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Reflection about dante's journey
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An Essay about “The Divine Comedy”
In Dante Alighieri’s “The Divine Comedy” he creates Dante to change throughout the story in more ways than one. Before Dante begins his journey, he finds himself lost, and without help. Dante begins his journey in the dark woods, learning from Virgil about Gods justice, and eventually finds himself before Gods light.
At the beginning of Dante’s journey, he “went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood” (canto 1, 1). Dante has turned his back on the light of God and must now go through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven to become one with God. Following Virgil through hell, Dante sees what could have become of him if he had kept treading the wrong path. In purgatory, he learns
about the infinite goodness of God and that he will forgive any sin, but only if they ask for forgiveness. At the first circle of heaven, a spirit tells Dante about the love and light that fills everyone of Heavens residence. Being so close to Gods love and light has cured the residents of Heaven of earthly thoughts. Finally, at the highest circle of heaven, Dante is face to face with God and, grasping the light he once wondered away from. During the first few circles of Hell, Dante sympathizes with the sinners and weeps for their suffering. Dante even tells Francesca “what you suffer here melts me to tears of pity and of pain” (canto 5, 113). Later on, Virgil tells Dante that the punishments the sinners have to endure are decided by God. In the fifth circle of hell, Dante realizes that the punishments that the sinners endure are rightly deserved. At the end of the inferno, he breaks his promise to a sinner because he thought that giving him a little respite would be against his divine punishment. Throughout the Comedy, Dante changes from a man who was lost in darkness into becoming one with God and understanding his justice. He has travelled from the dark wood to Heaven and embraced the light of god. On his journey to heaven, he also learned about the divine punishments that all sinners have to endure.
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.
The only thing missing from his journey is the return, when brings back the knowledge of the Gods and bestows it to everyone he knew before his journey. Dante is a witness “…who witnessed from the deepest pit,” (Paradise 343) he was meant to see it all and testify of the truth of God’s never ending love. That isn’t part of story, it ends abruptly. Though it is probably assumed at the end that Dante’s story is meant to teach. We don’t get to see how exactly the story ends but sometimes that adds to the universal appeal of the hero’s journey. We can draw some of our conclusions at that point. What is the lesson to be learned from Dante’s extensive journey? There is a reason we are in love with the hero’s journey, why we will watch Luke Skywalker take on Vader over and over again. Why Harry Potter, Katniss Everdeen, and Frodo became so popular so quickly because we believe in the hero’s journey. We want the hero triumph, we need someone to go on that daring adventure and come back with that hard earned knowledge so that we too can move forward. They do the hard work, the heavy lifting so that we too can taste the sweet elixir. We can’t all be a hero but the hero can be anyone and help those who can’t help themselves. The Divine Comedy is one verily old example of this cycle and why it still exists today. The hero’s journey is not a new concept and these stories are just one the earlier examples that help constitute that cycle in the world of literature. Each story has individual progress but ultimately they are parts of the greater journey. At the end of Hell, Dante sees the stars again but his journey isn’t done and at the end of purgatory he is ready to enter Heaven, but he stills needs to travel through the ten spheres. Each a section of his
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.
...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.
Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno. Trans. Allen Mandelbaum. Notes Allen Mandelbaum and Gabriel Marruzzo. New York: Bantam Books, 1980
When “Dante” speaks to “Virgil” near the beginning of Inferno, he understands that he is not yet like Aeneas and Paul (Dante 1.2.32). He says that, unlike these two voyagers, his travels cannot profit others because of his soul's state of habitual sin. “Dante” briefly explains his reluctance to begin his odyssey, saying, “if I consent to start this journey, / I fear my venture will be wild and empty” (Dante 1.2.34-35). In this section, Dante uses Virgil's characterization of Aeneas to provide a strong contrast to the character “Dante” of Inferno. According to Dante, Aeneas completes a heaven-sent mission in founding his city, because Rome eventually becomes the home of the Papacy and the Church. In direct opposition to the mindset, at the start of the Commedia, “Dante” perceives himself as a man astray from the True Path; he does not believe that his voyage can ever ultimately lead to salvation in the way that Aeneas's did.
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.
... 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.
“Midway along the journey of our life” (Canto 1) Dante the Pilgrim says at the beginning of his journey. Through out the comedy and the Pilgrims vision of hell, I believe he was truly on a journey of self-discovery. Dante encountered a guide to help him in his journey throughout the nine circles of hell. Going deeper and deeper into hell Dante realized many different sins that he could have committed in his life and realized the things that he did not need anymore. Base on the end of his journey I believe that Dante truly found himself and found a new person within himself.
In literature, as well as in history, there is often a single individual stranded and in need of a helping hand. This assistance usually comes in various forms, and depends on the context it is needed for. The support typically guides the individual away from imminent danger, and towards a second chance or even ultimate salvation. Dante-the pilgrim's assistance comes in various forms. The two forms of guidance which help him throughout his journey are Virgil and Dante-the poet. Virgil acts as Dante-the pilgrim’s mentor, while Dante-the poet brings both life and depth to Dante-the pilgrim’s adventures through the use of various literary devices. In the first Canto of The Inferno, Dante-the pilgrim, the main character of The Divine Comedy, goes
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...
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.
Dante successfully completes his journey of enlightenment through hell by learning through active observation and self-reflection about himself and his journey. With the beneficial observation and reflection, Dante learns from the sinners and gains knowledge about himself. There is a strong emphasis on perception throughout the novel. It is through sight that Dante acknowledges hell and learns from it. At the commencement of his journey into hell, Dante says to Virgil, "lead me to witness what you have said. . .
Dante’s The Divine Comedy, Farid Ud-Din Attar’s The Conference of the Birds, and Confucius’ The Analects all have a similar theme; each reading tells a unique story of compassion and forgiveness. In each, these traits are expressed through the actions and monologues of the characters. In Dante’s Divine Comedy, the guide on Dante’s journey goes by the name of Virgil who shows his empathy and mercy through the mistake of pity that Dante displays in Hell. In Attar’s The Conference of the Birds, the Hoopoe shows his compassion and forgiveness through his patience with the other birds on the journey to see the Simorgh. Lastly, in The Analects by Confucius, he shows his kindness and
The first conflict Dante encounters in the story is person against self. Throughout the entire story Dante is trying to find a way to get on the right path. Dante opens the story by saying, “Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself in dark woods, the right road lost.” (Canto 1.1) The dark woods symbolize sin and the right road symbolizes the path that leads to the gates of heaven and God. So when he gets lost in the dark woods that means he is lost in sin and cannot find th...