Dante 's Divine Comedy : An Allegory Representative Of The Christian Soul

Before Virgil arrives to guide Dante on his journey, Dante shares that he doesn’t recall how he lost his way. He tells “How I entered [the dark wood] I cannot truly say, I had become so sleepy at the moment when I first strayed, leaving the path of truth” (Inferno I.10-12). Because he strayed from the holy path, Dante finds himself lost and trying to find his way back on the right track. Dante’s ultimate goal is to to free himself from the dark wood of confusion and chaos. Looking up from the wood, Dante sees “the hilltop shawled in morning rays of light sent from the planet that leads men straight ahead on every road” (Inferno I.16-18). Dante begins to move towards the light, but is blocked from passing by three

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.

The role of religion, ancestry, and nationality are crucial in forming one’s identity. These items and more come together to create a sense of security for an individual. The narrative epic poem, The Inferno, by Dante Alighieri takes the reader with Dante on his journey through Hell and rediscovery of his identity. Dante’s journey commenced as a result to him falling into temptations whilst falling away from God. This led him to travel through the Dark Wood of Error which symbolizes the worldliness that occurs when one strays from the True Way, or God’s Way. The spirit of the poet Virgil, symbolizing Human Reason, appears and leads Dante away from the Dark Wood of Error and to the Divine Illumination with a journey through Hell. The need

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

Throughout the epic poem Inferno, Dante the Pilgrim travels in the different circles of Hell told by Dante the Poet. The story examines what a righteous life is by showing us examples of sinful lives. Dante is accompanied by his guide Virgil, who takes him on a journey to examine sin and the effects it has in has in the afterlife to different sinners. Through the stories of Francesca and Paolo, Brunetto Latini, Ulysses and Guido da Montefeltro, we are able to understand that people are self-interested in the way they act and present themselves to others and that those in Hell are there because they have sinned and failed to repent their sins and moral failings.

Only through the realization that Dante must reflect on his own, and mankind's sins, will Dante be able to make the first step in getting to go where finding his deepest desire; Heaven, which must begin by going through Hell. Through this realization, Dante is able to understand that he, as well as his relationship with God is weak and needs to be mended. Once Dante is able to look inside his soul and unify himself with God once again, he is able to return to the path of redemption and excel on his journey to Heaven. Many people in modern day society have to look into their past endeavors and sins and face their worst nightmares, such as the loss of all they currently value, in order to return to their formal righteous selves. Looking into the past and losing what they

In every great novel there is bound to be a tempest, the best friend, and the grand adventure in which there is bound to be a battle of some sort. The Monomyth and temple pattern has been seen throughout various movies and books around our culture. Dante’s The Divine Comedy is no exception to the pattern. Among the three compilations of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise we, as a reader travel through the monomyth journey alongside Dante in order to reveal moral truth.

   In The Inferno, Dante explores the ideas of Good and Evil. He expands on the possibilities of life and death, and he makes clear that consequences follow actions. Like a small generator moving a small wheel, Dante uses a single character to move through the entire of Hell's eternity. Yet, like a clock, that small wheel is pivotal in turning many, many others. This single character, Dante himself, reveals the most important abstract meaning in himself: A message to man; a warning about mankind's destiny. Through his adventures, Dante is able to reveal many global concepts of good and evil in humanity.

Journeys can be taken many ways. Some people take the path less traveled and some people take the easy way out. Dante happens to be on journey that is less traveled, by exploring the depths of Hell in the Inferno. The epic poem’s story is about self-realization and transformation. It sees Dante over coming many things to realize he is a completely different person from the start of the Inferno journey. Dante sees many things that help him gain courage in order to prove to himself and the reader that accepting change and gaining courage can help one to grow as a person and realize their full potential. After seeing people going through certain punishment Dante realizes that he must not seek pity on himself and others in order to fully realize his true potential.

(1) Dante also emphasizes the importance of the sun as a visual beacon for God and eternal bliss. Dante’s use of the hill represents the pilgrim’s desire to reach a salvation while showing that he understands taking the path to righteousness is not easy. He does this to show his audience that humanity has a natural hesitation toward the work it takes to stay on the upward climb to Paradise. Dante also uses a simile to compare his departure from the dark wood to escaping a shipwreck like Aeneas does in the beginning of Aeneid (2). This underlines Dante’s most important point of this canto, that although the path may be daunting, it is better than the anguish of the dark wood.

In the beginning of his epic, Inferno, Dante seems to have “abandoned the true path” (1.12). He is lost in a dark forest, which symbolizes not only Dante’s loss of morality, but all of humanity’s sins on Earth. The Dark Wood of Error is a foreshadowing of what the afterlife would be like for Dante without God and without any meaning. Dante appears to be suffering through a mid-life crisis as he flirts with the idea of death, saying, “so bitter–death is hardly more severe” (1.7). Dante has lost his dignity and moral direction following his exile from Florence. Dante must travel through Hell and witness the worst crimes ever committed by humans. By traveling through the depths of Satan’s world, Dante is given an opportunity to reconnect with Christianity. Many people claim that Dante journeys through Hell for revenge, but in fact he is hoping to reset his own moral compass and find God.

“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)

Allegories aren’t just in use today; in fact there are many forms of allegories in Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, written nearly seven hundred years ago in 1320. Alighieri uses allegories to convey his perspective on human existence, before, during, and after physical life. An allegory is a work in which characters, places, objects, and events have both a literal meaning as well as symbolic meaning.

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;

In Dante Alighieri’s personal narrative poem, The Divine Comedy, he describes a fictional journey that he underwent through hell in the section titled Inferno. He tells the audience that “midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path” (Dante 1:1-3). Dante must go on a journey through hell and purgatory and learn important lessons with his guide, Virgil, in order to reach heaven. Dante integrates “exemplum”, or examples, and personal experiences with the shades in hell to portray lessons that he must learn, such as how he must learn to not pity the sinners, to differentiate between his respect for faith versus his respect for people, and that he must not get too much