Similarities between Dantes, God, and Satan
Although there seem to be similarities between Dante's vision of Satan and his vision of God, Satan is actually an inversion of the Trinity and God. There are also significant differences between the two visions, which are essential to understanding this inversion.
The most obvious instance of inversion is Dante's construction of the world of his Divine Comedy. A simplified version of this world looks like this:
EMPYREAN (God)
PLANETS
PURGATORY
HELL
SATAN
From this depiction, it is obvious that God and Satan are at opposite ends of the world. However, similarities between the two are equally obvious. How can this be?
A closer examination reveals that only the language is similar. Dante uses emotions and images to describe his experiences with these two divinities. The language actually highlights the differences between them, as will be seen later.
The most significant pseudo-similarities and inversions are within the individual texts. The first instance is the climactic difference between God's realm of the Empyrean and Satan's realm of Lake Cocytus. Cocytus is a cold, frozen place. (Dante, Hell, XXXIV, 12) Contrasted with this in Paradise is God's realm of light and warmth. (Dante, Paradise, XXXIII, 27) The realms and the deities themselves are opposites; Cocytus and Satan are material (Dante, Hell, XXXIV, 29), where God and the Empyrean are not. (Dante, Paradise, XXXIII, 114)
Emotions play a strong role in both realms. The basic emotions that Dante feels in each realm are opposite. He describes the pit of Hell as "sorrowful," (Dante, Hell, XXXIV, 25) but experiences "bliss" in the Empyrean. (Dante, Paradise, XXXIII, 10) Both emotions hav...
... middle of paper ...
...ation of the text reveals that the two are actually opposites of each other. Most significantly, Satan is a grotesque inversion of the sacred Trinity seen in God.
Bibliography:
Bibliography
Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy: Hell. Trans. Dorothy L. Sayers. 1949; Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978.
Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy: Paradise. Trans. Dorothy L. Sayers and Barbara Reynolds. (1962; Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978.
Gardner, Patrick. "Dante's Inferno" [online resource]. Accessed November 15, 1999. Available at http://www.sparknotes.com/guides/inferno/
Sayers, Dorothy L., trans. The Divine Comedy: Hell. By Dante Alighieri. 1949; Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978.
Sayers, Dorothy L. and Barbara Reynolds, trans. The Divine Comedy: Paradise. By Dante Alighieri. 1962; Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978.
Christopher Murphy, Construction and Rhetoric: A Study of Satan in Paradise Lost, A Journal of Undergraduate Literary Criticism and Creative Research, 2012
Anyone who has read Dante’s Inferno is familiar with a certain main character, Virgil. Who is this Virgil that Dante put in his book and where did Dante get the idea of having Virgil as his guide on Dante’s journey through the spirit world? In addition to Virgil, readers of Inferno are also familiar with concepts and characters such as God, angles, demons, Satan, and Hell. Where did Dante get these concepts? Dante did not come up with these ideas on his own, but used familiar characters and places from outside sources such as the Aeneid and the Bible to create his epic poem.
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.
...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.
After God created the Earth and mankind, all was right in the Holy kingdom. That is until, a friend, the bearer of light, the morning star fell in battle and ultimately in darkness. This fateful battle made true everything we know and live now. Milton and Dante play on this every concept in two very different ways, for Milton a cunning reflection of man and for Dante an animalisitic dunce. Milton and Dante use the Bible stories as a backdrop for their epic poems of love and of loss wherein a single unique character, a bearer of light is made to reverberate humanity and the supreme basic darkness that is the soul of man, one can note these key elements vis-a-vis his appearance, domain and the influence of Lucifer.
Several scholars have made arguments that discuss the Dantean influence seen throughout Paradise Lost. While looking at Dantean influence upon Milton, many scholars use the scene in Paradise Lost where Satan and his companions are turned into serpents as a direct influence from Cantos 24 and 25 in the Inferno in which the thieves must transform for eternity. There are a number of articles that explore this influence of Dante on Milton. In the article “Milton’s Dantean Miniatures: Inflections on Dante’s Inferno and Purgatorio within the Cosmos of Paradise Lost” by Russell M. Hiller, he discusses ways in which Dante’s influence seems to trickle through in Milton’s Paradise Lost. He notes other scholars who have shown areas where Milton seemed to be influenced by the Italian poet. He references Milton’s Commonplace Book in which he states he “features a numerous references to the Commedia” and “reve...
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.
Dante introduces Satan in the “Inferno” as the worst sinner of all times, and he relates his complexity with the sins that he committed and his punishment. Satan is described as the angel who rebelled against God, and hence he has wings. The wings of Lucifer are not the wings that an angel would have; instead he has bat-like wings, which demonstrates that now he has the wings the dark creatures as bats have. He is firstly in the story presented as an impure monster that is trapped in ice and unable to escape. “No feathers had they, but as of a bat their fashion was, and he was waving them, so that three winds proceeded forth therefrom” (Canto 34, 50).Dante’s depiction of Satan is different from the common known version of Satan, which is
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.
At the beginning of the poem, Satan is viewed as a very majestic angel of great stature and an even bigger leadership skill. He is pictured as a hero in book one solely because the poem focuses on him and because it shows his pain "Both of lost happiness and lasting pain"(1) [55] "Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes"(1) [56] "That witness'd huge affliction and dismay"(1) [57] his second transformation is where his evilness shows, Satan, after hearing about the new race and the new land, earth, travels all the way to earth in order to see it and see the new race. He tries to enter heaven, and to do so he transforms into a cherub, to deceive ...
In Dante’s Inferno, Dante is taken on a journey through hell. On this journey, Dane sees the many different forms of sins, and each with its own unique contrapasso, or counter-suffering. Each of these punishments reflects the sin of a person, usually offering some ironic way of suffering as a sort of revenge for breaking God’s law. As Dante wrote this work and developed the contrapassos, he allows himself to play God, deciding who is in hell and why they are there. He uses this opportunity to strike at his foes, placing them in the bowels of hell, saying that they have nothing to look forward to but the agony of suffering and the separation from God.
Great works of literature have been written throughout history. However, The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost have the inept ability to stir the soul and cause a person to examine and re-examine their life. The brilliant descriptions, use of imagery, metaphor and simile give a person a vivid picture of the creation of man and the possibilities for life in the hereafter. This is done, as a person is able to see, full circle, from the beginning of time to the end of time, the consequences of turning away from God. The ability to see a life full circle is apparent through the examination of both of these poems. Although written many years ago, the morals and principles that they convey ring very true for people in this century as well as times yet to come.
Question: Compare / Contrast the characterization of Satan/the Devil as he appears in the excerpts we’ve read of the Bible vs. the characterization of Satan as he appears in Book IV of Paradise Lost.
...to become an active learner. Alberigo is an inverted mirror image of Dante because his body on earth is overcome by a devil and he is a living shade in hell.
The Divine Comedy and the Bible are similar and different in many ways. Dante includes Paradiso (Heaven), Purgatory, and Inferno (Hell) in The Divine Comedy. It talks about where people go when they die. The Bible differs from this because there is only Heaven and Hell. There is not a middle place, such as Purgatory, where people go to repent of their sins even after death. Also, unlike Inferno, Hell is not split up into many categories. In the Bible they go straight into Heaven or Hell. Also, everyone’s new bodies in the two stories are different. The Divine Comedy and the Bible have several complex ideas, and the comparisons and contrasts of the two are interesting.