Paradiso is the third part of the epic poem, The Divine Comedy, written in 1321 by Dante Alighieri. Paradiso, Italian for Paradise, is Dante’s last stop after visiting Purgatory and the circles of Hell in Inferno. In Paradiso, Dante becomes acquainted with the ten spheres of heaven in his mystical ascension towards God. Muhammad’s Night Journey and Ascension into Heaven, both found in the Sirat Rasul Allah translated by Ibn Ishaq, tell the story of Muhammad’s travel to heaven, in the year 621, where he is shown the seven realms of heaven. While there are some differences between both Paradiso and the Night Journey, both stories also overflow with such specific similarities. Although written over 800 years apart, Muhammad's Night Journey and …show more content…
Dante and Muhammad are both humans and both in the latter stages of their lives (latter for the time period), Dante, 35, and Muhammad, 50, when they are escorted to heaven by a non-mortal being. Beatrice, a beautiful spirit, serves as a guide for Dante, helping him along the way by answering some of his questions and encouraging him to ask his own questions to those he is greeted by. Likewise, Muhammad is guided by the Angel Gabriel, who up to this point has been the channel through which God sends the surahs of the Qur’an to Muhammad. Both Dante and Muhammad are given the privilege of visiting a place that no mortal human being before has ever laid eyes on. Although there is no evidence to support that Dante was trying to mirror the Night Journey when writing Paradiso, it is a definite possibility that he used the Night Journey as inspiration. In his essay, Dante’s Paradiso: Cantos XXIV-XXVI, Edward L. Walter writes: “St. Augustine in the ‘Confessions’ expressly says that it can be argued properly that the inspired authors have foreseen all the truth that can be drawn from the Scriptures, or even if the authors themselves have not seen it, the spirit that inspired them has foreseen it” (Walter 28). According to Walter, Dante’s vision of heaven is at least partially inspired by some spiritual being. The fact that many themes from both stories resemble each other does give the reader some proof of Dante’s knowledge of Muhammad’s Night Journey and his ascension into
Dante write one of the masterpiece of the literature, a book that even third fourths of a century later people still reading but behind dark lines like as “Through me you enter into the city of woes, Through me you enter into the eternal pain, Through me you enter the population of loss” (Dante 19.1-3) must exist a reason or a purpose to write these lines. Dante born in 1265 in the cradle of Florence. In his childhood only two things happen that has transcendental for his work in literature, her mother died in 1272 (when Dante had 7 years old). Also, in may 1 of 1974 he meets Beatrice when he was nine years and her eight years and Dante instantly falls in love with her. “She began in a soft angelic voice”(Dante 13.47), this type of word Dante
Dante's ascension throughout the entire Divine Comedy, namely that of his last book, Paradiso, is notedly marked by the variant displays of light and how it effects the poets. Quintessential to the purpose of this entire poem is the depiction of Paradise as a realm of light that exists in nine spheres, whose proximity to God varies directly with their merit, shown by the first three lines, "The glory of Him who moveth everything /Doth penetrate the universe, and shine/ In one part more and in another less." (Dante, 293) In the closer spheres with the lesser radii, Dante notes the soft glowing lights, but as he approaches the centermost sphere, he attempts to describe the inexpressible gleaming of the vision of divinity, thus the recurrence of the theme of light running throughout the poem.
Book Review of Night and Dawn "Never shall I forget that night, the first night in the camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live.
Some of the most fabled stories of our time come from individuals overcoming impossible odds and surviving horrific situations. This is prevalent throughout the Holocaust. People are fascinated with this event in history because the survivors had to overcome immense odds. One, of many, of the more famous story about the Holocaust is Night by Elie Wiesel. Through this medium, Wiesel still manages to capture the horrors of the camps, despite the reader already knowing the story. In addition to him having to overcome difficult odds in order to survive for himself, he also had to care for his weakening father. A similar situation occurs in A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, however, Ishmael accepts the situation and is able to defend himself. While
At the beginning of 19th century, the form of anti-Semitism becomes more serious. Germanys seems to isolate and eliminate Jews. When the Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler, comes to power in Germany in 1933, it wants to set up the Perfect Nazi state. The Nazi wants to stamp out any opposition to their rule, so they set up a system of camps, for instance, concentration camps, death camps for holding people that they see as “undesirable”. Lots of those “undesirable” people are Jews. From 1933 to 1945, about six million Jews are murdered and it is called the Holocaust. The Holocaust is the greatest single case of mass murder in history and is difficult to ignore. After World War II, survivors of the Holocaust tell their stories directly or write down what happens in the Holocaust. One of the plenty writings is Night by Elie Wiesel who is Holocaust survivor and awarded the Noble Peace Price in 1986. This work is based on his experience with his father, Chlomo, in the Nazi Concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald between 1944 and 1945. Another effective book is Fugitive Pieces by Canadian poet Anne Michaels which is awarded Orange Prize and the Books in Canada First Novel Award. As a young boy during the Holocaust in Poland, Jakob Beer is seven-year old and his parents are murdered by Nazi soldiers and his sister, Bella, is abducted. Jakob flees and is rescued by a Greek geologist Athos Roussos. Athos hides Jakob successfully in Greek, then at the end of war, to Toronto. Both characters Elie and Jakob’ experiences reflect a truth which is no matter how harsh the situation is, one tends to overcome all obstacles to obtain a life of fulfillment. The courage can be gained from love, faith and intension of survival...
Something like this, to a normal human seems impossible; this is only something a person must use faith for. No human knows but they must believe its possible. This is hard concept, just as the other impossible things in paradise that he is seeing. Dante also starts to see how people in paradise do not wish for more, and they are content with the way they have been placed by the divine being. The souls in the spheres are happy; they are in the realm of the lord. In the end, the changes in Dante’s life that are occurring in Paradiso is something which will make his final stage a wonderful ending, a place of no torture and sorrow.
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 1930 Martha Graham formed her own dance company dismissing the classical form of modern dance and and replaced it with sharp, angular and sexually charged aesthetics. Her inspiration usually came from greek mythology, history, art or social commentary. (Martha Graham’s Legacy in Modern Dance History, 2011) Graham’s philosophy was to reveal the mans inner core, "I wanted to begin," she said, "not with characters or ideas but with movement…. I wanted significant movement. I did not want it to be beautiful or fluid. I wanted it to be fraught with inner meaning, with excitement and surge.” (Martha Graham, n.d.).Martha Graham uses unique and symbolic contemporary to manipulate elements of the contemporary dance. Through her technique it helps to communicate the the mans inner core, one being Jocosta in Night Journey. Night Journey choreographed by Martha Graham in 1894 explores and portrays the strength and struggles of female characters. In Night Journey rather than telling the story of Oedipus, the main male character, as written by Sophocles, Graham focused on the female perspective of Jocasta, mother, Queen and wife of Oedipus.(Dodge, 2007). Graham focuses on Jocasta the main protagonist who finds out that she has married her son, Oedipus. The dance begins at the moment of Jocasta’s suicide as she stand motionless on stage holding a thin rope between her hands. Night Journey becomes even more complex following her memories that haunt her whig inevitably lead her to her death. Martha Graham has skilfully choreographed symbolic representations and motifs to convey Jocasta's emotions of desperation, grief, pain, love and loss while also conveying the impending doom that is to become of Jocasta. She also ...
...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.
Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy is said to be the single greatest epic poem of all time. The opening story of the character of Dante the Pilgrim is told in the first of the three divisions: The Inferno. The Inferno is a description of Dante’s journey down through Hell and of the several degrees of suffering and many mythical creatures that he encounters on the way. Throughout his travel Dante displays many different feelings and actions but the emotion that summarizes the entire poem is fear. While some of his character traits change as his mind matures and acknowledges the justice being carried out, from the very beginning until the final Canto, his fear does not subside. This does well to reinforce the symbolism of Dante as Everyman and serves to direct the reader to the moral purpose of Divine Comedy, because of the humility and dependence upon God that fear produces. In the first Canto, which serves as an introduction to the entire comedy, Dante encounters the three beasts which impede his progress out of the dark woods. Coming upon the She-Wolf he writes: "This last beast brought my spirit down so low / with fear that seized me at the sight of her, / lost all hope of going up the hill" (I.52-54). Dante is so shaken by the appearances of the three beasts that he rushes headlong into the dark woods he has just come out of. This is only the first obstacle Dante encounters, but it proves an insurmountable one.
Inferno is the first and most famous of a three part series by Dante Alighieri known as the Divine Comedy that describes his journey to God through the levels of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise written in the early fourteenth century. Scholars spanning over nearly seven centuries have praised its beauty and complexity, unmatched by any other medieval poem. Patrick Hunt’s review, “On the Inferno,” states, “Dante’s extensive use of symbolism and prolific use of allegory— even in incredible anatomical detail—have been often plumbed as scholars have explored the gamut of his work’s classical, biblical, historical, and contemporary political significance” (9). In the story, each of the three main characters, Dante, Virgil, and Beatrice, represent
He strikes the contrast between "dark" and "light" to strengthen that he fears the dark and sinful desires within himself but he pursues the hope of light at the same time, which is the key of his spiritual journey. To symbolize the dark side, Dante illustrates his encounter with three beasts while the rescue from Virgil signifies the light side. The image of “light” and “dark” as well as their allegorical meanings is shown through these lively imagery, rich metaphors and strong voice in order to present a self portrait of Dante’s character.... ... middle of paper ...
“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.
The Divine Comedy, written in the 14th century by Dante Alighieri, is a heroic epic. Throughout Dante’s literary work, he outlines his scientific understandings of the world, his political views and provides the reader with a moral compass and spiritual map of which to follow. This poem is written in three parts, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradisio, each of which is broken down into individual cantos. Inferno includes 34 cantos, whereas Purgatrio and Paradiso each contain 33 cantos, however, the first canto of Inferno is really an introduction to the poem.
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.