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Inferno is Dante’s first poem in his The Divine Comedy. The poem starts with Dante traveling in dark where he loses his way. He is trying to get to his beloved Beatrice who is waiting for him. She sends ghost of Virgil to bring Dante to her. In order to get to Heaven, Dante will have to go through heaven, something that almost everyone did in Christian world. At the beginning, they enter the gate of hell. The First Circle of the Hell is for those people who never done anything good or bad in their life, here they run all day long with hornets biting them. In the Second Circle of the Hell, Dante sees that the some souls are stuck in a devastating storm. In the Third Circle of Hell, Dante sees that Gluttonous…
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Dante and Virgil are outside the eighth Circle of Hell, known as Malebolge. The circle has a wall along the outside, and has a circular pit in the center. The ridges create ten separate pits. This is where the people receive their punishment for fraud. This is where Virgil and Dante see souls from one side to another. The demons with great whips cause pain to the souls when they come to the demon’s reach, which then force the souls to the other ridge. There is an Italian that Dante recognize and he speaks to him. The Italian tells Dante that he lived in Bologna, and now is there to sell his sister. The pit is for the Seducers and the Panders, and then Dante saw the Jason of mythology who abandoned Medea. When Virgil and Dante had…
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Dante and Virgil reach the gates of Hell and read the printed inscription. When Dante is concerned, Virgil comforts him and tells him he must have courage. The two come to the first level of hell filled with people who only worked to benefit themselves and lacked conviction, including the angels who took no side in the battle between Lucifer and God. Here, the dead are seen naked, chasing after an ever-moving banner while being stung by hornet and treading on maggots. In this crowd Dante spots Popes Celestine V and Boniface VIII whom he disliked in real life. They continue on and meet Charon the ferryman who at first refuses to take Dante across the river but then reluctantly agrees. There are souls gathered along the banks wanting to cross…
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In the first Canto, Dante realizes he is lost. He says that he does not remember how he lost his way, but he has wandered into a fearful place, a dark and tangled valley. Above, he sees a great hill that seems to offer protection from the shadowed vale. The sun shines down from this hilltop, and Dante attempts to climb toward the light. As he climbs,…
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Dante Alighieri, an Italian poet, was born in Florence in 1265. The exact day of his birth and death is unknown. He was born into a noble family with a no fortune. He may have attended the University of Bologna, and around the age of twenty he married Gemma Donati, with her he had several children. He began writing poetry at a very young age. After he was exiled from Florence he wrote the epic poem, Divine Comedy. It is believed that some of the epic poem, of the Inferno was written about the people in his life that wronged him. Dante the poet creates Dante the character in the Inferno. Dante, the character, in the Fourth Bolgia is in an astonishing disbelief by the punishment of the sinners in the Eighth Circle of Hell.…
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Dante’s journey began by meeting Virgil who is described throughout the story as Dante’s guide, master, teacher, protector and Lord. Virgil stated to Dante, “I think it well you follow me and I will be your guide and lead you forth through an eternal place.” “There you shall see the ancient spirits tried in endless pain,” (Canto I:105-110)…
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When he did try to climb out of the darkness to the hilltop where he could see sunlight, his path was blocked by beasts – first a leopard, secondly a lion and thirdly a she-wolf. He then saw Virgil, the poet that wrote the Aeneid, who agreed to be his guide through Hell and Purgatory. The significance of Canto 1 is the symbolic or underlying meaning to the words. Dante had been going through life without thought to how he was living. He apparently was…
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During this scene, the demons under the charge of Malebranche threaten to harm Dante the Pilgrim with their brute force and pitchforks. However, Virgil uses his wisdom and courage to hide Dante by placing him behind a rock to keep him out of reach of Malebranche’s hoard. This moment in The Inferno demonstrates the great amount of courage that Virgil has despite being a well-known writer from his time. I believe this is the point in the novel where Virgil realizes that Dante the Poet cannot really protect himself in Hell due to be naive and scared.…
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Canto X of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno starts with Virgil and Dante on their way to the sixth circle. The sixth circle is where the tombs of those who believe that the soul dies with the body are put. We call them Epicureans. Dante then meets two Epicureans. The first one, Farinata degli Uberti notices Dante because of his accent. Farinata asks who his ancestors are and finds out that they were his enemies. The conversation goes on until another Epicurean appears, Cavalcante dei Cavalcanti. Dante and Cavalcante know each because Guido, the son of Cavalcante is good friends with Dante and he married Beatrice. Cavalcante then asks why his son isn’t with him. Dante gives a reply that makes Cavalcante think that his son is dead. After hearing this, Cavalcante got depressed and went back to his place. Dante realizes that those who are in the sixth circle can only see the future. Farinata and Dante continue their conversation then Virgil calls Dante and tells him that they get going. Dante was left with curiousity as he and Virgil walk a path that disgusted them.…
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References: Alighieri, D. (2006). The divine comedy: The originals. Hayes Barton Press; Raleigh, N.C.Retrieved September 15, 2011 from http://myeclassonline…
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The Inferno follows the wanderings of the poet Dante as he strays off the rightful and straight path of moral truth and gets lost in a dark wood. Just as three wild animals threaten to attack him, Dante is rescued by the ghost of Virgil, a celebrated Roman poet and also Dante’s idol. When asked why in hell (pun intended) he came, Virgil answers that the head honchos of Heaven – the Virgin Mary and Santa Lucia – felt sorry for Dante and asked the deceased love-of-Dante’s-life, Beatrice, to send someone down to help him. She sent Violia and Virgil to his rescue.…
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Dante's use of allegory in the Inferno greatly varies from Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" in purpose, symbolism, characters and mentors, and in attitude toward the world. An analysis of each of these elements in both allegories will provide an interesting comparison. Dante uses allegory to relate the sinner's punishment to his sin, while Plato uses allegory to discuss ignorance and knowledge. Dante's Inferno describes the descent through Hell from the upper level of the opportunists to the most evil, the treacherous, on the lowest level. His allegorical poem describes a hierarchy of evil. Conversely, Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" describes the ascent from ignorance to knowledge, as one prisoner is freed to make his way up towards the opening of the cave and experiences sunlight, the unavoidable truth. Symbolism is an essential element of both works. In Plato's allegory symbols are used to represent truth, ignorance, society and the fear of change. Truth is represented by the sun, while ignorance is represented by the cave, its limited vision and darkness within. The prisoners represent ignorant members of society who are content to believe that what they see is all that exists. Fear of change is represented by the prisoners angry reaction towards the freed, enlightened prisoner. Dante's Inferno is a detailed description of sin and its relationship to degrees of punishment. As stated in the text, "...for the face was reversed on the neck, and they came on backwards, staring backwards at their loins for to look before them was forbidden." (Ciardi, pg. 175) This quote describes the punishment for fortune tellers. In life the fortune tellers foresaw the future. In death they are doomed to exist with their heads on backwards and their eyes overflowing with tears so that not only could they not see what was happening in front of them, but they could not see at all due to these copious amounts of tears. Similarly, each sin had its own logical punishment, and each group…
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In Canto XIII, Dante enters the second subcircle of the seventh ring of Hell, reserved for those who commit violence against themselves. Here, the contrapasso of suicide is becoming a part of the thorned and treacherous woods. Although this seems odd as the idea of a contrapasso is, “the punishment fits the crime,” and other punishments seem much harsher, the real workings of the contrapasso are shown once Dante speaks to the souls. Here it is revealed to Dante that these souls are constantly reminded that they have willingly given up what is most important to them, their identity. In turn, they must suffer for abandoning the bond that existed between them and God.…
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Imagine a place where tyrants stand up to their ears in boiling blood, the gluttonous experience monsoons of human filth, and those who commit sins of the flesh are blown about like pieces of paper in a never-ending wind storm. Welcome to Dante 's Inferno, his perspective on the appropriate punishments for those who are destined to hell for all eternity. Dante attempts to make the punishments fit the crimes, but because it is Dante dealing out the tortures and not God, the punishments will never be perfect because by nature, man is an imperfect creature. Only God is capable of being above reproach and of metering out a just punishment. While Dante 's treatment towards the tyrants is fitting, his views on the inhabitants of the Ante Inferno and Limbo seem to be backwards and these poor people are doomed to suffer misguided punishments. Therefore, despite Dante 's best attempts to justly punish each sinner, he makes a few mistakes because he is not God and Dante is unable to unbiasedly judge each sinner.…
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Throughout history there have been poets and directors who have influenced others in the arts and moved audiences all over the world. Poet Dante Alighieri and director Frank Capra have produced works that tell a part of the history from their time period through partially fictional stories. They used their passion in the arts to reflect on social conditions and show how those who fall into evil will suffer and those who stay morally and ethically true to themselves will find paradise in the end. Looking at Dante’s poem the Inferno and Frank’s film It’s a Wonderful Life one can see how when the government is facing problems people with power have a history of becoming deceitful, greedy and malicious and how during these times people turn to…
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