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Essay about divine comedy
Essay about divine comedy
Essay about divine comedy
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Disconnected from his righteous path, Dante Alighieri is visited by the Roman poet, Virgil. By following the Hero’s Journey steps allows Dante to mature in strength and confidence through his Call to Action by the Supernatural Aid, facing his challenges and temptations, and Crossing the Return Threshold.
The only way to return to “the delightful mountain, source And principle that causes every joy” is through the Nine Circles of Hell, Virgil informs to the lost traveler ( I. 58-60 ). Virgil holds strict orders from Heaven to guide Dante through the layers of Hell and face the sinners, so he needs to persuade Dante that he has the capability and strength to take on Hell with him. After convincing Dante to face the Nine Circles of Hell, they begin their challenging journey, Dante being a fearful soul, full of pity for those disobeying God.
Traveling through Hell, Dante’s pity and fear starts to challenge and overcome him, resulting in him blacking out. Within the storming Second Circle, home of the lustful, the pity Dante feels for the shade Francesca had him “Swooning as in death, [as he] fell like a dying body,”( V. 127 ). Growing as an individual as his vile journey continues, Dante’s fainting out of pity or fear concludes, which shows a small transformation of him
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becoming braver and stronger towards the end of his expedition. Nearing the end of his journey, Dante’s strength vastly maturing, Dante and Virgil need to return to Earth using the strength acquired throughout the Circles.
The cessation of Dante’s pilgrimage in Hell was climbing up Satan’s body to return back to Earth. Virgil and Dante “went into that hidden tunnel; And following its path,” “[Dante] saw appear “Some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears” “and once more saw the stars” finally, after an extensive amount of time of sorrow and suffering that seemed endless ( XXXIV. 135-140 ). Climbing up Satan’s horrid body, following a lengthy passage from Inferno to Purgatorio brought them to the the Mountain of Purgatorio, where they reached the stars at
last. Following the steps in the Hero’s Journey allowed Dante to mature in strength and confidence because he obeyed his Supernatural Aid during his Call to Action, overcame the challenges and temptations resulting in Crossing the Return Threshold back to Earth. Having Dante grow and become a stronger and more confident individual through Hero’s Journey concludes the epic odyssey of Dante traveling through the Nine Circles of Hell.
In review, Dante had to travel through Hell in order to save his soul from eternal damnation. His guide, Virgil, was not an angel, but was not technically in Hell either. He was in Limbo. He was sent to guide Dante by Beatrice, an angel of heaven who loved Dante. Dante’s straying from the path of righteousness set all of these events into motion.
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.
In the Inferno we follow the journey of Dante as he wanders off the path of moral truth and into Hell. The Virgin Mary and Santa Lucia ask Beatrice, Dante’s deceased love, to send some help. Thus, Virgil comes to the rescue and essentially guides Dante through Hell and back to the mortal world from which he came. However, things begin to seem kind of odd. When reading the Inferno one may begin to question the way Dante describes Hell and the things that occur within, or even the things we have always believed about Hell. Despite the way it is described and well known in western civilization, Hell is not at all how we expect it to be because of Dante's use of irony throughout this poetic masterpiece.
“If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing.” This maxim applies to the poet Dante Alighieri, writer of The Inferno in the 1300s, because it asserts the need to establish oneself as a contributor to society. Indeed, Dante’s work contributes much to Renaissance Italy as his work is the first of its scope and size to be written in the vernacular. Due to its readability and availability, The Inferno is a nationalistic symbol. With this widespread availability also comes a certain social responsibility; even though Dante’s audience would have been familiar with the religious dogma, he assumes the didactic role of illustrating his own version of Christian justice and emphasizes the need for a personal understanding of divine wisdom and contrapasso, the idea of the perfect punishment for the crime. Dante acts as both author and narrator, completing a physical and spiritual journey into the underworld with Virgil as his guide and mentor. The journey from darkness into light is an allegory full of symbolism, much like that of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which shows a philosopher’s journey towards truth. Therefore, Dante would also agree with the maxim, “Wise men learn by others’ harms; fools scarcely by their own,” because on the road to gaining knowledge and spiritual enlightenment, characters who learn valuable lessons from the misfortunes of others strengthen their own paradigms. Nonetheless, the only true way to gain knowledge is to experience it first hand. Dante’s character finds truth by way of his own personal quest.
The purpose of the pilgrim's journey through hell is to show, first hand, the divine justice of God and how Christian morality dictates how, and to what degree, sinners are punished. Also, the journey shows the significance of God's grace and how it affects not only the living, but the deceased as well. During his trip through hell, the character of Dante witnesses the true perfection of God's justice in that every sinner is punished in the same nature as their sins. For instance, the wrathful are to attack each other for all eternity and the soothsayers are forever to walk around with their heads on backwards. Furthermore, Dante discovers that hell is comprised of nine different circles containing sinners guilty of one type of sin, and that these circles are in order based upon how great an opposition the sin is to Christian morality and the ultimate will of God. We see here how Christianity plays a major role in the structure of hell and the degree to which each sinner is punished. Lastly, we can look at the story and see the importance of the grace of God not only to Dante during his journey, but how it affects the souls in hell and purgatory as well.
When Dante and Virgil reach the gate of Hell, Dante is overcome with fear upon reading the inscription above the gate and hearing the screams and lamentations of those inside. He reacts to the inscription by crying out, " ‘Master,’ I said, ‘these words I see are cruel.’ " (III.12). By this he shows his fear of the unknown because he does not yet know exactly what he will witness during his descent. One of Dante’s truest display of fear occurs upon reaching the vile City of Dis. When the "fallen angels" deny the travelers access through the city, Virgil, usually unflappable, even appears shaken up. Understandably, this does not help Dante’s nerves at all. He actually makes a side comment to the reader declaring the terror he felt after the angels had defied Virgil’s request saying: "And now, my reader, consider how I felt / when those foreboding words came to my ears! / I thought I’d never see our world again!" (VIII.
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.
Dante passes through the gate of Hell, which reads, "Abandon all hope ye who enter here (Dante 42)." At the end of his journey, Dante comes to realize what that means. As Dante descends through each level of Hell, he sees how every sinful act is punished accordingly. He passes by the Opportunists, who were neither for good or bad. Because they chose neither, they are placed in neither Hell nor Heaven. The Carnal are eternally whirled around, just as in life, the souls were led by their emotions. These punishments are everlasting. This is the meaning of the inscription, " Abandon all hope ye who enter here (Dante 42)." Dante goes though the Inferno and learns what eternal torture is. The souls he meets in torment will never receive ...
Dante's "Inferno" is full of themes. But the most frequent is that of the weakness of human nature. Dante's descent into hell is initially so that Dante can see how he can better live his life, free of weaknesses that may ultimately be his ticket to hell. Through the first ten cantos, Dante portrays how each level of his hell is a manifestation of human weakness and a loss of hope, which ultimately Dante uses to purge and learn from. Dante, himself, is about to fall into the weaknesses of humans, before there is some divine intervention on the part of his love Beatrice, who is in heaven. He is sent on a journey to hell in order for Dante to see, smell, and hear hell. As we see this experience brings out Dante's weakness' of cowardice, wrath and unworthiness. He is lead by Virgil, who is a representation of intellect. Through Dante's experiences he will purge his sins.
Descending from the first to the second level of Hell, Dante witnesses the transition to greater agony and greater punishment for the damned. Overwhelmed by the sinner’s harrowing cries and the extensive list of seemingly innocent souls given to him by Virgil, Dante beckons for two lovers to approach him, desperate for some sense of comfort. The souls are known to be the historical figures Francesca de Rimini and her lover Paolo, forever trapped in the circle of lust due to their sinful adultery. Through her words spoken to Dante, Francesca shows how she feels she has been unjustly punished and is deserving of others’ sorrow, and Dante, despite his awareness that she is a sinner, pities her. A close reading of this passage is necessary to better understand Dante’s internal battle with showing compassion where it is not deserved and Francesca’s incessant denial of her sins.
... Moreover, such belief in human reason signifies Dante's hope towards a bright society and the pursuit of God’s love as the other part of self-reflection. In conclusion, a great deal of tension and contrast between “dark” and “light” in The Inferno helps us to explore Dante’s self portrait—he fears dangerous desires and sinful darkness, but shows much courage and hope towards life since he nevertheless follows his guide Virgil to dive into horrible Hell. As shown in Canto I, such emotional reaction to dark and light symbols lays a great foundation for developing Dante’s broad and universal traits as his journey progresses.
From the beginning of the journey, Dante knew from the moment he saw “Abandon every hope, all you who enter” (Canto 3) his life was about to change. At this point of the journey he has met his guide Virgil. Virgil showed him the rightful way in life and he also introduced Dante to everyone who influenced him throughout his
In this writing love is most important and go hand in hand with Christianity. Dante and Virgil travel from the outward circles to the lowest circles of the Inferno. When he encountered the circles he came across seducers, which can be paralleled with the power that a woman has with her soothsaying words. Scheherazade in Thousand and one nights was able to take the king’s mind off of murdering her. Also when Dante meets the two unfaithful lovers, there consequences were gruesome in hell, likewise when the king’s first wife betrayed him she was murdered a gruesome death by him. Dante’s journey shows him the moral truth and the consequences of being disobedient to that truth. Going through Hell, Dante is shown the worst sins and transgressions that defile the truth. Lucifer is placed at the very end of his journey through Hell because he represents ultimate choice of sin and deception. Satan’s punishment is the worst of all the sinners in Hell. He represents evil, and his punishment is the greatest of all the sinners. After going through all the circles of the Inferno, he goes to the Purgatory where he sees those who wait on their help. Dante at the end experiences love, truth, and
Dante experiences a vision, at the age of 35, after experiencing traumatic events in his hometown of Florence. The events that are occurring in Florence at the time are associated with papal corruption and cause Dante to be forced into exile. Following the vision, which confirms to Dante that he has strayed from the right path in life, Dante begins his travel through the three realms, which contain the possible consequences following a person’s death. Dante’s journey begins on Good Friday, when he is escorted to the gates of Hell, moves to Purgatory and ends in Heaven. However, an escort accompanies him for duration of his journey. Virgil, who Dante has long admired, escorts Dante through Hell and...
It would seem that everything Dante observes throughout his journey would be enlightening. However, through the admonishments of Virgil, it becomes apparent that there exist two distinct ways of perceiving: practical, active observation and unreceptive, disadvantageous perception. It is through practical and active observation that Dante comprehends the lessons of his journey. Unreceptive perception fails to provide valuable information for Dante to use during his life on Earth. In addition, with practical, active observation, Dante not only learns about the sinners but he learns about himself when his journey is reflected by a living soul in hell.