Free College Essays - Dante’s Paradiso

604 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Analysis of inferno by dante

Dante’s Paradiso

In spite of all the sheer effort put behind it, Dante’s Paradiso is not easy to enjoy. It is an alliance between difficulty and controversy. It is a narration of Dante’s so called visit to heaven, which seems tangible to no one but him. He slowly gives us his perceived account while inserting an archive of philosophical tidbits, which often divert the reader’s attention from the supposed plot. Dante claims himself gifted and says that all his said experiences are ones that he encountered first-hand. And so the reader is assumed to believe that the author is not in a make-believe world and his arguments with heavenly beings are actually marvelous adventures. The theme is not relevant at all to the present, as scholars today would say that his ideas are primitive and unsubstantial. The only thing applicable to today be the fact that it is based on the timeless issue: the afterlife. And as he inserts his personal views in life, he does it in an authoritative method as his heavenly friends explain them to him. Now if the reader assumes this is all make-believe, it is tiresome to go on as the book is direly detailed. On the other hand, if the reader believes Dante’s account, then I am afraid he is very misled. As many biblical verses are inserted in the text, it is quite bothersome that his explanations and fabulous stories take on a less dogmatic direction. It doesn’t seem right to quote religion to serve both misinterpreted purposes and claims to a divine philosophy. This dissenting view is the only social impact I can make out of the book. As I read on the translated verses looking for some conflict or climax, I reached neither. It just seems as if this popularly supposed story is intended to be educational just like a textbook. Nevertheless, it is not hard to see why Paradiso was dubbed a masterpiece. If the title of "masterpiece" is labeled upon the works of great worth, I am afraid entertainment value is not something distinguishable in this case even if there is an undoubtedly enormous amount of effort, skill, and thought that was invested in it. All the lines rhyme in pairs, and are written in deep Spanish. A rhyme scheme is followed and even literary formality is observed. Dante is obviously intellectual, as his work shows.

Show More
Related

  • Dream House Dissociative Identity Disorder Essay

    1210 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the movie, Dream House, Daniel Craig portrays a New York editor named Will Atenton that recently quit his job to move to the suburbs and dedicate more time with his wife, Libby, and his two daughters. One night, Will began to search for what was going on when his family was frightened by someone peering through the window. In doing so, he finds a satanic cult of teenagers in his basement that reveal that a family man named Peter Ward committed heinous murders in that house. Will began to worry and found out the Peter Ward recently got released after five years from Greenhaven Psychiatric Hospital from going through his attic. The neighbor from across the street refused to give Will any information after he asked her for more. Will decides to go to Greenhaven to get information about Peter Ward and he discloses that he, Will Atenton, is actually Peter Ward.

    Read More

  • Courtly Love In Dante's Paradiso

    1220 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dante, an Italian poet during the late middle ages, successfully parallels courtly love with Platonic love in both the La Vita Nuova and the Divine Comedy. Though following the common characteristics of a courtly love, Dante attempts to promote love by elevating it through the lenses of difference levels. Through his love affair with Beatrice, although Beatrice has died, he remains his love and prompts a state of godly love in Paradiso. Dante, aiming to promote the most ideal type of love, criticizes common lust while praises the godly love by comparing his state of mind before and after Beatrice’s death. PJ Klemp essay “Layers of love in Dante’s Vita Nuova” explains the origins of Dante’s love in Plato and Aristotle themes that designate

    Read More

  • Case Study: Laila's Brain

    1367 Words  | 3 Pages

    Laila confirms that her friends have ordered pizza using her visual system. Through the sensation of light, sensory information is processed and Laila is then able to see the pizza. The pupil absorbs light, by allowing light to enter the eye, and light will then be transferred to the lens. The lens is responsible for refracting light and focusing the light inside of the eye, also known as the retina. The second cranial nerve, or optic nerve, is responsible for carrying the visual signal from the eye to the optic chiasm. The optic nerve, or second cranial nerve, is located in the back of the eye. This cranial nerve transfers visual information to visual centers in the brain through many electric impulses. The optic chiasm has temporal fibers that travel ipsilaterally as nasal fibers transmit information contralaterally, to the opposite side of the associated visual field. The visual cortex can then process sensory information from the opposite eye. Laila’s blind spot is where the optic nerve begins and there are no rod or cone cells in the optic nerve. The brain has to try to compensate for the lack of photosensitive

    Read More

  • Dante's Divine Comedy - Close Reading of Canto V of the Inferno

    917 Words  | 2 Pages

    In conclusion, we can see that Dante presents the reader with a potentially life-altering chance to participate in his journey through Hell. Not only are we allowed to follow Dante's own soul-searching journey, we ourselves are pressed to examine the state of our own souls in relation to the souls in Inferno. It is not just a story to entertain us; it is a display of human decision and the perpetual impact of those decisions.

    Read More

  • The Inferno by Dante Allegheri: Fourfold Analysis

    583 Words  | 2 Pages

    To further interpret The Inferno, the Italian poet, Dante Allegheri, created a method called The Fourfold Analysis. This method involves analyzing the historical, moral, political, and spiritual effects of the topic. For example, Dante’s fourfold method helps the reader to further understand the thieves and their allegorical symbolism. The Thieves are found in the Seventh Pouch of the Eighth Circle of Hell in Dante’s Inferno, guarded by Cacus, a centaur. They are found with their hands tied up, being punished by snakes and lizards. The Thieves played a significant role in The Inferno, as they take up two entire cantos. The sight of the thieves in hell makes Dante’s “blood run cold with fright.” (Ciardi 197) At first glance, the actions of a thief seem to only affect 2 groups of people-the thief and the victim(s)-however, the effects include damage of community trust, personal costs, and continued separation between good and evil.

    Read More

  • The Hierarchy of Happiness in Dante’s The Paradiso

    1331 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ask anyone you know what their ultimate goal in life is, and the answer will unanimously be, “to be happy.” According to Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and Dante, a state of fulfillment is the ultimate goal of all beings. This is how they define happiness: a state of being fully. Happiness and the means by which humans can achieve it is the main theme in Dante’s poem, The Comedy. In this poem, Dante starts his journey in the Inferno where he sees the souls of those who rejected the possibility of happiness by not knowing or refusing to know God. He then ascends to Purgatory, in which he observes souls who want to be happy, but must purge themselves of sin to achieve it. In the final installment, The Paradiso, Dante meets the souls of people who are truly happy. However, there is a peculiar feature in Dante’s version of paradise, which is that the souls are arranged in a hierarchy. The implications of a hierarchy of happiness would be that certain peoples’ fulfillment is less than others’, meaning that certain people have less potential to be happy than others. If there really were a hierarchy of human potential, then it would certainly contradict Catholic tenants such as divine grace and justice. Therefore it would stand to say that there is no hierarchy in heaven.

    Read More

  • The Role and Function of the Major Monsters in Dante’s Inferno

    1944 Words  | 4 Pages

    Moreover, Dante, the narrator of the Inferno, has succeeded in not only telling the frightening story of the Inferno, but also pointing out the importance of the relationship between human’s sins and God’s retribution, using the monsters as the symbols for each kind of sin and its punishment throughout the progress of the story, which teaches his readers to be well aware of their sins through the literature – a part of humanities; the disciplines that teach a man to be a human.

    Read More

  • Dante’s Inferno - The Evolving Relationship between Dante the Pilgrim and Virgil the Guide

    2166 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Allegory of the Cave and Dante

    1237 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ards monstrous figures and sympathy towards those who seem to be tortured unjustly. In his perverse education, with instruction from Virgil and the shades, Dante learns to replace mercy with brutality, because sympathy in Hell condones sin and denies divine justice. The ancient philosopher Plato, present in the first level of Hell, argues in The Allegory of the Cave that truth is possible via knowledge of the Form of the Good. Similarly, Dante acquires truth through a gradual understanding of contrapasso and the recognition of divine justice in the afterlife. Ultimately, Dante recognizes that the actions of the earthly fresh are important because the soul lives on afterwards to face the ramifications. By expressing his ideas on morality and righteousness, Dante writes a work worth reading, immortalizes his name, and exalts the beliefs of his Christian audience.

    Read More

  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Analysis

    1019 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ibbit, as he gives Billy the gift of his first sexual encounter, even as McMurphy realizes it will cost him his chance at freedom. In all these ways, McMurphy shows love for the unique, individual nature of each man. McMurphy honors and loves the sanctity of individual human beings. He talks to the Chief, even though he thinks the Chief is deaf. He is patient with the babyish Martini, even though he cannot grasp the fundamentals of blackjack. He helps Taber catch a fish and teaches Cheswick to drive a boat. He encourages the Chief to grow through playing basketball. Its as if he is the father figure in the ward instead of top dog because every decision he makes is to help the patients in the ward and help better their stay. He doesn’t want the ward to seem like a prison to the patients. Each individual should be able to be themselves no matter what society thinks.

    Read More

  • World War One: The Key Causes Of World War One

    637 Words  | 2 Pages

    The most significant causes of World War One include alliances, nationalism, and imperialism, but there are multiple other reasons that led to the tensions that created this war. This was one of the biggest, bloodiest wars in history, as almost the entire world was involved in some way. At the time it was called “the war to end all wars”, but unfortunately that was not true; it was just so giant compared to previous engagements that people couldn’t see how it could possibly progress past the state it was in. This war was inevitable with the pride of the countries involved; they were bound to clash heads eventually.

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis: Dante's Inferno

    822 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Structure and Content of Dante's Inferno

    1106 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... 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.

    Read More

  • The Vaule of Personal Development in The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri

    1223 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Italian Dante Alighieri (1265) Poem, The Divine Comedy Inferno, Translated by Mark Musa. Dante demonstrates the value of personal development which is the ability to keep a balanced life and continuously learn from past mistakes in order to create a better future. Dante begins the poem wrapped in his own thoughts and suffering but by the end of the poem he begins to understand other’s sufferings beyond his own. In his growth throughout his journey he learns about pain and sorrow that he cannot comprehend. He becomes more aware of the torture that is around him. At the beginning he appears to think that his life was horrible but by the end of the poem he seems to realize that he can make his and others lives better by becoming a better person. Dante also learns how to respect others by learning why the shades are in hell without judging them for their crimes, a few times however Dante disregards the core value of respect when he comes across a few shades that he personally disliked during that shades life time. Dante feels that a shade deserves to be psychically harm a shade when the shade does not respond. This shows complete disregard of the respect core value. The core value of excellence is also represented by Dante. The excellence core value is striving to be the best in all that you do and to always try to do everything better than the last time. As he goes through the layers of hell he learns more about life and gains courage that he lacked at the beginning of the poem.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Dante's Inferno

    758 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

More about Free College Essays - Dante’s Paradiso

Open Document