The Moral System of Dante’s Inferno

This well known work is an elaborate treatment in twenty-five chapters, in which Reade begins by rejecting the theories of Witte and Moore and then proceeds to trace in detail the various instances of penal classification and moral judgments in Dante’s poem to Aristotle and to Thomas Aquinas; he also accounts for judgments that follow neither of these, as in the general classification of sins of Violence and Fraud according to Cicero. The Contents include: Some Problems and Some Proposed Solutions; Witte’s Theory; Final Criticisms; The Possibility of a New Method; The Method of St. Thomas: Authority and Truth; The Human Soul; The Classification of Moral Virtues; Aristotle and the Cardinal Virtues; Theological Virtues: Gifts of the Spirit: Beatitudes; The Classification of Sinners and Sins; The Comparative Gravity of Sins; The Subiecta and Causes of Sin; Malitia as Cause of Sin; The Names and Order of the Capital Vices; The Capital Vices as Causes; Malitia and Justice; Aristotle and the Capital Vices; Sins against the Theological Virtues; A Return to Dante; Malizia in the Inferno; Malizia and Purgatory; The Circle of Heresy; The Circles of Incontinence; and Forza and Bestialitade.