The Divine Comedy vs. Paradise Lost Essay

Dante's depiction of Hell is not meant to entertain but to change the behavior of his readers so that they will choose behavior which will lead them to the "city" of Heaven, rather than behavior which will lead to the dark wood and, eventually, damnation: A place is there below, stretching as far from Beelzebub as his tomb extends. . . . My Leader and I entered by that hidden road, to return into the bright world; and . . . we mounted up . . . so far that a round opening I saw some of the beautiful things which Heaven bears, and thence we issued for again to see the stars (Dante 52).

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 and Virgil have just left limbo, the first circle of hell, and are now on their way into the second circle of hell, where hell really begins. It is here that Dante first witnesses the punishment brought upon the sinners. They encounter Minos, the beast-judge who blocks the way into the second circle. He examines each soul as they pass through and determines which circle of hell they must go to by winding his tail around himself. Minos warns Dante of passing through but Virgil silences him. Dante encounters a dark place completely sucked of any light and filled with noises more horrible than a tempest and sees the souls being whirled around in a

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

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.

As much as Dante wants the title of "world’s greatest poet," Virgil, it seems, has that honor. If you haven’t noticed, the author-Dante hits us over the head with all the linguistic imagery in which Virgil is steeped. First and foremost, there’s that big important passage about Virgil’s "persuasive word." We know this is a weird concept so let’s just recap. The phrase in Italian is "parole ornate" which translates literally as "decorated word." Doesn’t that fit Virgil to a T? We’re talking about the writer of the Aeneid here, the Latin epic to end all epics, and Dante’s all-time favorite book.

He is situated at the bottom of “a hill that [marks] one end of the valley that [pierces his] heart with terror,” which refers to his upward journey towards understanding and salvation (3). It is ironic that he must travel to Hell in order to save himself from eternal damnation. Indeed, those who are condemned to Hell have lost “the good of intellect,” a symbol for absolute truth: God (19). In Canto IV, Dante peers down into “a gulf so dark and deep and murky that … [he] could see nothing below” (27). Upon entering this “sightless zone” of the first circle of Hell, he and Virgil encounter sinners of “shadowy sadnesses” (27). Repeatedly, Hell is likened to a “hemisphere of darkness” and sin is associated with dark images (29). The reason Dante enters this blind world is so that he may gain his vision to see the truth.

We see Dante’s first step is to acknowledge his inferiority to Virgil; it is to him he owes his modest authorial prowess. This sentiment is understandable indeed. It is only natural for Dante to have nothing but the utmost respect for the great poet who, having preceded him by thirteen hundred years, merits such treatment.

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

“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.

Dante had thought that Satan was just evil. In the circle that Lucifer is in is very cold and it is very impossible for someone to escape this circle in hell because it is so icey. In circle 9 it is “The more he flapped his wings in his attempt to escape from the ice, the harder the wind from his wings froze the ice, making his escape impossible” (Dante). For Lucifer it was very difficult for him to escape this circle because of the ice, the ice is so powerful that it would bring Lucifer to failure if he were to attempt to leave his circle. Dante’s depiction was very different to the actual Satan in hell because he was monstrous he has one head and three faces, he was not a normal monster he was very monstrous. Dante thought that he would look way different he did not expect that. “Lucifer in the same way I had left him; And I beheld him upward hold his legs. And then I became disquieted…” (Dante). In Inferno Dante did not expect to see Lucifer at all like this he never imagined him like this. In continuation, Satan is considered to be a very huge person, In Dante it is said that Dante and his guide Virgil were crawling all over

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.

The great poet [Dante] may be held in due honour and that he may be for the pupils the teacher of Christian doctrine, he whose one purpose in his poem was ‘to raise mortals from the state of misery’ that is from the state of sin, ‘and lead them to the state of happiness,’ that is the divine Grace.

After becoming lost in his ways of life, Dante introduces his first character, Virgil. By introducing Virgil, Dante is foreshadowing for the thought process of the Aeneid in relation to the Inferno. In Canto I Virgil becomes Dante’s guide through the underworld after being titled, “you are my master, my author.” (page 7, line 85), much like Sibyl in the Aeneid. Throughout Dante’s Inferno, he continuously