Symbolism In The Divine Comedy

The two stories, Inferno by Dante and Paradise Lost by Milton, were written about the biblical hell and its keeper: Satan. Both of these authors had different views about the hell and Satan.

The cultural impact of Dante’s Divine Comedy is widely seen through a sundry of literary works, television programs, films and even video games. Yet, one of the most prominent works the Divine Comedy has impacted is C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce. Lewis’s book is greatly indebted to Dante’s work, as both try to teach the reader how to achieve salvation. Furthermore, Lewis and Dante’s protagonists discover the path to salvation through choices, and learning what causes one’s refusal of God. Both authors explore the path to righteousness and enquire about life’s most difficult questions. Therefore, the dialogue between Dante’s Divine Comedy and C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce is witnessed through the conception of the distortion of love,

While every person has a different depiction of Hell, Dante provides fascinating imagery of his portrayal, so the reader can truly experience the

Dante is a poet who wrote an epic poem called The Divine Comedy. This epic poem is about Dante’s journey as he goes through 3 levels, which he calls Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. In the Inferno, he meets Virgil, his guide throughout his voyage. They both pass through the nine circles of Hell, where they witness many different punishments for those who have done awful things in their past. Good versus evil is a major theme that occurred throughout Hell. In the Inferno, there are times where Dante sees good and evil and also represents it himself.

I think Dante’s description of Hell is a wonderful work of literature. Dante uses numerous literary techniques to describe his vision of Hell to the reader. In my opinion, one of the most affective techniques used by Dante is symbolism. It would be a very difficult task to compile a brief list of significant symbols from the Cantos that we read in class. Dante utilized many symbols throughout each canto. Some of the symbols that Dante used in Inferno are well defined and easy to interpret, while other symbols are much more difficult to recognize and understand. For this paper, I will be analyzing multiple symbols from Dante’s Inferno. Some of the symbols came from the Canto’s that were included in class

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

Domenico di Michelino (1417-1491), an Italian painter and medieval poet was known best for his epic poem, The Divine Comedy, which includes sections representing the three tiers of the Christian afterlife: Purgatory (Purgatorio), Hell (Inferno), and Paradise (Paradiso). This poem was a great work of medieval literature and was considered the greatest work of literature composed in Italian. The Divine Comedy was a Christian vision of mankind’s eternal fate. When The Divine Comedy was written, Dante made a cathedral painting that represents his poem called Dante and His Poem. In the painting, the Dante shows the 3 tiers related to the Christian afterlife. Dante was standing in a red robed colossus, revealing his poem to the city of Florence. The painting was full of great meaning, inspiring so many artists from Rodin to Robert Rauschenberg.

With his writing style and the implementation of some literature firsts, Dante assured his name in history. His mastery of language, his sensitivity to the sights and sounds of nature, and his infinite store of information allow him to capture and draw the reader into the realm of the terrestrial Hell. His vast store of knowledge of Greek mythology and the history of his society assists Dante in the

“My Guide and I crossed over and began to mount that little known and lightless road to ascend into the shinning world again.” The Inferno, by Dante Alighieri, is an epic poem, divine comedy, which was written in the 1500’s in Italian. Dante Alighieri lost his mother at a very young age and was exiled from his hometown, Florence when his group, the White Guelphs got into a disagreement with the Black Guelphs. Dante was a writer and greatly involved in politics which influenced him to write this epic poem. The story starts at with him meeting the ghost of Virgil, his idol, who becomes his guide for the remainder of the book and tries to escort Dante to heaven to be with his love, Beatrice.

In literature during the medieval and renaissance time a comedy meant that characters in a play, peom, or movie had to endure a hardship or disaster and the come to a happy ending. Comedy sometimes isn’t even a comedy, sometimes it has a deeper meaning. The significance of comedy in Dante`s Divine Comedy is that it stands up to the structural meaning of comedy. For example, it has a happing ending, which in most literature works, is the meaning of comedy.

In Dante Alighieri The Divine Comedy, Dante uses powerful imagery and goes into immense detail on a journey to the afterlife. Dante uses a lot of well-written imagery to make his story seem more relatable and real, to scare his readers into believing that you need only turn to God for the forgiveness of sin. At the beginning of the story, Dante is walking in the woods in darkness feeling sad and not right with God, after this Dante see a mountain and tries to go up but he is blocked by three beasts which represent sin. Most everything in this story is an allegory, he means two things, literal and figurative 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;

When you think of Hell, what do you see, perhaps a burning pit full of criminals and crazed souls? Or maybe you’re like Dante and have a well organized system of levels in correspondence with each person’s sins. In Dante Alighieri’s epic The Inferno, Dante and his real life hero, Virgil, go on an adventure through a rather elaborate version of Hell. In this version of Hell numerous thoughts and ideals are brought to the attention of the readers. Through Dante’s use of both imaginative and artistic concepts one can receive a great visual impression of how Dante truly views Hell, and by analyzing his religious and philosophical concepts the reader can connect with the work to better understand how rewarding this work was for the time period.

The Divine Comedy is considered the greatest work of Dante. The author worked on it for many years and inserted all his internal and external experience in it. He called this poem a comedy meaning its middle style and a happy ending. The Divine Comedy is written in the genre of vision which was highly popular in medieval literature. In this genre, authors described people walking through torments. Dante modified greatly this genre, adding the whole universe to the abyss of Hell. Moreover, he goes personally through all the circles of the otherworldly place where he to his surprise comprehends such entities as truth, love, and beauty. The Divine Comedy is infused with the theme of love, which is especially noticeable when Dante enters Heaven and meets his beloved.

In Dante’s Inferno, we followed Dante as he narrates his decent and observations of hell. A wonderful part of that depiction is his descriptions of the creative yet cruel punishments that each of the different sinners receive. This story is an integral part of literary history, and even if I were to have the imagination and ability of Dante Alighieri, I don’t believe I would change this tried and true version known universally.