Dante's Inferno Essay

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 purpose of the pilgrim's journey through hell is to show, first hand, the divine justice of God and how Christian morality dictates how, and to what degree, sinners are punished. Also, the journey shows the significance of God's grace and how it affects not only the living, but the deceased as well. During his trip through hell, the character of Dante witnesses the true perfection of God's justice in that every sinner is punished in the same nature as their sins. For instance, the wrathful are to attack each other for all eternity and the soothsayers are forever to walk around with their heads on backwards. Furthermore, Dante discovers that hell is comprised of nine different circles containing

At the most fundamental level, Dante associates the setting of darkness with sin and sin’s deceiving nature through contrasting the darkness of Hell with the light of Heaven. In the first Canto, Dante sees that his escape from the wilderness is the pursuit of the sun; although Virgil, his guide, offers a better path to achieve his goal, the sun nonetheless represents a lack of sin. Immediately from the start, the darkness represents animalistic sin, such as incontinence or violence. However, Dante’s incorporation of sins against reason with darkness do not become clear until later in his journey. In Hell, darkness, like the degree of sin,

To merely say that Dante was interested in the world of hell would be an understatement. His needs to explore and write about the nine different realms could best be described as an obsession. It’s an adventure, a tale, a dream (or nightmare) of different historical, biblical, and Greek gods and creatures living their lives in the afterlife of the underground world. Each level has its own form of punishment fitting the crime one has committed.

In Dante 's divine comedy, there are countless references to all forms of sins and the punishments of those who committed them. Dante goes into great detail when describing these sins and their consequences. Each punishment is perfectly fitting to the crime itself, so that the sinner desereves exactly what he is facing. Dante 's work teaches the reader that sin is to be despised, and yet simultaneously weaves his own symbolism and meaning into his book.

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 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

And those who were violent against God and his nature are constantly and eternally burned by a shower of flames. “Blasphemers and sodomites writhe in pain, their tongues more loosed to lamentation, and out of their eyes gushes forth their woe. (Dante’s Inferno – Descriptions of the Levels)” Usurers who didn’t follow nature and weren’t following art also dwell

Dante clearly distinguishes crimes of passion or desire between crimes of violence and punishes them according to their degree. These sinners, the carnal, the gluttonous, the hoarders and wasters, along with the wrathful and sullen fall just below the virtuous pagans in Dante's hell. Somehow, they represent a loss of self-control, of reason gone amiss, as each dives into a personal world of self-indulgence. To Dante, those that surrender to the pleasures of the 'will' deserve an eternity less painful than the individuals who fall into emotional or mental despair.

As demonstrated would be the second circle of hell which consists of the lustful. As their punishment for their unholy desires, they are being blown violently back and forth by strong winds which prevents them from getting rest in comparison to a higher level such as the fifth circle which contain the wrathful who live in the mud river and is constantly fighting and hurting each other because they could not manage their anger in life. The punishment reflects the type of sin committed during their lifetime. All of this organized based on the severity of the sin. Dante teaches us that whatever you do will always come back regardless. Justice is considered one of the most important theme and concept that it comes with. The term “right of law” means that a person does what is “just” or “ morally right” and for things to be overall fair which ties in with the concept that involves people getting what they had coming for them.

Compared to the 1300’s, atheists are far more common in the Western world and therefore, sin has become far less strict over time. Due to the poem being written during the early 1300’s, most modern readers would then find the punishments Dante sees as shocking and ruthless. According to the structure ‘Dante’s Inferno’ follows, homosexuals must suffer an eternity of walking on hot sand (Canto XV), and those who charge interest on loans must sit beneath a rain of fire (Canto XVII). However, when the audience views the poem as a whole, it becomes clear that the most important rule of these punishments is to have balance. Sinners suffer punishment to a point suitable to the severity of their sin - in a way that matches that sin’s nature.

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

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.

From Dante's perspective, crimes of passion or desire are the least abhorrent and consequently deserve minimal punishment in comparison to what he believes are the more serious offenses. These sinners, the carnal, the gluttonous, the hoarders and wasters, along with the wrathful and

In such discussion I only met with further obfuscation and confusion. Rather this initial difficulty can be overcome with some ease by consulting a letter Dante retrospectively wrote to his patron, Can Grande, where he offers the following guide in reading the whole `Comedy': ."..The subject then of the whole work, taken in the literal sense only, is the state of souls after death pure and simple. If however the work be regarded from the allegorical point of view the subject is man according as by his merits or demerits in the existence of his freewill he is deserving of reward or punishment by justice" . Dante is stating that the description of spirits which he meets in the other world carries implications about the moral significance of the type of behaviour which they exemplify. This is an important point and if we lose sight of it we lose sight of the poem and of what makes it historically significant. Indeed, I will argue that it is this underlying moral significance which makes the `Comedy' a work of the middle ages but a work for all time. Judging contemporary characters, through lyrical poetry, in consultation with the classics on a question that transcends his own time and place I feel qualifies the comedy as a work of great historical significance. However let us not digress untimely, rather I will now examine the contemporary experience which Dante's