Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria.
– Dante, Inferno, Canto V, 121–123
“There is no greater pain than to remember happy days in days of misery.” Thus spoke Francesca da Rimini to Dante in the second circle of hell. Her husband murdered her for committing adultery with his brother. She faced an eternal afterlife enveloped in darkness and tormented by roaring hurricane winds, which recalled the way she and her lover Paolo Malatesta were carried in life by the winds of their passion. As Dante told the story, Francesca’s hopelessness dripped from her words; Paolo could muster no words at all but only weep bitterly.
Such is the power of nostalgia. Nostalgia yields vivid images that bless the imagination but can also give birth to despair. It is not quite history, nor is it really memory, and it is not merely a feeling. Nostalgia emerges when history, memory, and sentimentality meet.
As humans, we can all relate to the power of nostalgia in belief formation. We form our beliefs about reality based on a myriad of considerations. One of those considerations is our national identity. Who we are
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