(no subject)

[tree_and_leaf]

Do you think the person commenting on CiF who claims to love Dante but to think the Comedy has no soul and no story (unlike the ingenious plotting of "De Vulgari Eloquentia"?!) is trolling?

Comments

[dorothean]

Maybe they only read Inferno, and only for the gruesome parts?

(What's CiF? pardon my ignorance)

[tree_and_leaf]

"Comment is Free" - the Guardian's comment system/ blogging platform. It attracts a fairly mad kind of troll, although the literature, music and cooking threads (the only ones I read now) are usually fairly sane.

I could see someone thinking that Inferno had no soul - though they'd be wrong - but no story? It's a bit of a ripping yarn, I'd have said...

[dorothean]

Oh, thanks.

I can imagine someone going into Inferno with such rigid preconceptions about symbolism that they don't realize there is also a plot.