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The divine comedy by dante alighieri close reading
The influence of Dante
Significance of Dante s divine comedy
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Dante's Motivation to Write The Divine Comedy (La Divina Commedia)
To truly comprehend Dante’s Divine Comedy, although complete comprehension is not necessary to enjoy this literary masterpiece, there are several skills one might need to acquire. For instance, one helpful piece of knowledge would be the ability to fluently speak Italian, since the many translations differ being able to have read Dante’s actual written words and understand them would make reading the Divine Comedy a bit more personal and therefore easier to understand. To catch and understand the plethora of references and allusions made by Dante it would aid any reader with their findings to be accompanying their reading of the Divine Comedy with a reading of Dante’s autobiography Vita Nuova. Vita Nuova or New Life would give the reader a comprehension of all the political references in addition to all of the political references throughout the Divine Comedy. Whether it is Dante’s un avenged ancestor Geri del Bello or the political leader Boniface the Divine Comedy is made up of many aspects of Dante’s life thus making it difficult for any scholar to pinpoint the true motive behind the writings of the Divine Comedy.
However, if one was seeking more then just a ruff understanding of this piece, perhaps the reader is seeking the true reasoning behind the madness that is his unforgettable journey through the afterlife, it may take a more in depth view into the who Dante was. There are several purposes thought of as to why Dante wrote the Divine Comedy to begin with. Perhaps it is all about his dead “love” Beatrice the divine angel. Or maybe, this is a political tirade. Since Dante was heavily involved in politices perhaps he wanted to promote change, after he was exiled. He had of course been known for writing many epistles in hopes of changing the way things were. And there exists even a third option, the third option could easily be the most obvious. It is said the Dante merely wanted an Italian epic tale, one to match Virgil’s (Aeniad) or Homer’s (Odyssey) . Regardless of the reasoning behind the Divine Comedy the outcome could easily be seen as any of the outcomes Dante originally intended, and perhaps that is what makes this a timeless piece of literary genius.
Love, an often overused motive for, basically anything could easily be the reasoning behind Dante’s Divin...
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... of work. It is funny when the Divine Comedy is looked at along side “Vita Nuova” because the Divine Comedy is just as much of an autobiography as “New Life.” It is a look into the life of Dante put into his own unparalleled form of poetry, “though he does not span tragedy and comedy, as Shakespeare does (Dante’s comedy is very seldom comic), he does span poetry and prose” Dante used all of his knowledge on poetry in this one piece that is the Divine Comedy.
The answer to the question of the motivation that made Dante write this piece is simply answered like any standardized test question, the most obvious answer is too obvious to be correct, the simplest answer is not complicated enough to satisfy those who make up the tests, and there is always one long answer to throw off the test taker by using big words and names their nor familiar with, so the only answer left is that they all add to make the Divine Comedy a timeless classic. Perhaps it is even because there is no one answer to the lesson Dante sought to teach his readers that allow any reader to absorb his Comedy and manipulate it to satisfy any desire the reader may have. Therefore making it enjoyable to anyone.
In his Divine Comedy, Dante portrays two main types of characters along his journey. There are characters that provide false or misleading information, who are found mainly in the Inferno and the Purgatorio, and those who provide honest and beneficial information, found in the Purgatorio and Paradiso. Almost every personage Dante encounters can be easily assigned to one of these two categories. For instance, Francesca da Rimini clearly provides bad council to Dante when she attempts to gain his sympathy for her predicament. Similarly, Beatrice is a paragon of righteousness who aims to bring Dante back from his sojourn of the upright path when Dante had l...
In The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri there are two main guides who help Dante on his journey to salvation. These guides help demonstrate the consequences of sin and teach him how to overcome the temptation of it. These guides are each a crucial part in Dante’s transformation to allow him to fully grow and learn to be pure on his own.
Dante felt that having knowledge of the divine love will eventually lead to happiness and get one through the hard times. Even in the inferno, divine love is still present and guides Dante through his battles, fears, emotions and fatigue.
Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy is said to be the single greatest epic poem of all time. The opening story of the character of Dante the Pilgrim is told in the first of the three divisions: The Inferno. The Inferno is a description of Dante’s journey down through Hell and of the several degrees of suffering and many mythical creatures that he encounters on the way. Throughout his travel Dante displays many different feelings and actions but the emotion that summarizes the entire poem is fear. While some of his character traits change as his mind matures and acknowledges the justice being carried out, from the very beginning until the final Canto, his fear does not subside. This does well to reinforce the symbolism of Dante as Everyman and serves to direct the reader to the moral purpose of Divine Comedy, because of the humility and dependence upon God that fear produces. In the first Canto, which serves as an introduction to the entire comedy, Dante encounters the three beasts which impede his progress out of the dark woods. Coming upon the She-Wolf he writes: "This last beast brought my spirit down so low / with fear that seized me at the sight of her, / lost all hope of going up the hill" (I.52-54). Dante is so shaken by the appearances of the three beasts that he rushes headlong into the dark woods he has just come out of. This is only the first obstacle Dante encounters, but it proves an insurmountable one.
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.
Dante, an Italian poet during the late middle ages, successfully parallels courtly love with Platonic love in both the La Vita Nuova and the Divine Comedy. Though following the common characteristics of a courtly love, Dante attempts to promote love by elevating it through the lenses of difference levels. Through his love affair with Beatrice, although Beatrice has died, he remains his love and prompts a state of godly love in Paradiso. Dante, aiming to promote the most ideal type of love, criticizes common lust while praises the godly love by comparing his state of mind before and after Beatrice’s death. PJ Klemp essay “Layers of love in Dante’s Vita Nuova” explains the origins of Dante’s love in Plato and Aristotle themes that designate
“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.
...eral chronicle of Dante’s life. This is not the case, as historical information proves, Dante led a full life separate from his love of Beatrice. This story instead serves as a description of the power that Love wields over the sensitive and romantic. Indeed, Love could wield this power over anyone He chooses, though he chooses only those with the poet’s soul, through which God can speak and tell humanity of the power of Love. God inspires those who are open to him, in a way that they can understand. In the case of Dante, God spoke to him through Love and produced a tale that will convey the same message to all those who are able to hear. Dante was not writing for those without a poet’s mind, a fact he makes clear throughout the text, and the reason for this is evident: they would simply not understand.
In conclusion, we can see that Dante presents the reader with a potentially life-altering chance to participate in his journey through Hell. Not only are we allowed to follow Dante's own soul-searching journey, we ourselves are pressed to examine the state of our own souls in relation to the souls in Inferno. It is not just a story to entertain us; it is a display of human decision and the perpetual impact of those decisions.
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.
During the Middle Ages, the church was a powerful institution. It had its own government, courts, system of taxation, and laws. To live a good Christian life guaranteed access to heaven in the afterlife, and a life of sin was to be sentenced to hell. Dante Alighieri was an Italian poet, who had an admirable depth of spiritual vision and was known for his intelligence (Encarta, 1). Between the years of 1308 and 1321, Dante wrote the epic poem, 'The Divine Comedy,'; which described a journey through the afterlife. It takes place during the three days of Good Friday, when Jesus died, and on Easter Sunday when he rose body and soul to heaven. It is a moral comedy, and was written to make readers evaluate their own morals. The journey was to show readers what could happen if they live a sinful life, or if they live a godlike life.
In Dante’s Inferno, the relationship between Dante the Pilgrim and Virgil the Guide is an ever-evolving one. By analyzing the transformation of this relationship as the two sojourn through the circles of hell, one is able to learn more about the mindset of Dante the Poet. At the outset, Dante is clearly subservient to Virgil, whom he holds in high esteem for his literary genius. However, as the work progresses, Virgil facilitates Dante’s spiritual enlightenment, so that by the end, Dante has ascended to Virgil’s spiritual level and has in many respects surpassed him. In Dante’s journey with respect to Virgil, one can see man’s spiritual journey towards understanding God. While God loves man regardless of his faults, His greatest desire is to see man attain greater spirituality, in that man, already created in God’s image, may truly become divine, and in doing so, attain eternality.
Dante's "Inferno" is full of themes. But the most frequent is that of the weakness of human nature. Dante's descent into hell is initially so that Dante can see how he can better live his life, free of weaknesses that may ultimately be his ticket to hell. Through the first ten cantos, Dante portrays how each level of his hell is a manifestation of human weakness and a loss of hope, which ultimately Dante uses to purge and learn from. Dante, himself, is about to fall into the weaknesses of humans, before there is some divine intervention on the part of his love Beatrice, who is in heaven. He is sent on a journey to hell in order for Dante to see, smell, and hear hell. As we see this experience brings out Dante's weakness' of cowardice, wrath and unworthiness. He is lead by Virgil, who is a representation of intellect. Through Dante's experiences he will purge his sins.
... 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.
...te become surer of himself and less of a coward. Dante lost respect for some of the shades, at the beginning of the poem he spoke with respect to the shades and pitied them immensely. Towards the ending of the poem Dante lost most respect for the shades and went as far as kicking a shade in the head demanding that the shade answers him. This shows a decline in the value of respect rather than gaining more knowledge in how to be respectful. Excellence is a core value related to personal development and Dante shows in increase in excellence as his journey comes to an end. Over all Dante’s character improves by the ending of the poem. Though he has been through hell he comes out with a new understanding of life, appears less depressed and more courageous.