Research Paper On The Divine Comedy

The cultural impact of Dante’s Divine Comedy is widely seen through a sundry of literary works, television programs, films and even video games. Yet, one of the most prominent works the Divine Comedy has impacted is C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce. Lewis’s book is greatly indebted to Dante’s work, as both try to teach the reader how to achieve salvation. Furthermore, Lewis and Dante’s protagonists discover the path to salvation through choices, and learning what causes one’s refusal of God. Both authors explore the path to righteousness and enquire about life’s most difficult questions. Therefore, the dialogue between Dante’s Divine Comedy and C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce is witnessed through the conception of the distortion of love,

In the poem, The Divine Comedy, Dante (the author) demonstrates the basic stages of the Monomyth while making his way through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. His writing mirrors each stage which includes the departure or separation, The initiation or challenge, and the return. In stage one, the hero finds himself in an unusual world of adventure (not the “real world”). His journey involves assistance from many which helps him cross the threshold into the imaginative world. Stage two continues with the hero successfully meeting and defeating several challenges and roadblocks in his way. The last Monomyth stage contributes to the hero completing his journey successfully and finding his way back to the mundane world. This paper will demonstrate and define Dante’s journey to adventure, crisis, and victory using the three stages of the Monomyth in the poem.

Often, we cannot see the good in something until we’ve experienced the bad. Dante Aghileri, a poet who stars in his Divine Comedy as a pilgrim, finds himself lost in a dark wood. Though he sees a safe path to the light and out of the wood, he is forced to take an alternate route through an even darker place. The Divine Comedy is an allegory representative of the Christian soul. As the ending is bright and hopeful for Dante, Aghileri spreads that the ending for even the most sinful Christians can be as hopeful as dante’s, provided that they take the steps needed to achieve salvation. Thus, Dante the pilgrim goes to hell to better understand the nature of sin and its consequences in order to move closer to salvation, his journey an representing that of the repenting Christian soul.

A central theme in works detailing a hero’s journey (monomyth), such as Dante’s The Divine Comedy, is that every hero must overcome adversity. No hero, no matter how valiant they may seem, can get away from it. These works illustrate to the modern reader that we are really all heroes on our own journeys, and we must all face adversity—and no one is exempt.

Domenico di Michelino (1417-1491), an Italian painter and medieval poet was known best for his epic poem, The Divine Comedy, which includes sections representing the three tiers of the Christian afterlife: Purgatory (Purgatorio), Hell (Inferno), and Paradise (Paradiso). This poem was a great work of medieval literature and was considered the greatest work of literature composed in Italian. The Divine Comedy was a Christian vision of mankind’s eternal fate. When The Divine Comedy was written, Dante made a cathedral painting that represents his poem called Dante and His Poem. In the painting, the Dante shows the 3 tiers related to the Christian afterlife. Dante was standing in a red robed colossus, revealing his poem to the city of Florence. The painting was full of great meaning, inspiring so many artists from Rodin to Robert Rauschenberg.

In the Divine Comedy, more specifically Inferno, Dante as a person changes. Dante Alighieri wrote the Divine Comedy in the early 1300s in his early 30s. In the beginning of the book Dante mentions being midway through his life. Now, Dante is a religious man, and has read the entire Bible. In the book of Psalms within the Bible, God says that a man’s life is three score and a decade, or seventy years. Using this information, we can gather that Dante is 35 years old at the start of Inferno.

“My Guide and I crossed over and began to mount that little known and lightless road to ascend into the shinning world again.” The Inferno, by Dante Alighieri, is an epic poem, divine comedy, which was written in the 1500’s in Italian. Dante Alighieri lost his mother at a very young age and was exiled from his hometown, Florence when his group, the White Guelphs got into a disagreement with the Black Guelphs. Dante was a writer and greatly involved in politics which influenced him to write this epic poem. The story starts at with him meeting the ghost of Virgil, his idol, who becomes his guide for the remainder of the book and tries to escort Dante to heaven to be with his love, Beatrice.

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.

His most famous piece of literature, The Divine Comedy, is said to be important also because of “It’s place in the history of the development of the Italian language'; (Dante: The Divine… Internet). To understand this we need to look at the language and writings at that time in history. During Dante’s lifetime different dialects of Italian were spoken in different parts of the country (Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321 Internet). Dante was a very skilled writer who wrote in both his Florentine Italian dialect and Latin, which was unusual since most scholarly writings at that time were in Latin (Dante Internet). Dante however believed that the language of one’s family was noble and he broke the traditions of those before him.

    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.

Italy in the 1300’s was a time of turmoil, uncertainty, and corruption. The Catholic church, following the Bubonic plague, gained much control over Italy due to the certainty of death for many citizens at the time. The fear of death the Italian people had further corrupted the Catholic churches organization. Unlike the message of salvation through God, which is typically taught in Catholic monasteries, The Catholic church began to raffle of salvation to the highest bidder. “[T]he implication that those with more disposable income could hasten . . . their union with God violated the tradition of apostolic poverty” (Stephan). Instead of true repentance, citizens could pay to have their sins pardoned by a priest or the Pope. Dante Alghieri, the author of the Divine Comedy, identified the switch of mind sets in the Catholic church. Though not much is known about Dante, one can infer through his novels in the Divine Comedy, that he subtlety criticize the corruption of his beloved church.

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;

The Inferno is the first part of Dante’s epic poem The Divine Comedy. The Inferno tells the journey of Dante going through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In the poem Hell is illustrated as nine circles of torture that is located in the middle of the Earth, the Inferno describes the recognition and the ultimate rejection of sin. Every canto is written in parts of what sinner is being punished, what their punishment is and why they are there. Susan Blow writes a critique of Dante’s Inferno describing his work as one that “reaches beyond Christianity and speaks to the universal conscience of humanity.” This describes how Dante was able to reach out to audiences and describe the dangers of living in such a sinful mindset. He was appealing to a broader audience that way he could attempt to create a social reform. Canto thirty-four describes the ninth and last circle of Hell where Lucifer is left to rot. This circle is where those who commit the sin of betrayal against their benefactors are sent. Dante witnesses Lucifer as well as Judas, Cassius and Brutus being chomped on by Lucifer. They are sent there for their sins against their benefactors and have the worst punishment in the entirety of Hell. The fact that traitors against benefactors proves that it is the greatest sin one can commit and that those who commit this sin will face the worst kind of wrath and will be damned for all of eternity.

The Divine Comedy is considered the greatest work of Dante. The author worked on it for many years and inserted all his internal and external experience in it. He called this poem a comedy meaning its middle style and a happy ending. The Divine Comedy is written in the genre of vision which was highly popular in medieval literature. In this genre, authors described people walking through torments. Dante modified greatly this genre, adding the whole universe to the abyss of Hell. Moreover, he goes personally through all the circles of the otherworldly place where he to his surprise comprehends such entities as truth, love, and beauty. The Divine Comedy is infused with the theme of love, which is especially noticeable when Dante enters Heaven and meets his beloved.

Dante Alighieri’s life of lost love and exile from his home reveals an understanding of Dante’s philosophical epic, The Divine Comedy. The impact from famous classical writers and philosophers effect Dante’s use of interchanging language and style while his undying love for Beatrice remains a constant character in his works.