Allusions In The Divine Comedy, By Dante Alighieri

Paolo and Francesca represented, or symbolize, sinful love by example. They show how an intrinsically noble emotion, love, if contrary to God’s law, can bring two essentially fine persons to damnation and spiritual ruin. Dante’s personal response of overwhelming pity should not blind us to the justice of the penalty. Dante describes himself as fainting at the end of Francesca’s recital, his purpose is partly to portray the attractiveness of the sin. Dante allows the lovers the bitter sweetness of inseperability in Hell, but they have lost God and thus corrupted their personalities; they can hardly be considered happy. In a sense, they have what they wanted; they continue in the lawless condition that

Allusion à an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference.

In verse 25, Dante describes the choir of anguish to be "like a wound" with a simile. Next, by using a metaphor, he describes the fate of the adulterous sinners and their punishment as being battered eternally by the winds and storms of hell, as they were figuratively battered by the winds of passion in their lives on earth. He describes with a simile how "as cranes go over sounding their harsh cry, / leaving the long streak of their flight in air, / so come spirits, wailing as they fly" (v 46-48). Finally, he makes use of another simile to iterate how after Francesca tells of her tale of love, Dante faints and falls, "as a corpse might fall, to the dead floor of hell" (v 140).

Smiling.. Shaking head, and acting like everything is understood and okay is a common gesture people show when they are told something they are incapable of putting together or understanding. This feeling of cluelessness or embarrassment most commonly occurs when someone uses an allusion to describe a noun. Most people use allusions everyday and have no idea that they are doing so. Allusions are an excellent way to build someone's confidence or put them in down in a sneaky and sly way. Using allusions is quite simple; comparing someone or something that has a specific representation or meaning to a person or group. This allows: authors, friends, and even enemies to indirectly imply a reference. The Book Dante’s inferno is filled with a plethora of allusions from small references to big that take a significant amount of elaboration and background knowledge to understand completely. Including Greek emperors and queens being alluded including: Virgil, Pope Celestine V, and many others.

"Its shoulders glowed already with the sweet rays of that planet/ whose virtue leads men straight on every road,. (I 16-18) The Inferno is one-third of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. This fictional poem is a narrative. In the poem Alighieri made his own character symbolic to the Human soul and his idol, Virgil, symbolic to human reason. Together they journey through the Nine Circles of hell. Dante is able to complete his journey through hell because Virgil helps him through.

Dante’s obsession with Virgil is evident in the nicknames that Dante uses –leader, lord, master, sweet father and teacher to name a few. Dante’s idolization of Virgil the poet causes him to act out in order to please his guide. For example, when Dante first recognizes Argenti as the sinner in the mud he cries out to him, “With weeping and mourning cursed spirit, now remain; for I recognize you, though you are filthy all over,” (Inf. 8.33-35). In this passage, Dante is not verbally abusing Argenti rather he is simply telling the sinner to remain where he is in order to prevent Argenti from reaching over the boat. After these words however, Virgil becomes elated at Dante’s distaste with the sinner and immediately praises Dante. Dante does not take these words of praise lightly - in fact, they affect Dante to such great extremes that they practically goad him to continue to wish pain upon Argenti.

Dante is a poet who wrote an epic poem called The Divine Comedy. This epic poem is about Dante’s journey as he goes through 3 levels, which he calls Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. In the Inferno, he meets Virgil, his guide throughout his voyage. They both pass through the nine circles of Hell, where they witness many different punishments for those who have done awful things in their past. Good versus evil is a major theme that occurred throughout Hell. In the Inferno, there are times where Dante sees good and evil and also represents it himself.

Dante’s descent into Hell in Inferno, the first part of his Divine Comedy, tells of the author’s experiences in Hades as he is guided through the abyss by the Roman author, Virgil. The text is broken into cantos that coincide with the different circles and sub-circles of Hell that Dante and Virgil witness and experience. Inferno is heavily influenced by classic Greek and Roman texts and Dante makes references to a myriad of characters, myths, and legends that take place in Virgil’s Aeneid, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Some of the most important references, however, are the most obvious ones that are easily overlooked simply because of the fact that they are so blatant. Dante is being escorted through Hell by the

The beginning lines of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri indicate a pragmatic journey through the dark woods. It is soon evident that The Divine Comedy is in terms of an allegory. Midway through his life, Dante finds himself lost and in darkness. He is confused and unaware of how he has ended up in these dark woods. Dante soon comes across Italian poet Virgil, who will guide him through the Nine Circles of Hell. Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy: Inferno portrays Dante’s life and adventure through Hell which allegorically represents a much broader subject: man’s journey through life to salvation.

In literature during the medieval and renaissance time a comedy meant that characters in a play, peom, or movie had to endure a hardship or disaster and the come to a happy ending. Comedy sometimes isn’t even a comedy, sometimes it has a deeper meaning. The significance of comedy in Dante`s Divine Comedy is that it stands up to the structural meaning of comedy. For example, it has a happing ending, which in most literature works, is the meaning of comedy.

Implications: is the demonstration to suggest a circuitous reference to something, particularly in writing; a great illustration of Allusion is: "Don't act like Romeo before her".

    Some people think that the medieval churches view on sin, redemption, heaven and hell was very complex, but actually the churches views were straight and to the point. I will discuss with you what sin, redemption, heaven and hell were to the medieval churches and I will also share some examples in the story that will help you better understand The Inferno and the medieval churches views.

“I came to a place stripped bare of every light and roaring on naked dark like seas wracked by a war of winds” (Canto 5 inferno), this when Dante goes into the second circle of hell and watches as the lustful are swirl around in this never-ending storm of lust. Dante is using this point of view to try and give a realistic vibe to the readers. He talks to Francesca and Paolo two lovers who were murdered after found having affair against Francesca husband Giovanni Malatesta. After talking to them Dante is starting to get a sense of how real his journey is, he is feeling overwhelmed Dante falls to the ground and pass is out. “And while one spirit Francesca said these words to me, the other Paolo wept, so that, because of pity, I fainted, as if I had met my death. And then I fell as a dead body falls.”(139-142)

Dante's `Divine Comedy', the account of his journey through hell, purgatory and heaven is one of the worlds great poems, and a prime example of a most splendidly realized integration of life with art. More than being merely great poetry, or a chronicle of contemporary events, which it also is, the `Comedy' is a study of human nature by a man quite experienced with it. The main argument I will make in this essay is that Dante's `Comedy' is chiefly a work of historical significance because in it lies the essence of human life across all boundaries of time and place. I feel that such a reading is justified, nay invited, by Dante himself when he says;

Throughout the Middle Ages, art and philosophy has been lost in darkness, but with the reintroduction of ideas that came with the Renaissance in Italy, brought about a literary revival. One of the writers that influenced this revival is Dante Alighieri, a 13th century poet from Florence, Italy. His world famous epic, La Commedia, or more commonly known as The Divine Comedy remains a poetic masterpiece depicting truth and sin. The Divine Comedy, through the journey into the three hells, expresses a universal truth of good versus evil. Alighieri’s life of heartbreak with the influences of other famous poets like Homer and Virgil has affected his writing style, and through reviews by literary experts and their interpretation of Alighieri’s