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Virgil's role in the divine comedy
Why is virgil important in inferno
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Dante was a very intellectual and provocative writer. He wrote the Divine Comedy, which has three poems in it. It has been said by many “The secret to originality is the ability to conceal one’s source.” Dante, when he wrote the Inferno, used many sources, but he never gave credit to those he quoted. Students today are taught that if they take somebody else’s ideas and use them as their own, it is intellectual thievery. Dante never got in any trouble when he concealed his sources by not giving credit to the others. Dante got the idea of the nine circles of hell from outside sources such as the Aeneid, and the Bible.
One important source that Dante used was Virgil’s Aeneid. Dante probably wanted somebody else’s opinion of what hell is like. So Dante looked at the Aeneid because he had a general idea that Virgil wrote something on hell. Since he could not meet Virgil face to face, he probably took some of Virgil’s ideas of hell and put them into his own words. Dante created a more specific idea of hell by giving it circles. I think that Virgil thought that hell was just one huge pla...
In most ancient literature some sort of divine justice is used to punish people's acts in life. This is that case with Dante's Inferno, where the Author categorizes hell in 9 circles. Circle 9 being the lowest sins and punishments as the circles decrease. From the time this was written to now in days many things have changed, and things are not seen the same no more. Back then sins like greed and gluttony were ranked as high sins but now people would probably rank those very low with other things like murder way on top. Yet the basic structure set by Dante remains.
On the other hand, the punishments that are borrowed from medieval torture techniques and imprisonment inflicts a physical and bodily pain upon the sufferer that is supposed to be taken literally. In the Medieval Era, their prisons were more like dungeons in the way that they were usually dark rooms with naked and ragged men that were chained to the stone floors. These prisoners were not allowed to move so they had to live in their own excrements, blood, and vomit which ended up filling the room with an odor that was so pungent it could have been a form of torture within itself. Dante used this idea of darkness and awful smells throughout the Inferno as the overall atmosphere of Hell. Also, the idea of the fiery and icy environments that Dante incorporates comes from the medieval prisons where the room would get so hot the prisoners would feel like they were on fire, and during the winter it would be extremely frigid. These ideas of extreme temperatures and darkness are only a few of the torture devices that Dante uses throughout his novel.
In the Inferno we follow the journey of Dante as he wanders off the path of moral truth and into Hell. The Virgin Mary and Santa Lucia ask Beatrice, Dante’s deceased love, to send some help. Thus, Virgil comes to the rescue and essentially guides Dante through Hell and back to the mortal world from which he came. However, things begin to seem kind of odd. When reading the Inferno one may begin to question the way Dante describes Hell and the things that occur within, or even the things we have always believed about Hell. Despite the way it is described and well known in western civilization, Hell is not at all how we expect it to be because of Dante's use of irony throughout this poetic masterpiece.
The relationship between justice and punishment has been an essential fabric of society for centuries. It’s important to note the significance of justice in this equation. Justice to Dante is whatever you do in this life will haunt you in the next one. Whatever sins you commit will be your punishment. The circles of hell Dante creates is a just punishment for sinners. Those who commit incontinent crimes, violent crimes, fraudulent crimes, and worse crime against the perfect city deserve to be in the inferno. This punishment is just and supports the claim that Dante presents an image of a just God.
The first being that there was a certain construction to his hell. The shape, first and foremost, was with a cone. Being largest at the top and getting smaller and smaller as you went down. Of course, the farther you went down, the worse the sins. When taking into consideration how I would construct my own hell, I decided I would follow this same format. The people who committed the worst sins would sit in the bottom on hell, in like a pit. The people that committed sins that were the least offensive would be at the top of the cone, where it’s the widest. As far as the actual geography of hell, I don’t think I would follow Dante’s schemata exactly, although I would draw a couple ideas from it. One thing that I would keep the same is the fact that the punishment of the sinner would reflect the sin that he or she committed while on Earth. The thing that I would change would make hell a lot more personal. For example, the sin committed would deal with the person directly. What the person feared or dreaded the most would be the punishment inflicted upon them. Depending on the severity of the sin. For instance, someone simply lied, then the extent of their own fear wouldn’t be as severe as it would if they had killed
Dante is undoubtedly biased in his punishments and rankings of his sins as a result of his personal thoughts and experiences. Although some of his punishments are fairly reasonably and match the crime, there are also some circles that are in the wrong order and have unjustified punishments. A few of the circles that are the most disagreeable include limbo, the lustful, violence against self, and complex fraud. These specific circles are disagreeable because Dante ranks them based on his own experiences and thoughts. Hell could also be redesigned in a completely different way to make it more reasonable. Dante’s divine comedy has some major biased within it, making the sins and punishments arrangements arguable, and able to be completely redesigned.
The Inferno, written by Dante Alighieri, is the first part of the epic three-part poem Divine Comedy. The Inferno tells of Dante’s travel through hell while he’s guided by the Roman poet Virgil. One day Dante wakes up and finds himself alone in a dark wood. Dante is alone and frightened by the different beasts that block his path, such as a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf. Virgil shows up and agrees to help Dante travel through hell. The reason Virgil’s presence is vital to Dante’s journey through Hell, is because without Virgil guiding him through hell Dante wouldn’t be protected from the different beasts, he wouldn’t know his way around hell, and he wouldn’t know the different sins and punishments of hell.
While parts of the Inferno are based on real people and actual events, a lot of this poem is imaginative. This goes for the levels of hell and the punishments that correspond to the sins people committed. There is also a lot of Greek mythological figures, such as Zeus and Medusa. I think what Dante was trying to portray was the fact that you would be surprised who can and will end up in Hell, since the people he included are very eclectic. Some even being important role models in his
As mentioned above, the structure of Hell is determined by the sins people commit during their lifetime (the specific morals people disobey) and how ‘bad’ these sins are considered to be (within their respective divisions). The sins being described in The Inferno abide by the rules written for the Catholic religion in The Bible, which is why The Inferno is often viewed as a religious text. This explains why Aristotle and Dante would disagree on a few key points of what it means to be virtuous. Aristotle is adamant about not having excess nor deficiency and rather finding a middle ground (mean), whereas Dante abides by the virtues laid out in The Bible. Hell usually personifies what would be considered excessive rather than deficiency in Aristotle’s code of ethics because of its background in the Catholic religion. One example of this exists with humility. In the Catholic context, humility stands a virtue that is praised in The Bible (and therefore Inferno) whereas in Nicomachean Ethics humility is a vice to be looked down on. This continues to be the case with many different excesses and virtues for
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...
In the epic poem of The Inferno of Dante, we are introduced to the protagonist Dante, who travels through nine circles of hell along with his “master” Virgil. This journey reveals all the depths of hell as a poem retold by Dante himself. After a quick recap of the poem in a greater detail you will soon see the many unanswered questions this book poses.
What inspired Dante Alighieri to write the slightly disturbing, dark writing that is “Inferno”? What caused Alighieri to write this piece on the journey of his own version of Hell? Dante Alighieri’s historical implications in “Inferno” were influenced by many factors in his life at the time. “Inferno” is a part of the series called The Divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy is an example of an allegory. An allegory is a deeper meaning that is expressed through characters or events in the writing. Allegory was a widely used literature tool throughout the medieval times, in which Dante lived ("Dante Alighieri: Excerpt from The Divine Comedy” 3). Alighieri’s “Inferno” displays allegory in many different ways in order for problems on earth to be acknowledged, such as church corruption throughout the Catholic Church and political upheavals in his own life. Many of these factors were helpful in Alighieri’s writing of The
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.
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.
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 . . . and the multitude of woes" (Inferno 9).1 Dante’s purpose is to witness and learn from the perils of hell so he can li...