During the occurrence of political turmoil in Florence between the White Guelphs and the Black Guelphs, the disruption between these two political parties has caused a dispute towards the papal rule; one party whom opposed papal rule, and one whom favored it. The Black Guelps who supported papal rule, dominated the White Guelphs. Considering the fact that Alighieri was a White Guelph, whom opposed papal rule, he was exiled from Florence. In the course of Alighieri’s banishment, he wrote the epic poem, The Inferno, which was inspired by his love, Beatrice. The Inferno is an allegory in which the poet Dante is guided through the circles of Hell by Virgil, who represents human reason. During his duration in Hell, Dante encounters numerous sinners whom are punished varyingly. Out of the many individuals, Dante confronts Fillipo Argenti, Bocca Deliabbati, and Pope Boniface VIII, political sinners whom he displays animosity towards. To emphasize the animosity Dante embodies, Alighieri utilizes diction, actions, as well as imagery to express hostility towards these sinners in Hell.
Proceeding onto the fifth circle of Hell, Alighieri uses diction towards Fillipo Argenti to reveal his hostility. Due to the overthrow of the White Guelphs, Dante becomes filled with resentment once he encounters Fillipo Argenti, an opposed political enemy. To express his enmity towards Filipo, Dante bitterly verbalizes his repugnant conscience saying, “May you weep through all eternity, for I know you, hell-dog, filthy as you are” (Canto VIII lines 37-38). With asserting harsh words like ‘hell-dog’, Alighieri uses diction to imply how Fillipo is a savage, wrathful sinner by adding ‘hell’ to ‘dog’, which emphasizes the meaning of the word dog to a more atroc...
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...fits you- and keep a good guard on the ill-won wealth that once made you so bold toward Charles of Anjou”(Canto XIX lines 91-93). Regarding the apathetic reactions expressed by Dante, Alighieri displays animosity by stating, “Therefore stay as you are; this hole well fits you”, indicates how he has grown hostile by further punishing Pope Nicholas’ maltreatment by not only stating how Pope Nicholas deserves the suffering that he is in, but also how it suits him well. Therefore, this conveys how Dante does not care about the pain that the Pope suffers, but instead he believes that Pope Nicholas deserves the penalty due to all the exploitation he has corrupted. With being punished for simony, Alighieri further expresses his animosity towards Pope Nicholas by displaying direct criticism, wishing him to sustain more harm as he is in the baptismal font.
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.
Inferno is the story of Dante's journey through Hell on his way to heaven to see Beatrice. There is the recurring theme throughout the text. Dante loves her so he is willing to go through the perilous and difficult journey to get to her. Dante was a rather religious individual and it shows throughout his writing. “The time was the beginning of the morning; the sun was rising now in fellowship with the same stars that had escorted it when Divine Love first moved those things of beauty; so that the hour and the gentle season gave me good cause for hopefulness on seeing that b...
As readers in the modern age, it is sometimes hard for us to examine and understand the words and messages due to the bridge between the ancient classical poems and the modern age poems. In Dante’s inferno poem, it is very challenging to analyze the information in such a rigorously written poem and relate the same poem to the said writer (Williams). Understanding the poem goes beyond the fiery depths of hell and into the real world of Dante and the surroundings that influenced his writing and creativity. The involvement of Dante Allegro in ancient political factions, in his own city state, led to his exile and consequently his demise. His mortality will forever be felt from his work as readers will constantly warn of the rot in the political and church corruption.
Dante’s Inferno is the narration told of the life of Dante Alighieri. The narration is done by Dante himself where he explains his life and various encounters. Dante is known for writing various stories and poems which he did after he was exiled from Florence where he was an ambassador. He had lived a life among the middle class, loved and lost his love to death, and gotten into leadership in Florence. His various experiences in life had caused him to have a distorted view of the purity of the Catholic Church in its indulgence in politics. The terms of the exile demanded that his return would be punishable by death.
Throughout his life, Dante Alighieri faced many hardships and accumulated many rivals, stemming from his association with the Florentine White Guelphs, who adamantly believed in the independence from the papacy. After being exiled from his home city of Florence on false allegations of being a grafter, he wrote The Inferno, a religious allegory, in which Alighieri blatantly attacks many of his rivals, among them Filippo Argenti and Bocca degli Abbati through use of literary devices as dialogue, imagery, juxtaposition, diction, tone and characterization. However, Alighieri does not show resentment towards all the sinners in his epic poem, he fluctuates between hostility and benevolence. In one specific case, Alighieri shows a sense of pity and compassion towards a specific sinner, one guilty of sodomy, Ser Brunetto Latino. Alighieri’s compassion derives from his great admiration for the fellow writer who had been a lifelong inspiration. His compassion is shown through the utilization of diction, dialogue, and imagery. Alighieri integrates many techniques in his writings to deliver his judgment of the sinners, fluctuating between feelings of hostility and benevolence.
“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.
Like some people, sometimes it just feels nice to see your own thoughts in the written word. Well, Dante wrote down these thoughts into these two works, how he felt about others at the time, how he felt about himself, what he believed about Catholicism, and the church at the time, what he believed hell would be like, and how he felt about sin, which is in fact the main subjects of his two works. So this brings us back to, Why did Dante write the Inferno? Because, he wanted to put his own thoughts down into paper In the form of a story, to let all read what he was thinking and feeling about everything is his life at the moment, as well as to in a way inform others about sin, what happens when you sin, and where sin causes you to go. It teaches moral lessons along with this, but also claims which sins he feels are the worst, the greatest of sins if you will. So this is why I believe Dante wrote the Inferno, to share his thoughts with the world, and imprint them on the mind for better or worse. Well I feel that for Mister Alighieri that he wrote to inform, and spread his ideas, his beliefs. Like some people, sometimes it just feels nice to see your own thoughts in the written
Durling, Robert M., Ronald L. Martinez. Notes. The Inferno. Vol 1. By Dante Alighieri. Trans. Robert M. Durling. New York: Oxford UP, 1996.
Dante Alighieri presents a vivid and awakening view of the depths of Hell in the first book of his Divine Comedy, the Inferno. The reader is allowed to contemplate the state of his own soul as Dante "visits" and views the state of the souls of those eternally assigned to Hell's hallows. While any one of the cantos written in Inferno will offer an excellent description of the suffering and justice of hell, Canto V offers a poignant view of the assignment of punishment based on the committed sin. Through this close reading, we will examine three distinct areas of Dante's hell: the geography and punishment the sinner is restricted to, the character of the sinner, and the "fairness" or justice of the punishment in relation to the sin. Dante's Inferno is an ordered and descriptive journey that allows the reader the chance to see his own shortcomings in the sinners presented in the text.
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...
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
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.
Perception Dante Alighieri’s in The Inferno. In The Inferno, Dante Alighieri, the poet, places a strong emphasis on perception; it is through sight that Dante the pilgrim can acknowledge and learn from his experience in hell. Sight plays an especially crucial role in the work because Dante, the pilgrim, is often captivated by an image of some kind. The sight of the sinners transfixes Dante; and the sinners are, in turn, captivated with Dante and Virgil.
... 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.