Religion In Dante's Inferno

Dante’s Inferno follows the allegorical journey of Dante, who loses sight of the true path, representing good faith, and must travel through hell, among other places, to return to the path by trusting God and avoiding sin. Canto I of the story involves Dante, in the middle of his life where he has both human experience and time to improve, lost in the dark wilderness, threatened by beasts and unable to escape. In fact, darkness pervades in the first thirty-four cantos of the Comedy. It is important to note that Dante considers darkness to be the lack of natural light, as Throughout the Inferno, Dante uses the setting of darkness to represent both sin and sin’s deceiving nature. In doing so, Dante argues that to successfully have faith in God, one must discern the truth from among the darkness which permeates both Hell and humanity.

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.

In the beginning of his journey through hell Dante is sympathetic and compassionate. Virgil names every soul that inhabits the Carnal to Dante. "I stood there while my Teacher one by one/ named the great knights and ladies of dim time/ and I was swept by pity and confusion" (V 70-72). Dante feels such pity and sympathy for the souls in the Carnal and their eternal suffering. He goes further to explain that you cannot control what you love, and questions how you could find fault with them. Dante then calls

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

However, the illusiveness of the idea of Dante feeling pity toward the transgressors is delineated as Dante proceeds into the more brutal levels of hell. Virgil must remind Dante that “In this place piety lives when pity is dead / for who could be more wicked than that man / who tries to bend divine will to his own” (XX. 28). As the magnitude of the sins increase, Dante condemns the sinners, and the pity he feels for them lessens. Virgil suggests with no demur, that sin should be despised wholeheartedly, and one should not pity the justice meted out to sinners. To pity their suffering demonstrates a lack of understanding. Dante tries to attain the capacity to transcend his own limitations and reach a new level of self-knowledge, as he has gone astray from the right path to God. This moral journey through foul darkness opens Dante’s eyes to how evil works in our lives and helps him to begin to understand what is truly good.

   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.

Through the interactive oral my understanding of Inferno by Dante Alighieri has improved, particularly the references to religion. Christianity plays a key role in Inferno since the plot revolves around the events following death according to Christian practices.

Within the Inferno, we are witness to Dante’s journey into Hell and the changes within his personality. He represents an interesting amalgam of dispositions evidenced by his noticeable shifts in character. Early on, he was represented as a compassionate individual who, at times, could be so overwhelmed with emotions that fainting would be the only response. In the second circle of Hell, Dante states, “Francesca, your afflictions move me to tears of sorrow and of pity…so that—because of pity—I fainted, as if I had met my death”(Inf. 6.116,139). This moment encapsulates the facet of Dante’s personality that is present at the beginning of his pilgrimage. This display of compassion lies in direct contrast of the mannerisms displayed by Dante as he travels further into the

When discussing the tragedy that struck Paolo and Francesca, Dante feels his “senses reel and faint away with anguish” as he swoons and passes out (V. 137-138). Even though these sinners deserve their punishments, we as humans still connect with the sympathies of others. This is similar to when a murderer is incarcerated. While the family of the murderer wants justice to be served, they still briefly consider the misery the criminal will have to bear. Only about a day later, Dante’s pity for sinners deteriorates so much that he “[yanks] out more than one fistful of [hair]” from one sinner (XXXI. 104). Dante’s dramatic loss of empathy in such little time builds upon the idea that humans have a festering of emotions in their psyche and it is certain situations that prompt specific emotions to be released. For example, if I get a bad grade on an essay I might be grumpy to a friend that I am usually joyful with. Also, the justification for Dante’s scorning of sinners lies in human nature; this is the idea that those below us deserve to be ridiculed. This social construct is seen today through white supremacist groups and the proliferation of racial stereotyping. Just as Dante the Pilgrim’s journey conjures up volatile emotions as he attempts to understand his surroundings, our lives are full of mood swings and emotional highs and lows. Some important lows Dante experiences are at the gate of the Wall of Dis and while riding Geryon when he is stricken with fear. In times of distress Virgil reminds Dante the Pilgrim to “put back all sorrow from [his]mind and never forget that [Virgil is]always by[him]” (144-146 XXX). Emotions, in this case fear, provide the glue that gravitates Virgil and Dante towards each other, and in life: parent to child, friend to friend, and teacher to student. In empathizing

While Bhagavad Gita explored Hinduism Dante's Inferno explores Christianity. The story centers around Dante the Pilgrim as he is escorted by Virgil through each circle of hell, while there he gets to see punishments for the earths sinners. The way religion is depicted in this story is much different from the portrayal of religion in Gita. In this story there is no interaction with God and it is mainly focused on the punishment of sinners. Dante travels through hell to understand how terrible sin truly is.

In Dante’s Inferno, we experience Dante’s journey through the circles of Hell, encountering different figures from history and learning about the sins in which they committed from least sinful to the worst sin a person can commit. Since the journey is written by Dante, it is shown through his eyes and as the readers, we get a one-sided, objective view of the events he describes. The story brings about questions of distinguishing between Dante the Poet and Dante the Pilgrim as he narrates himself in a world of his own creation. The objective view also describes the levels of Hell as Dante himself would see as the least sinful to the worst. Similar to Petrarch, Dante does have an arrogance about his character, however not as blunt as Petrarch.

Often when we set out to journey in ourselves, we come to places that surprise us with their strangeness. Expecting to see what is straightforward and acceptable, we suddenly run across the exceptions. Just as we as self‹examiners might encounter our inner demons, so does Dante the writer as he sets out to walk through his Inferno. Dante explains his universe - in terms physical, political, and spiritual - in the Divine Comedy. He also gives his readers a glimpse into his own perception of what constitutes sin. By portraying characters in specific ways, Dante the writer can shape what Dante the pilgrim feels about each sinner. Also, the reader can look deeper in the text and examine the

From the text we can also gain a new understanding of its position on love through the storm. The text says, ‘The infernal storm, eternal in its rage, sweeps and drives the spirits with its blasts, it whirls them, lashing them with punishment,” (CANTO V, 31). The punishment chosen by Dante is minuscule in context to other circles of hell and shows that he understands the essence of lust. Dante realizes that love is blinding and a difficult feeling to escape, as discovered with his infatuation for Beatrice. The winds, hurling them constantly from place to place is an image that corresponds to their wild passions of lust. The contrapasso of the punishment suggests that the all consuming and raging winds, represent the storm that is love. Dante’s impulse is to grieve with them and too, tear at their plight. He says, ‘And all the while/ the one of the two spirits spoke these words,/ the other wept’ (CANTO V, 138). The dark in turn, represents the lack of reason surrounding loved and lust, making the lustful blind in life due to their infatuation. Dante the pilgrims reaction to this specific circle of hell is also deeply significant, as we see him immediately feel sympathy for these lovers, for they are essentially damned by love. Although Dante the poet makes sure these lovers are sent to Hell, the pity he feels for them is clear. Fainting at the sight of the woeful lovers after hearing their tale, Dante’s emotional reaction to the suffering of the lovers clearly confirms that

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.

Around 1314, Dante Alighieri completed the Inferno, the first section of what would make up The Divine Comedy, a collection of three poems reflecting Dante’s imaginative journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. In these poems, Dante the poet describes the pilgrimage that Dante the pilgrim must complete to attain salvation. With the Roman poet Virgil as his guide, Dante the pilgrim must purge himself of his own sinful nature, which can only be achieved by observing and learning from those that have landed themselves in either Hell, Purgatory, or Heaven. Described in Inferno, his excursion begins in Hell where Dante learns about the stories and the sufferings of many sinners. As Dante the pilgrim progresses through Hell it is clear that he assumes different personas. In some instances, Dante the pilgrim is portrayed as an empathetic man who pities the sinners while on other occasions, Dante the pilgrim is portrayed as a callous and indignant being in regard to the sinners. While Dante the pilgrim is depicted in these two completely different ways, it is the insensitive portrayal that more precisely depicts Dante the pilgrim, as that is his true identity when he leaves Hell. His journey affected him so greatly that by the end of his pilgrimage, Dante the pilgrim has transformed from a compassionate man into an impervious and even cruel individual.