Comparing Dante And Virgil And Dante's Divine Comedy

Dante made it through many different obstacles and layers of hell, but he could not of made it through his journey without Virgil. The character in the book is being alluded to the Roman poet Publius Vergilius Maro. Maro believed and wrote a legendary piece of literature that stated the mission to civilize the world under divine guidance. He not only wrote about these ways of life but he did his best to

The Inferno is a tale of cautionary advice. In each circle, Dante the pilgrim speaks to one of the shades that reside there and the readers learn how and why the damned have become the damned. As Dante learns from the mistakes of the damned, so do the readers. And as Dante feels the impacts of human suffering, so do the readers. Virgil constantly encourages Dante the pilgrim to learn why the shades are in Hell and what were their transgressions while on Earth. This work’s purpose is to educate the reader. The work’s assertions on the nature of human suffering are mostly admonition, with each shade teaching Dante the pilgrim and by extension the reader not to make the same mistakes. Dante views his journey through hell as a learning experience and that is why he made it out alive.

Does hell have its own history? For Dante, the structural and thematic history of ‘hell’ in the Inferno begins with the Roman epic tradition and its champion poet, Virgil. By drawing heavily from the characteristics of hell in Book VI of The Aeneid, Dante carries the epic tradition into the medieval world and affirms his indebtedness to Virgil’s poetry. Moreover, Virgil becomes a central character in the Inferno as he guides Dante, the pilgrim, who has no knowledge of hell, through his own historical model. Similarly, the protagonist of The Aeneid, Aeneas, lacks the foresight necessary to make the journey through hell on his own and thus places his trust in the

In Dante’s Inferno, the relationship between Dante the Pilgrim and Virgil the Guide is an ever-evolving one. By analyzing the transformation of this relationship as the two sojourn through the circles of hell, one is able to learn more about the mindset of Dante the Poet.  At the outset, Dante is clearly subservient to Virgil, whom he holds in high esteem for his literary genius. However, as the work progresses, Virgil facilitates Dante’s spiritual enlightenment, so that by the end, Dante has ascended to Virgil’s spiritual level and has in many respects surpassed him. In Dante’s journey with respect to Virgil, one can see

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

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.

Dante’s Inferno begins in a dark forest, a place of confusion, because he lost his way on the “true path”. Seeking an escape, Dante finds a hill where the sun glares down on him. This light seen in Dante’s Inferno symbolizes clarity as the sun represents God. After encountering three beasts and turning back to the murky forest, Dante crosses paths with the great Roman Poet, Virgil. Virgil is an aid and guide to Dante to Heaven, the ultimate Paradise. He warns Dante he must pass through Hell and Purgatory in order to reach his salvation in heaven. Virgil is depicted as nature or human reason perfected by virtue. It is strongly emphasized that Virgil can only take Dante so far in his journey by guiding him to heaven. Much like St. Thomas Aquinas’ reasoning, nature or human reason can only bring you so far in the journey to God. As Virgil and Dante approach the mouth of Hell, Virgil preaches to Dante about a woman in Heaven who took pity upon Dante when he was lost in hell. The woman Virgil speaks of is Dante’s departed love Beatrice. After Dante hears that Beatrice is heaven he now sheds the fear of traveling through Hell and Purgatorio.

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.

After emerging from the dark woods after Dante’s vision, Dante and Virgil find themselves at the gates of Hell, which were inscribed with “Abandon every hope, Ye that Enter.” ( This should be found in the second or third Canto of The Divine Comedy, at the place that Dante and Virgil are about to enter Hell). If it is not there, just leave the sentence and remove the brackets for the citation) Hell is a funnel shape pit that is divided into nine terraces. Virgil, Dante’s escort resides in the area known as Limbo. He is placed in this area because he died before Christianity. Nevertheless, Virgil is not subjected to Hell. Each terrace provides living space for individuals who were in Hell for the different categories of sin for which they were suffering. The lower the terrace, the more severe the punishment. Satan resides in the very bottom level of Hell. Dante gives a very vivid description of his first sight of Satan when he writes, “The emperor of the despondent kingdom so towered—from midchest—above the ice, that I match better with a giant’s height than giants match the measure of his arms; now you can gauge

There are many similarities between Dante’s The Inferno and Virgil’s The Aeneid, be it their characterizations or descriptive imagery, but foremost in their ideas of what the afterlife consisted of. Each each epic hero in the works here have descended in to the depths of hell, with The Inferno depicting Dante’s descent into the depths of hell and with Virgil in Book VI of The Aeneid depicting Aeneas’s decent into hell. It can be argued that although different, the knowledge acquired by each character’s descent was equally important to accomplishing their greater tasks at the ends of their journey. Had their descent into hell been skipped their outcomes would have concluded in a different way because their voyages to Hell each played a crucial role in the advancing each narrative.

Dante had different thoughts when seeing the good and the evil sinners. As Dante goes through the Inferno, he sees sinners who are tearing up and looking terrible. In circle eight, he witnessed sinners who have committed fraud and rape, yet also saw some who were accidently accused of those crimes and did not deserve to be in Hell. “Here pity, or here piety, must die if the other lives; who’s wickeder than one that’s agonized by God’s high equity?” (Aligheri, Canto 20). He felt pity for some, in which Virgil had to tell him to bear with it and that there is no pity in Hell. Dante was biased about his thoughts of good and evil when determining which sinner was good and which sinner was evil. Sinners are also in Purgatory and are considered good too, since they repented their sins.

I mean, on the surface, it doesn’t make much sense to send someone who is alive to see the world of the dead! However, this does make sense as Dante’s goal was to get the general populace to have at least some idea to what awaits them is they don’t act like the best version of themselves. In fact, he makes great use of the generalities evident in society. Dante, the Everyman, symbolizes all humans’ personas, Virgil symbolizes human reason, and Beatrice (who sent Virgil with God) symbolizes divine love. Dante wants everyone to be aware of the limits of us humans in our search for divine love and justice. Broadening one’s horizons and delving into foreign landscapes is a peak interest for humans and what more desolate and alien landscape than Hell. Curiosity is intrinsic in human nature and is what drives us to get more in touch with our surroundings. From now on it important for us to treat the traversing of Dante from one circles to the next as a journey without end. Humans will forever be fighting these sins and will forever need guidance to avoid them, no matter the time period. After a mostly smooth pilgrimage through Hell, the Poets come across a brief pitstop at the Wall of Dis. Now this wall is not just a physical block for exploration, but also a mental and spiritual one. NEED QUOTE ABOUT THIS. Through the sins of the lion, Virgil was able to use human reason to traverse through them

Virgil and Dante proceed down into Hell; in Hell Dante sins in every circle, committing the sin that represents each circle. After Dante sins in each circle he begins to learn and grow as a person realizing his mistakes but Dante is still his proud, careless self. In the circle of the wrathful, containing the sinners full of anger, Dante scolds one man saying “may you weep and wail to all eternity, for I know you hell-dog”. Dante is becoming angry just like the

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

Dante however proves himself to be a hypocrite and often reflects his own sins and hubris in his work. His guide throughout hell, and later purgatory, is none other than Virgil, one of history’s finest and most accomplished epic poets. In the very first circle of hell, Limbo, he places himself among the other great epic poets: “He is Homer, sovereign poet, next comes Horace the satirist, Ovid is third, the last is Lucan. ‘Since each is joined to me in the name the one voice uttered, they do me honor and doing so, do well.’ There I saw assembled the fair school of the lord of loftiest song, soaring like an eagle far above the rest. After they conversed a while, they turned to me with signs of greeting, and my master smiled at this. And then they showed me greater honor still, for they made me one of their company, so I became the sixth amidst such wisdom.”-Divine Comedy, Dante’s Inferno, Canto IV, lines 88-102.