Every human being must find a certain motivation or inspiration to give them the momentum they require to achieve the goals they have in life. For some it is the incentive to be active, to accomplish tasks, even to do the mundane a simple tasks life may demand. Several influential individuals who have reached a level of recognition in their life will give words of advice to those who are seeking to become successful themselves. Often these are words of encouragement through the periods we find strenuous, their words are meant to help us weather the storms that may come our way in trying times. Dante’s The Inferno is meant to motivate in a similar manner as the successful in our day attempt to do, only Dante uses his personal hell to create speculation and to stimulate people to act with a more moral behavior than they were in his day. The lines from the passage quoted above were not only written for the readers, but most likely for the author as well, asking that we take heart even in the difficult moments and to continue forward because there is much more yet to come. Dante uses many examples leading up to this point to help motivate those who venture to read his poem. For example, the wrathful and the sullen in the fifth circle of Dante’s hell, the heretics in the sixth, and the violent in the third circle. Each depicts a punishment fit for the crime and it is when these lines are spoken that we begin to connect the inspirational words to the very identity of the entire poem.
One of the first punishments we observe comes from the fifth circle of Dante’s hell, the wrathful and the sullen, as the author expresses his thoughts of the fitting consequence with each sin linking it to the motivational passage in the twenty fourth ca...
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...arming one’s self and the punishment is the incentive the value the body we have in much the same way as the passage in the twenty fourth canto is incentive to continue on even in hard times.
Humans are a generally lazy species and are often in need of a spiritual or emotional motivation before we are physically able to do what is expected of us either by others or personally. For Dante, at one point he needed the a personal uplift and as a result wrote the lines from canto twenty four to create the motive for himself. Now his lines, not only at that portion of the poem but the poem as an entirety, serve as inspiration to all who read his work. Whether it is the marsh of circle five, the morgue of circle six, or the forest in circle seven, each have their own purpose and are design to inspire moral behavior and use of the talents an individual was given upon birth.
At the outset of Dante’s “Inferno,” he is introduced as a man lost in a sinful forest of his own creation. He is, by all accounts, beyond saving. Even Beatrice, in conversation with Virgil, states that, “[Dante] is, I fear, already so astray / that I have come to help him much too late” (ii.65-66). It is only through the compassion and the divine pity of Beatrice, and the more active role taken on by Virgil—who is also shown to have “felt compassion for [Dante’s] pain", that Dante is provided an opportunity to regain a pious sense of self, and in doing so increase his odds of salvation (ii.50). This basic human conception of pity and empathy dominates a great deal of Dante’s interactions in the underworld. He begins his descent consistently overwhelmed, at first weeping in response to the “sighs and lamentations and loud cries […] echoing across the starless air” (iii.22-23).
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.
The Divine Comedy written by Dante is one of the greatest poems ever written based on the fact that it is an autobiography as well as an allegory. It is considered an autobiography of Dante because he uses his personal experiences as motivation and inspiration. The beginning of first poem in The Divine Comedy, The Inferno, is related to the emotions Dante experienced after being exiled from Florence. He is wandering in the woods when he comes up to the bottom of a hill and starts to climb it before he is stopped by three creatures. This scene relates to how lost and confused Dante felt, along with feeling like he was attacked. By using his personal experiences and emotions, Dante actually wrote what is known as an allegory. Gay Johnson
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.
“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 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
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.
Canto XI serves the purpose in a twofold way; literally as a pause to the character Dante to prepare himself for the foul stench of the lower depths of hell, and as a pause to the reader to discuss the rationale of divine punishment. When the canto begins Virgil and Dante stop to prepare for the coming levels. Dante asks Virgil to find a productive way to pass the time. Virgil obliges Dante and tells him a graphic depiction of the levels to come; both the geography and the rationale behind these levels are discussed. After the discussion Dante poses the questions “But tell me, the souls in the sickening swamp, and those wind drives, and those rain pelts, and those who collide with such harsh words, why are they not punished in this charred city if God’s wrath is upon them? And if it is not, why do they suffer such a sorry fate?” (Canto XI 70-75). Dante’s questions can be viewed in two lights. First out of condemnation of all sinners, “Why are they not punished in this charred city” (Canto XI 73), if the souls of previous levels are sinner...
Within Canto 1, we see Dante leaving a dark forest. This forest represents all the human vices and corruption, a place similar to hell (canto 1, line 1-5, Alighieri). Dante wants to reach the hill top, where is sunny and warm, rather than be in the damp and cold forest. The hill top represents happiness and is a metaphor for heaven. But his path is stopped by three animals: a leopard (canto 1, line 25, Alighieri ) , lion (canto 1, line 36 Alighieri ) and she wolf (canto 1, line 38-41, Alighieri ). Each one represents a human weakness: the leopard is lust, the lion pride and the she wolf is avarice. They show that on the earthly plain human sin is a continual and harmful temptation. These animals try to strip him of his hope, his hope in the fact that he will some day be in heaven with God. They are temptations to lead him away and block his way to the hill top. Th...
In terms of structure, Canto I functions as an introduction, explaining the two major characters and the motivation of their journey. Dante portrays himself as the protagonist and speaks in the first person from a subjective perspective. Through the establishment of such a strong voice, readers are given clear insight into his emotions and motivations. 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 imageries, rich metaphors and strong voice in order to pre...
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.
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 paradiso. 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. With that in mind, one can look at Inferno as a handbook on what not to do during a lifetime in order to avoid Hell. In the book, Dante creates a moral lifestyle that one must follow in order to live a morally good, Catholic
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...
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.