the metaphor for the middle life years.

From the Paper:

"In the context of a normal, socially prescribed rite of passage, a crisis; is the halfway point through a natural process. If one focuses on only one part of a complete and purposeful process, one may miss the intent of the whole. People in traditional cultures accepted that the life cycle comprised stages and that getting through the times of transition was a natural process. They did not fear the middle (i.e., the conflict or crisis)" part of the process; because they knew it would be resolved eventually. (Atkinson, R., 2002) Dante was an ardent Catholic, as well as a Classicist who had been living the life of a political exile away from his beloved Florence. In The Divine Comedy, he created a highly regimented Hell, developing a hierarchy of sins in the tradition of Greek philosophy. Each sin was illustrated in well-known figures in 14th century Italy and the legendary Greeks and Romans, among whom were his numerous political enemies as well."

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