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Perdition is Part One of The Profane Comedy, an epic poem that encompasses all of US history, literature and philosophy. It uses Dante’s epic architecture to show the way to attain enlightenment by following a modern, secular path. Thirty powerful illustrations provide the visual impact.
The poet, with Lincoln as his guide, wanders from scene to scene, first at the gate of hell, with Ronald Reagan, next Herbert Hoover, then Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and Elvis Presley, then a bunch of fetuses, then a hostile audience, and so on, until he comes into Satan’s presence, with Teddy Roosevelt and Nixon nearby. Then he goes through the river of cleansing fire…
In each scene, the featured characters are stand-ins for their time, a microcosmic example of those who (as Dante said of Inferno) had lost the good of their intellect, causing America to lose its creative energy, in recognition of the very destructive energy also unleashed in its imperial expansion. In Perdition they are paying for sins far beyond their own, and the fact that everybody from one period of time has been cast into the pit is yet another irony. By the time Fing finally meets Satan, it’s become clear that the sins have been imperial in nature, a hubristic dominance of the world, and the cold inhumanity of society’s institutions. But Perdition is just the first of three canticles: Limbo, where Fing returns to the mainland of the USA, and Elysium, in which Fing is raised into the heavens.
