Dante Alighieri: A Poetic Descent into Metaphorical Hell
"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here"
Only through a journey into hell can we hope to attain paradise...
His Early Life:
Dante Alighieri was born under the sign of Gemini, he was thought to be born on May 29, but this is not certain. He was born in Florence, the son of
Alighiero II, his family was one of lower nobility. His mother died when he was a child and his father when he was eighteen. According to him, the most profound event in his youth was when in 1274 he met Beatrice, whom scholars believe to be Beatrice Portinari, a noble woman. It really matter's not who she was, for he saw her infrequently and never spoke to her. Nevertheless she became the focus of his love, and after her death she became his muse. She is a focal point in his works, including La vita nuova(The New Life) and La divina commedia(The Divine Comedy). Dante's education remains an unknown, however his writing skill and knowledge make it evident that he was well schooled. It is thought that he attended Florentine schools but also continued learning on his own. He seemed to be influenced greatly by Brunetto Latini, who has a large part in The Divine Comedy. His early writings attracted the attention of Guido
Cavalcanti, a popular Italian poet of the day, as Dante's skill became more defined the two became friends. It is also thought that Dante studied at the university in Bologna around the year 1285.
He became involved in some political altercations, he joined the Guelphs, as opposed to the Chibellines, and he was involved in a battle and emerged victorious. It was around this time, 1290, that Beatrice died, after she died he began studying philosophy, he read the works of Boethius and Cicero. He soon after married Gemma Donati, a member of a noble Florentine Guelph family. He attempted to settle down and forget Beatrice, however he became more and more engulfed in the party scene, he discovered the pleasure of banquets, and was seen engaged in public rhyming contests. These contests were a sort of poetic insult contest that often decayed into vulgarity. Thankfully, this period did not last long, in 1295, Dante suddenly became very interested in the political situ... ... middle of paper ...
... allegorical, moral, and mystical”1. It's meaning varies upon the reader, one person may see a beautiful piece of literature, while another may see a frightening glimpse into their future. Some may denounce The Divine
Comedy as heresy, while others still may embrace it and welcome it's lessons into their lives. It is a story of hellish torment, and eternal paradise, it is a love story, it is the story of man who becomes lost in the forest of life and finds his way by means of strong guiding forces(the poet Virgil, Beatrice, The
Deity). It is the story of coming once again into life and embracing it for what is, a journey through darkness, and an emergence into light, be that fiery red, or divine white.
Sources:
1. Infopedia 2.0 Copyright 1996 Softkey Multimedia, Inc.
2. Dante Chronology Copyright 1995 ILT
3. Dante, His Life, His Times, His Works Copyright 1968
Arnoldo Mondadori-Milano Translated From Italian by Giuseppini T.
Salvadori and Bernice L. Lewis
4. Volume XI The Chronicle by Giovanni Villani
not known, but historians believe that he was born in 1480, and he died in
'Salvation' is the story of a young boy who has an experience of revelation. While attending a church revival, he comes to the sudden realization that Jesus will not physically come save him.
Inferno is only a piece of a much larger story written by Dante Alighieri. The entire story is called the Divine Comedy, which is composed of Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Together these three pieces tell the story of Dante's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise; something that is easily discernible through reading the titles of each part. Dante wrote these poems somewhere around the year 1300. Originally written in what Dante referred to as Latin, there have been many different translations of his Divine Comedy. This has cause some variations in small details of the text, but the main story has stayed the same. Dante was highly involved in some political conflicts at the time which influenced some of his writing. The one thing that influenced Dante more than anything else in his writing was love. His love for the love of his life Beatrice was never ending. It was completely amazing how much he loved her. Now especially in Inferno it would definitely seem like love does not play a major part in the story. It does, love is the main reason the journey is imparted upon in the first place. A major but very overlooked theme in Dante's Inferno is love.
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
...ents itself in this interlude. Like the others, it ties a god to the new land through sacrifice, and presents the death of god(s) as result of a lack in, or abandonment by followers.
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was born on March 6, 1475 in Caprese, Italy to Leonardo di Buonarrota Simoni and Francesca Neri, but just a few months after his birth, the family moved
specific date of his birth is not known but is celebrated on the feast of
Everyone has a different perception of what really is heaven and hell and where people end up in the after life. Some people are not even religious and have their own personal thoughts about what is next after death. The Inferno or to be more precise “Hell” can be described and defined as a place where people end up after death in the natural world, when people have not followed God’s ways and laws of living. It is has been depicted throughout the years of time that suffering in hell is horrific, gruesome, and unimaginable. In Dante’s Inferno, Dante portrays the protagonist as he is guided by his ghostly friend Virgil the poet through the nine chambers of Hell. The transition from one circle to another is very shocking and graphic at what he witnesses through each circle. Dante uncovers where each sin will lead people to once the sinners souls face death. He faces many trials and tribulations through the beginning to end of the Inferno. Dante felt impelled to write the Inferno because he was going through his own personal struggles at the time. In a way he was extremely depressed because he was exiled out of Florence, and the love of his life Beatrice died. While Dante was in exile for so many years, it allowed him to write some of his most significant works of literature that people still read to this day.
Leonardo da Vinci was born in Italy on April 15, 1452. He was the son of a successful lawyer, his father and mother were never married to each other, and he was the only child they had together. But his parents had other partners: "They kept on having kids, although not with each other, and they eventually supplie...
In the beginning of this story, one expects for the characters to follow the concepts that they represent. This story displays one man's journey to leave his home and comfort zone in order to fully explore his curiosity. He goes off into a forest and undergoes a life changing experience there. He encounters three different things that set him on the path to the journey of knowledge. This forest was symbolic of an assessment of strength, bravery, and survival. It took determination to survive in the forest and the young person entering into it would not emerge the same. Conversely, this story is more representative than realistic and the peril is of the character. This story is more of a vision or conscious daydream th...
For centuries humans have been drawing parallels to help explain or understand different concepts. These parallels, or allegories, tell a simple story and their purpose is to use another point of view to help guide individuals into the correct line of thought. “The only stable element in a literary work is its words, which if one knows the language in which it is written, have a meaning. The significance of that meaning is what may be called allegory.”(Bloomfield) As Bloomfield stated, it is only how we interpret the words in an allegory that matters, each person can interpreted it in a slightly different way and allegories are most often personalized by a reader. Dante’s Inferno allegory is present throughout the entire poem. From the dark wood to the depths of Dante’s hell he presents the different crimes committed in life as they could be punished in death.
In The Inferno of Dante, Dante creates a striking correspondence between a soul’s sin on Earth and the punishment it receives in hell for that sin. This simple idea serves to illuminate one of Dante’s recurring themes: the perfection of god’s justice. Bearing the inscription the gates of hell explicitly state that god was moved to create hell by justice. Wisdom was employed to know what punishments would be just, power to create the forms of justice, and love to show that the punishments are conditioned with compassion, however difficult it may be to recognize (and the topic of a totally separate paper). Certainly then, if the motive of hell’s creation was justice, then its purpose was (and still is) to provide justice. But what exactly is this justice that Dante refers to? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is the So hell exists to punish those who sin against god, and the suitability of Hell’s specific punishments testify to the divine perfection that all sin violates.
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.
it one of the most famous tales in the world. The plot in this timeless
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.