For centuries, many humans have thrived on the idea of an everlasting salvation, in other words, Heaven. Several religions, including Christianity, use Heaven as an incentive to avoid sin and avidly follow God’s law. The idea of an everlasting salvation could not exist if there were not also the idea of eternal damnation. Because there is a reward for a person’s loyalty to God, the opposite must also be true; betraying God by committing sins will result in a soul’s eternal suffering in Hell. In the Inferno from the Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri uses symbols to emphasize the dangers of sin.
A person’s actions are a reflection of the society in which they live. Every day, humans are influenced by several outside factors such as music, television, and other humans. When a child is born, they are a blank canvas waiting to be painted, and society is the artist. Society evolves the way a person thinks, which in turn determines the way a person acts, because all human actions are driven by emotions. During the Medieval Ages, Christianity was the predominant religion of Rome. Religion, specifically Christianity, played a crucial role in the governing of medieval society. As a Roman, religion played a major role in Dante Alighieri’s life. His strong Christian beliefs influenced his literary work by altering his overall idea of sin, his decisions of whom to place in Hell, and each sinners corresponding punishment (Burge). Dante’s idea of sin is when a person acts against God. Those who are placed in Hell are those who commit acts that offend or betray God. Dante also places Brutus in Hell because as a Roman Dante loved Caesar, and the Roman people despised Brutus for his involvement in the murder of Julius Caesar. Although Brutus did not a...
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...amount to the satisfaction a human obtains when they are rewarded for avidly following God; an eternal salvation.
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In analyzing this gradient of morality, it is useful first to examine a work from early literature whose strong purity of morality is unwavering; for the purposes of this discussion, Dante’s Inferno provides this model. It is fairly straightforward to discover Dante’s dualistic construction of morality in his winding caverns of Hell; each stern, finite circle of Hell is associated with a clear sin that is both definable and directly punishable. As Dante moves downwards in this moral machination, he notes that
This notion of the suitability of God’s punishments figures significantly in the structure of Dante’s Hell. To readers, as well as Dante himself (the character), the torments Dante and Virgil behold seem surprisingly harsh, possibly harsher than is fair, Dante exclaims this with surprise. He doesn’t actually wonder who decided on these tortures. He knows it was god. What he is questioning is how these punishments are just, since they don’t appear to be just from a human’s point of view which views each punishment together with its conjugate sin only superficially. For example, homosexuals must endure an eternity of walking on hot sand, and those who charge interest on loans sit beneath a rain of fire. At first glance, each one seems too terrible for any sin. However, when the poem is viewed as a whole, it becomes clear that the guiding principle of these punishments is one of balance. Sinners suffer punishment to the degree befitting the gravity of their sin, in a manner matching that sin’s nature. The structures of the poem and of hell serve to reinforce this correspondence.
Throughout Dante’s journey, he encounters a lot of “fallen heaven” imagery, which exacerbates the souls’ punishments. For instance, in sixth circle—which houses the Heretics—there are burning minarets, “sepulchers glow[ing] with
...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 The Inferno is a poem written in first person that tells a story of Dante’s journey through the nine circles of Hell after he strays from the rightful path. Each circle of Hell contains sinners who have committed different sins during their lifetime and are punished based on the severity of their sins. When taking into the beliefs and moral teachings of the Catholic Church into consideration, these punishments seem especially unfair and extreme.
Inferno, the first part of Divina Commedia, or the Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri, is the story of a man's journey through Hell and the observance of punishments incurred as a result of the committance of sin. In all cases the severity of the punishment, and the punishment itself, has a direct correlation to the sin committed. The punishments are fitting in that they are symbolic of the actual sin; in other words, "They got what they wanted." (Literature of the Western World, p.1409) According to Dante, Hell has two divisions: Upper Hell, devoted to those who perpetrated sins of incontinence, and Lower Hell, devoted to those who perpetrated sins of malice. The divisions of Hell are likewise split into levels corresponding to sin. Each of the levels and the divisions within levels 7,8, and 9 have an analogous historical or mythological figure used to illustrate and exemplify the sin.
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.
Deceived perspective and impaired logic lure vulnerable individuals to frolic in the meadows of sin; therefore, in order to achieve ultimate freedom, one must first be stripped clean of all earthly and common expectations. Dante contorts Earth from a palace to a prison. Bound in earthly limitations, man “by his own fault” (Dante 307) engenders “grief and toil” (Dante 307) causing the “the winds of earth and sea to rise” (Dante 307). Men adhere to addictive habits ignorant of God’s presence on earth. By contrast, purgatory cuts men’s binds to these traps through punishment, enlightening individuals to their mistake. These conversions prompt “singing” (Dante 109) not moaning—as one would expect during punishment—and as the cleansed souls free themselves of their burdens of sin, their climb “up the sacred stairs”(Dante 133) seems “lighter”(Dante 133) and “easier by far” (Dante 133). Dante uses these paradoxe...
Lummus, David. "Dante’s Inferno: Critical Reception and Influence." Dantes Inferno. Engerda: Arun, 2000. 63-79. Print.
Puchner, Martin. "Purgatorio." The Norton anthology of world literature. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2012. 512-534. Print.
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.
Justice is one of the major building block that society is built upon. It gives people a sense of retribution when they have been wronged. In Dante’s Inferno, justice is served in the supernatural realm. Throughout this play, the reader is exposed to the inner working of hell and the nine circles of specialized punishment it is composed of. Justice, in Dante’s Inferno, differs from justice in the mortal world in that it is decided, not by humans, but by God. However, it is not God’s justice that is portrayed in this divine comedy. While this divine comedy depicts justice coming from God, the justice in the Inferno is based on Dante’s personal views of the severity of the sin and the sinner. This paper will examine this issue by looking into the life of Dante and the potential reasons for his rankings of the sin pertaining to specific circles of hell.
Sinners are placed in Hell according to the severity of their sins, lower for those who commit more grave sins. Dante’s placement of sinners can sometime be unjust and biased because of his personal beliefs and the beliefs of the Catholic church at the time. Dante unfairly places those who did not even have the option of being Christian in Hell and his little knowledge of mental illnesses combined with his old-fashioned Catholic beliefs prompts him to put those who committed suicide in Hell. Dante’s nationalistic and political bias also leads him put people he feels wronged him personally in the lowest circle of Hell. Dante speaks heavily about Divine Justice and God’s punishment but his choice of sinners seems too biased and ignorant to be the product of Divine
The Divine Comedy is a poetic Italian masterpiece by Dante Alighieri composed of three parts which he called respectively: The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso. As this edition’s translator, John Ciardi puts it, originally Dante simply entitled his works as The Comedy, however, in later years, it was renamed The Divine Comedy for the connections that the public saw it had with human behavior and morality (Ciardi, 2003). For the goals and purposes of this review, we will focus specifically on the portion of the book called The Inferno. At a time when religious and secular concerns were at their peak in fourteenth century Italy, a tone of conflict broke out between the church and the government. Beyond the commonalities of corruption