Dante’s Damned Lovers: Paolo and Francesca
Literature’s most tragic lovers
Dante’s masterwork the Commedia contains many tragic figures, especially in Inferno. The damned includes practically every great hero and philosopher of history, alongside the father of Dante’s former best friend, and Virgil himself, a man blessed with the responsibility of escorting Dante to Eden but doomed to return to Limbo.
Virgil’s end was fated from the start — as a pagan, he could never go to paradise. But fate, the will, and our role in our own lives are something that troubled Dante immensely, as they did many before and after him. He wrestles with the question — do we really have control over ourselves — a lot throughout the Commedia, but never so poignantly as in the Inf. V with the tragic story of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta — literature’s most tragic lovers.
The Life and Times of Francesca and Paolo
Not much is known about the two lovers’ early lives. We don’t even have their birth dates, just the year of their deaths (a foreshadowing of what is to come). Francesca was married to Giovanni (sometimes called Gianciotto)…
