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Character analysis: The Battle between Roland and Ganelon in the Songs of Roland
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The two works of literature that will be talked about are Dante’s Inferno and the Song of Roland. There are many similarities and differences between these two works of literature that focus on the Christian God.
A similarity between these two works of literature are that God plays a key factor in people’s fates. Dante would have been died or not been allowed to enter the City of Dis when they tried to enter; God sent an angel to blow open the doors and allow them to proceed. This allows Dante to continue on his journey through the circles of hell. In the Song of Roland we have got directly punish a character and have him killed. We have Ganelon who betrayed his country and have Roland killed. There was going to be a trial by combat to decide
Characters in literature who exhibit pride or live as a voice of reason, often share certain characteristics between each other. Prideful characters often allow their pride to influence their actions, while voices of reason advise the lead character, hoping that the lead character will listen to them. Dante’s Inferno and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex share similarities through their lead characters, Dante (the pilgrim) from Dante’s Inferno and Oedipus from Oedipus Rex, as well as through their voices of reason, Virgil from Dante’s Inferno and Creon from Oedipus Rex
The most basic comparison to be made is that of the respective protagonists within the texts. Without having go in depth we can see that Beowulf and Dante are
...raits, nevertheless, the differences outweigh the similarities. Hell primarily focuses on punishing sinners; the House of Death does not. In fact, Odysseus meets many more people who are not being punished, than those who are. Both underworlds are chaotic, but Hell contains a very strict structure, which makes it organized; the House of Death does not have this element during Odysseus’ stay. Dante’s Inferno emphasizes the morality and reasons for sin when conversing with sinners in Hell, while The Odyssey emphasizes Odysseus’ reunion with old friends, as they discuss past events. The differences are at least partly a result of Homer’s and Dante’s differing religions, when they each wrote their own, and the culture in which each of them lived. The two works agree one element though. They each portray existing in the underworld as second to living on earth.
Some people believe the Inferno is an allegorical confrontation of Dante’s sins among his lifetime. There are many examples in his writing that show this, some of which include symbols, people form his lifetime, and events pertaining to his personal beliefs.The first main example of this exists in Canto Thirty-Two, the betrayers of kindred, or more specific to Dante himself; betrayers of country. Dante was exiled from his home in Florence where he served as a politician.Considering his own personal treachery, it makes sense for him to have chosen the ninth ring of the traitors to be the worst of all. In this Canto, Dante has a run-in with one of the sinners in particular, Bocca. In their confrontation, the Bocca is too embarrassed to admit his deed. Dante offers to discuss with Bocca his sin, being interested and curious with him. He asks, “if you should look for fame, I’ll make note of you with all the rest.”(Dante 32.92-93). Bocca replies, “I crave the opposite.”(Dante 32.94). By this Bocca means that he does not wish to share his deed, as he is most likely embarrassed. Considering Dante’s love of his country, I think that he included this confrontation to show that he too is embarrassed of his own treachery.
In Dante’s Inferno, the relationship between Dante the Pilgrim and Virgil the Guide is an ever-evolving one. By analyzing the transformation of this relationship as the two sojourn through the circles of hell, one is able to learn more about the mindset of Dante the Poet. At the outset, Dante is clearly subservient to Virgil, whom he holds in high esteem for his literary genius. However, as the work progresses, Virgil facilitates Dante’s spiritual enlightenment, so that by the end, Dante has ascended to Virgil’s spiritual level and has in many respects surpassed him. In Dante’s journey with respect to Virgil, one can see man’s spiritual journey towards understanding God. While God loves man regardless of his faults, His greatest desire is to see man attain greater spirituality, in that man, already created in God’s image, may truly become divine, and in doing so, attain eternality.
A closer examination reveals that only the language is similar. Dante uses emotions and images to describe his experiences with these two divinities. The language actually highlights the differences between them, as will be seen later.
Dante’s Inferno is the narration told of the life of Dante Alighieri. The narration is done by Dante himself where he explains his life and various encounters. Dante is known for writing various stories and poems which he did after he was exiled from Florence where he was an ambassador. He had lived a life among the middle class, loved and lost his love to death, and gotten into leadership in Florence. His various experiences in life had caused him to have a distorted view of the purity of the Catholic Church in its indulgence in politics. The terms of the exile demanded that his return would be punishable by death.
The Middle Ages spawned a revolutionary arc in religious activity. Having welcomed Christianity, and taking roots from Greek and Roman spirituality, the arts had evolved alongside divine beliefs. Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy explored the realms of Christianity, which included Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Heaven (Paradiso), with the fictitious account of Dante himself traveling to each individual place. As such, his masterpiece had become a wonder of the literature world. Alongside it, the artistic visions of Donatello and Brunelleschi had held Greek and Roman beliefs in high regards as a majority of their architecture, sculptures, and other artistic aspects had derived directly from those ancient beliefs. Finally, music had
Many arguments have been made that Dante’s Inferno glimmers through here and there in Milton’s Paradise Lost. While at first glance the two poems seem quite drastically different in their portrayal of Hell, but scholars have made arguments that influence from Dante shines through Milton’s work as well as arguments refuting these claims. All of these arguments have their own merit and while there are instances where a Dantean influence can be seen throughout Paradise Lost, Milton’s progression of evil and Satan are quite different from Dante. Dante’s influence on Milton is noted by many scholars and is very apparent in several instances throughout Paradise Lost, however, Milton shows a progression of evil through his own vision of Satan and creates a Hell that is less meticulously constructed than Dante’s and more open to interpretation.
Dante’s Inferno presents the reader with many questions and thought provoking dialogue to interpret. These crossroads provide points of contemplation and thought. Dante’s graphic depiction of hell and its eternal punishment is filled with imagery and allegorical meanings. Examining one of these cruxes of why there is a rift in the pits of hell, can lead the reader to interpret why Dante used the language he did to relate the Idea of a Just and perfect punishment by God.
The Divine Comedy and the Bible are similar and different in many ways. Dante includes Paradiso (Heaven), Purgatory, and Inferno (Hell) in The Divine Comedy. It talks about where people go when they die. The Bible differs from this because there is only Heaven and Hell. There is not a middle place, such as Purgatory, where people go to repent of their sins even after death. Also, unlike Inferno, Hell is not split up into many categories. In the Bible they go straight into Heaven or Hell. Also, everyone’s new bodies in the two stories are different. The Divine Comedy and the Bible have several complex ideas, and the comparisons and contrasts of the two are interesting.
Seeing as this work was written by Dante, and the journey is taken by Dante, he has a unique opportunity to judge his fellow man and decide how they will be punished. He also gets to place his enemies in hell, forever besmirching their names for generations to remember. Perhaps unknowing to Dante, that is worse than any of the punishments that he placed his enemies in. The reality of The Inferno is unlikely and therefore these punishments are nothing but a fictiona...
Dante’s The Divine Comedy illustrates one man’s quest for the knowledge of how to avoid the repercussions of his actions in life so that he may seek salvation in the afterlife. The Divine Comedy establishes a set of moral principles that one must live by in order to reach paradise. Dante presents these principles in Inferno, where each level of Hell has people suffering for the sins they committed during their life. As Dante gets deeper into Hell, the degrees of sin get progressively worse, as do the severity of punishment.
Contemporary sculpture was brought into the art world during the 1800’s by French artist, Auguste Rodin.
Etched in the backbone of numerous medieval texts is the closing line of Dante's Paradiso, "the love that moves the sun and the other stars" (Paradise XXXIII; 145). This short line of iambic pentameter encapsulates the broad notion of divine love, which in the Medieval Period, was considered the driving force towards the infinite. In Dante's Divine Comedy, Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love, and Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica, divine love is a central theme exposed in true human love through poetic pilgrimages, mystic revelations, and philosophical teachings. Each work exposes human love in its most charitable and pure form as interrelated with divine love and in its most passionate and self-serving form as distinguished from the divine.