Genre and the Attempt to Render Pride: Dante and Aquinas

This study examines how different genres in religious ethics operate both in the abstract and through the examples provided by the treatments of pride in Aquinas and Dante. Aquinas distinguishes good pride from bad pride and narrow conceptions from broad conceptions of bad pride. The last identifies a quality that pervades human activity and therefore is difficult to identify and treat; this situation presents a grave problem for a tradition committed to the notion that ethical analyses should clarify understanding in order to guide action. I examine Dante's response to that problem by treating examples that display different subjects and literary forms. The most prominent one, from the Inferno, concerns pride and notions of self-hood. The last, from Paradiso, presents an example of good pride, relates it to pardon and conventional ethical judgments, and points toward Dante's final statement, in yet another literary form, about pride.