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Comparing Love And Pride In Dante's Inferno And Purgatorio

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Love and Pride as Recurrent Themes That Reinforce the Didactic and Biographic Dimension of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno and Purgatorio
The first three lines of Inferno encapsulate the essence of Dante’s journey to Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso: “When I had journeyed half of our life’s way / I found myself within a shadowed forest / for I had lost the path that does not stray” (Inf. I, 1-3). Dante, in his mid-life, finds himself in the dark woods. He beholds light from afar and tries to ascend his way to that place. He suddenly takes retreat to the dark woods after encountering three ferocious beasts: a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf. The three beasts hinder Dante from making his way to the light. This also marks his first meeting with Virgil, the Roman poet who saves him and later on becomes his …show more content…

Before his journey to Hell begins, Dante expresses doubt. He asks Virgil if he is strong enough as he is reluctant about going through the underworld. What Dante really fears is the possibility of seeing himself in the sinners. Virgil then explains the very reason why Dante should not be afraid because Beatrice will be watching over him (Inf. Canto II). They set out to hell and come across the inscriptions “Abandon every hope ye who enter here” (Inf. Canto III). This scene prepares Dante of what he is bound to see as he descends to the place of the eternally damned. The subsequent cantos familiarize us with the very first images of Pride and Love in the Comedia. Seeing the world’s most prominent philosophers, astonishment strikes Dante in Limbo. The idea of being alongside with these people thrilled Dante: “I was sixth among such intellects”(Inf. IV 102) However, on the other side of humour in this particular scene, there is something about Limbo that makes us question the existence of these people in Hell. These philosophers, including

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