Bibliographic Essay: Dante's Inferno
One of the most notable works of Dante Alighieri is arguably the famous poem Dante’s Inferno. This poem is indeed a masterpiece and is perceived as expressing all the basics of Italian literature. The poem is about a journey that the poet undertakes via unearthly worlds with the aim of regaining his inner peace and restore his faith lost that he had lost in his life that he notes was filled with wicked vices and temptations. This monumental work by Dante Alighieri is comprised of 33 songs, known as “canti” in Italian. In the description, Dante paints a picture of the purgatory as a similar to an inverted cone in shape and resembles a funnel whose bottom is embedded with Lucifer, the evil angel. All through
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Raffa explores how Inferno recorded how Christian theology has evolved by use of classical mythology, contemporary and historical figures, and poetic justice. Dante successfully integrates these distinct components into a single poem and changes the manner in which the West perceived life after death and the purgatory in particular. The Inferno focuses on the identities and the scenes of what Dante meets in hell in detail so as to illustrate how the horrifyingly hell is. This perception of hell has persisted to this day. The first example is how their walls of Dis between the fifth and sixth circles, that are guarded by the fallen angels and how the Prodigal and the Avaricious are punished in the fourth circle (Raffa 39). The focus on Dante’s journey shifts the focus of the narrative to the reader. This is achieved by the use of a first-person narrator (Dante). In as much as the events surrounding the creation of his works, his exile from the town Florence, the diminishing of his political influence, and his death shortly upon the completion of his monumental works are devastating, they all positively influence Dante Alighieri’s works by adding passion and personality felt up to this date. The feelings elicited by Inferno range from fascination to revulsion among the readers and have been the case for about a
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 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.
In Dante’s Inferno hell is divided into nine “circles” of hell; the higher the number correlates to the grimmer the sin and the pain you will endure. However, I do not completely agree with Dante’s version of hell, perhaps due to the difference in time periods. In this essay I will be pointing out my concerns with Dante’s description of hell and how I would recreate hell if I were Dante.
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.
Some people believe the Inferno is an allegorical confrontation of Dante’s sins among his lifetime. There are many examples in his writing that show this, some of which include symbols, people form his lifetime, and events pertaining to his personal beliefs.The first main example of this exists in Canto Thirty-Two, the betrayers of kindred, or more specific to Dante himself; betrayers of country. Dante was exiled from his home in Florence where he served as a politician.Considering his own personal treachery, it makes sense for him to have chosen the ninth ring of the traitors to be the worst of all. In this Canto, Dante has a run-in with one of the sinners in particular, Bocca. In their confrontation, the Bocca is too embarrassed to admit his deed. Dante offers to discuss with Bocca his sin, being interested and curious with him. He asks, “if you should look for fame, I’ll make note of you with all the rest.”(Dante 32.92-93). Bocca replies, “I crave the opposite.”(Dante 32.94). By this Bocca means that he does not wish to share his deed, as he is most likely embarrassed. Considering Dante’s love of his country, I think that he included this confrontation to show that he too is embarrassed of his own treachery.
...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.
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.
In circle three of Inferno, Dante conjures a despairing tone by use of vivid imagery and extensive detail to display the harrowing effects of gluttony. This is best exemplified through the weather patterns and general landscape of this circle, the Poets’ encounter with Cerberus, and Dante’s conversation with Ciacco, the Hog. These devices also allow for the conveying of ideas embedded within the text.
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.
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 paradise. 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.
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 work, especially the Inferno, is renowned for its intricate layers of meaning. As a result, it is necessary to examine the efficacy of translations from the original Italian to English. This can be achieved by examining important passages and comparing translations with one another and with the original Italian. A passage of particular significance is located at the beginning of Canto III: the inscription on the gate into Hell. It essentially describes the nature and history of Hell. The first three lines, which exhibit anaphora by starting with “through me,” states that those who enter are bound to experience pain and suffering. Also notable is the use of the first person; biblically, Christ states that he is a door, “Through me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved” (Durling 62). Afterwards, the inscription declares that “Justice moved by high maker,” a reference to 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.
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.