Excerpt from Dante and Other Waning Classics

Literature takes man as he is, it roots itself in human nature and material as well as spiritual desires, it shows us the individual with his impulses to exercise all his faculties and satisfy his instincts. Theology is taken up with devotion and repentance, it aims after piety, it wishes to dehumanize man.

If literature is to be made a study of human nature, wrote Cardinal Newman, who certainly was no enemy of theology, you cannot have a Christian literature. It is a contra diction in terms to attempt a sinless literature of sinful man.

It is a matter of great regret that some of the ablest writers should have embraced doctrines that have become obsolete. What a pity that the presence of exploded dogmas should vitiate literary performances! It is still sadder when we find that the entire substructures of some classics are founded on the fossilized remains of false principles.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.