Canto Dante's Inferno

Throughout the poem, Virgil uses logic and reason to convince the monsters to allow him to gain passage to the various circles of Hell. The use of characters and mentors is distinct in each piece. "The Allegory of the Cave" presents few characters, and except for the one prisoner who ascends from the cave, none are distinguished from the others. The one freed prisoner attempts to become a mentor to the others but fails.

Others include Cleopatra, Achilles, and Semiras, each with their own story of love and lust. Dante is at once filled with great pity for those who were “torn from the mortal life by love” (V. 69). With Virgil’s permission, Dante asks to call to “those two swept together so lightly on the wind and still to sad” (V. 74). One woman answers him, recognizing him as a living soul. Dante knows her as Francesca, and she relates to him how love was her undoing. She was reading with a man, Paolo, about an Arthurian Legend of Lancelot, “how love had mastered him” (V. 129). The two came to a particularly romantic moment in the story, and could not resist exchanging a single kiss; that very day, they were killed because of it. Dante is so overcome with pity that he faints.

But Virgil comes to the poor, powerless Dante. He will never really do anything alone from this point on, which is good because in order for Dante to understand and learn he must have a teacher, t here must be some authority for Dante. There is a grey hound that is mentioned (canto 1, line 78-88, Alighieri). I think that this grey hound is Virgil, because he represents the savior of Dante. He is said to represent intellect, and in Dante's mind that is what is needed to be reasonable, and reason conquers all desires and weaknesses.

that Virgil is an epileptic and that it is very difficult for him to be

Dante’s work Inferno is a vivid walkthrough the depths of hell and invokes much imagery, contemplation and feeling. Dante’s work beautifully constructs a full sensory depiction of hell and the souls he encounters along the journey. In many instances within the work the reader arrives at a crossroads for interpretation and discussion. Canto XI offers one such crux in which Dante asks the question of why there is a separation between the upper levels of hell and the lower levels of hell. By discussing the text, examining its implications and interpretations, conclusions can be drawn about why there is delineation between the upper and lower levels and the rationale behind the separation.

Virgil is an effective teacher. Throughout the cantos Virgil is described as a wonderful guider who was very motivated to assist Dante. Virgil wanted Dante to learn about the nine circles of hell and the type of punishment being served to different souls. For example in Canto one Virgil mentions "Soul in fire and yet content in fire" (I.112). Additionally, Virgil has a non-philosophical educational approach since he does not ask Dante any question but only explains everything to him. For example, Virgil describes the characteristics of Beatrice fully stating “She tracks down all, kills all, and knows no glut” (I.92). Virgil is also a very consistent educator because when Dante “soul’s ruin” he appears in order to provide hope to Dante. Furthermore, the core strength of Virgil styles of teaching is he explains all details in a comprehensive manner to Dante.

Virgil- Beatrice sends Virgil to Earth to retrieve Dante and act as his guide through Hell and Purgatory.  Since the poet Virgil lived before Christianity, he dwells in Limbo (Ante-Inferno) with other righteous non-Christians.  As author, Dante chooses the character Virgil to act as his guide because he admired Virgil's work above all other poets and because Virgil had written of a similar journey through the underworld.  Thus, Virgil's character knows the way through Hell and can act as Dante's knowledgeable guide while he struggles alongside Dante

            However, when we couple Dante’s intense reverence for Virgil with his plea for his help, our understanding of the strength of his faith is enhanced. The Pilgrim invokes Virgil thusly: “O famous sage, [help me] to stand against [that beast], / for she has made my blood and pulses shudder” (I.89-90). Perhaps one can account for this behavior by noting that Dante, being heavily disoriented, upon seeing Virgil, whom he initially perceives as being a mere apparition, feels in the Guide something supernatural which compels him to seek his aid in defeating the she-wolf. However, Dante’s remarks and behavior fall perilously close to blasphemy. Instead of unduly flattering Virgil (who by his own admission, “was a man”, and a pagan at that) and asking his assistance, the ideal Christian monotheist would seek refuge in God. The concept of placing one’s complete trust in God, manifest in such exemplars of faith as Sir Gawain of Camelot and Boccaccio’s Griselda, is an essential component of Christianity. Indeed, Gawain’s fall

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

In the note to Canto V regarding Francesca and Paulo, the Hollanders exclaim that “Sympathy for the damned, in the Inferno, is nearly always and nearly certainly the sign of a wavering moral disposition” (112). Indeed, many of the touching, emotional, or indignation rousing tales told by the souls in Hell can evoke pity, but in the telling of the tales, it is always possible to derive the reasons for the damned souls’ placement in Hell. However, there is a knee-jerk reaction to separate Virgil and, arguably, some of the other souls in limbo from this group of the damned, though, with careful perusal of the text, the thoughtful reader can discern the machinations behind their damnation.

The two men first encounter when Dante is lost in the woods and runs into a lion, leopard, and she-wolf. From there Virgil guides him through the gates of hell and their journey begins. The two encounter many people they know and see the punishments for each sin committed. Hell is divided into nine circles, which they must go through in order to get back to where they came from. “The path to paradise begins in hell.”

“But Virgil rebukes his cowardice, and relates the chain of events that led him to come to Dante. The Virgin Mary took pity on the Pilgrim in his despair and instructed Saint Lucia to aid him. The Saint turned to Beatrice because of Dante’s great love for her, and Beatrice in turn went down to Hell, into

Moreover, the relationship between the characters of Dante and Virgil in Dante’s Inferno stands as an excellent example of the relationship between the ego and the super-ego. In the opening of the poem, the character of Dante finds himself lost in a place he does not know, surrounded by terrifying beasts. In this dark moment, Virgil, a ghost from an earlier time, comes forwards and reveals to Dante that, because sin has obstructed his path to God, he must journey through hell and purgatory in order to return to life, as he once knew it. This journey, according to Virgil, would allow Dante to overcome his sin and, at last, find God’s love. However, Dante does not believe he can complete the journey alone, at which point Virgil

When alluding to the leopard in line two, Dante refers to it as "she" and uses "lithe" to describe its movement, indicating a strong sense of the feminine. Also, the usage of "quick of foot" and "blocking the path," shows a feeling of rapidity which creates a serious situation like a sudden attack. From the allegorical level, it is not hard to find out the moral of a female leopard: the dangerous but attractive desire of lust. In the next line, Dante expresses his fear of this leopard by saying "more than once she made me turn about to go back down". Here the leopard cuts Dante's way towards light, which is a signal of God’s love and the way to peace, and makes him return by the way he came, so he becomes frustrated. Another emergency starting with "But not so much that the next sight wasn't fearful" follows immediately. The second beast appears as a fierce lion. His “roaring with hunger” is so severe that “the air appears to tremble,” revealing a slaughterous animal nature and symbolizing great power in an allegorical plane. Apparently, the lion has a huge appetite for human, so Dante almost feels like dying at this point. What is worse, a grim she-wolf comes into sight. The reference to her “leanness seemed to compress all the world’s cravings” and she “had made miserable such multitudes” contributes to an intense longing for everything, which is concluded as another human

In the Divine Comedy, Dante has landed in a dark forest, lost and confused. He is heading to the mountain that he seeked to reach Heaven. Before he reaches Heaven, he has to surpass Hell and Purgatory. During his journey, he has acknowledged multiple important characters but Virgil is considered the most significant because he was a personal tutor to Dante, and enlightened him more than any other individual. Virgil is seen as just a “guide” to Dante, but there’s more meaning behind it. He has his moments of being seen as a friend, a leader, a teacher, and a parental figure.