DanteS Inferno Essays (1497 words) - Divine Comedy, Inferno, Hell

Dante'S Inferno Brian Bozarth Bozarth 1 Mrs. Thurmond English IV ? 6 December 6, 2000 Dante's Inferno Dante Aleghieri was born in Florence Italy in 1265. In his life he composed many great works of literature, but two stood out among the rest: ?La Vita Nuova? and ?The Comedy.? ?La Vita Nuova? is a collection of his sonnets, love poems, and lyrics. ?The Comedy? is an epic poem broken down into three different parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paridisio; Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. The first section is the Inferno (Hell), in which Dante is sent to observe since he cannot ascend the Mountain of Virtue. He could not go up The Mountain of Virtue because three beasts stood in his way: the leopard of malice and fraud, the lion of violence and ambition, and the she wolf of incontinence (Ciardi 27). Dante cannot ascend the mountain because they are the sins he cannot conquer without the help of God. Guided by his friend and fellow poet Virgil, they travel throughout the various pouches and circles of Hell. ?The Inferno? is a landmark in the development in European language and literature, for it stands as one of the greatest poems of all time. It's poetic beauty and the views and themes it encompasses is virtually unmatched by any other medieval poem. In reading ?The Inferno? one notices three major themes. First there is the eternal justice of God, in which Dante gives each sinner his due by paying or perfecting the sins they committed in life; the Bozarth 2 punishment always fits the crime. Secondly we see the eternal glory of Rome as the head of separate but equal bodies of church and state; Jesus Christ and Julius Caesar (spark notes). Last is the eternal danger of politics, which brought many if not most of the sinners to Dante's hell (spark notes).in 1302 Dante was exiled by the leaders of the Black Guelphs, the political faction in power at the time. We see many of these people in Dante's Inferno. One could say Dante got the ultimate revenge. The journey of Dante through hell, in both its structure and content symbolizes the nature of sin and punishment (Chuck III's College Resources). Dante uses the punishment of sins to show the eternal justice of God. There are two types of punishments Dante gives the sinners in ?The Inferno?. The first type he borrows from various gruesome and cruel forms of medieval torture and the second type is Dante's creative and imaginative punishments for sins. The borrowed torturous forms of punishment create physical and bodily pain for the sinner and designed to be interpreted literally; where the creative punishments are used to cause mental and psychological pain and meant to be understood as a metaphor. It is also possible for creative punishment to cause mental and physical pain to the sinner (Digital Dante). Some of the punishment Dante gives his sinners is borrowed from medieval torture and imprisonment. Medieval prisons were often dark dank disease ridden rooms that smelled like urine, body odder, and rotten flesh, in which naked or ragged men were chained to the walls or floors (Digital Dante). Dante used this dark dank feeling to describe the overall atmosphere in ?The Inferno.? Bozarth 3 The first cruel punishment is the one for heresy. The medieval punishment for heresy usually was public humiliation followed by a burning at the stake (Ciardi 95). For Dante the heretic was someone who believed what they wanted to and not be the doctrine of the ?Holy Roman Catholic Church.? Dante punished the heretics by being ?ensepulchered? (put in tomb) and to have them heated (Ciardi 95). This was similar to having them imprisoned and burned. Since heretics did not believe in life after death they were ironically burned alive in a tomb for all eternity. Now they know what it is to die eternally: ? ?O lofty power who through these impious gyres lead me around as you see fit', I said, ?I want to know, I want to understand:' the people buried there in sepulchers, can they be seen? I mean since all the lids are off the tomb and no one stands guard.' And he: They will forever be looked up, They will return here from Jehosephat With the