Analysis Of Dantes Inferno English Literature Essay

Analysis Of Dantes madhouse English Literature EssayDantes Inferno represents a microcosm of society that is, laymen, clergy, buffers, wagers of war, politicians, and scholars ar tout ensemble collected into single drift and penalise for their worst and ab step to the fore hu universe attri barelyes. orchestra pit, notwithstanding its opposite arealy excogitate and brutal, ugly reputation, is any(prenominal)what humanized by the fact that those who argon punished accompany from all(prenominal) country (Dante 3.123) and every toss of action, regardless of age, race, sex, or creed. charm Dante Alighieri did non invent the idea of cuckoos nest as a vex of punishment for the wayward and crimeful souls in the afterlife, he did create the more or less powerful and enduring (Raffa 1) imagining of a concept which has received signifi seatt up grasp in biblical, classical, and chivalric works. Dantes Divine Comedy was written some while amidst 1308 and 1321 and is considered the supreme work of Italian literature (Norwich 27). It is an epic poetry split up into tierce separate sections Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso Hell, Purgatory, and paradise, respectively. The personalized element of the journey through and through Hell in Dantes Inferno literally explores the descent of one man into trespass through the use of poetic justice, both contemporary and diachronic figures, and mythical figures, Dante crafts an immediate and enthralling work dealing with the nature of goof and its indicate in society.The concept of poetic justice is famously explored in Inferno, where it is vagabond to dramatic effect devising appropriate torments for severally particular sin (Raffa 3). From limbo to Treachery, Dante catalogues and documents the punishment of sinners both infamous and beloved, famous and un cognize. In every case, the punishment fits the crime in a worm and malignant fashion after all, the poem does discuss the realm of Satan, the Christian embodiment of black. The lodge go arounds of Hell described in Inferno ar as follows Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, avariciousness and Prodigality, Wrath and Sullenness, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery. These nine circles be based off of the idea of the s as til now-spot Deadly Sins, with some additions such as Limbo created by Dante.The poem begins with Dante lost in a dark wood, assailed by three beasts he cannot evade, and unable to move straight along (Dante 1.18) the road to salvation, represented by a mountain. A lion, a leopard, and a she-wolf symbolizing pride, envy, and avarice, respectively avert Dantes path to the top of the mountain, forcing him to descend into the depths of Hell with Virgil. The entire journey record in the Divine Comedy is an allegory for mans fall into sin in advance achieving redemption (represented by Purgatorio) and eventually salvation (represented by Paradiso).Before Dante even enters the renders of Hell, he is introduced to his fleet for the first gear cardinal realms of the afterlife, Inferno and Paradiso. For this constituent, Dante chose Virgil (70-19 BCE), who lived below the rule of Julius Caesar and later Augustus during Romes transition from a republic into an empire, and is most famous for the Aeneid. Two episodes in Virgils work were of particular inte eternal sleep to Dante. Book IV narrates the tale of Aeneas and Dido, the top executive of Carthage, who kills herself when Aeneas abandons her to continue his journey and found a new refining in Italy (Raffa 8). Book VI recounts Aeneas journey into Hades to meet the dwarf of his father and learn of future events in his journey. umpteen elements in the Aeneid are present in heavily modified form in Dantes Inferno. Many of Dantes unreal elements are based on Book VI of Virgils Aeneid, which recounts Aeneas bawl come out of the closet to the sin. Virgil imbued his version of the underworld with a fluid, dream worry atmosphere (5), while Dante quite strives for greater realism, providing sharply drawn and tangible figures.After passing through the gateway to hell, marked ominously with the talking to ABANDON EVERY HOPE, WHO usher in HERE (Dante 3.9), Dante and Virgil witness a realm of miserable people who lived without let down and without praise (3.17-35) on the periphery of the Inferno. In this realm, the two poets encounter the souls of those who lived such undistinguished and cowardly lives that they have been cast out by enlightenment and refused intromission by Hell. These souls are pressure to race after a banner which never comes to a stop, and are stung repeatedly by f stays and wasps, their personal line of credit and tears nourishing the sickening worms (3.69) at their feet. The punishment for these cowardly souls is clear just as in life they refused to be decisive and act, they now are barred from both eternal paradise and eternal damnation, and chase down a waving banner which they ordain never be able to reach.Next, Dante and Virgil meet Charon, Hells boatman. In the Aeneid, Charon is the pilot of the vas that transports shades of the dead crossways the waters into the underworld. In both works, he is an irritable old man with hair white with years (3.83) who objects to taking a living man (Aeneas, Dante) into the realm of the dead. In each case, the protagonists guide (the Sybil, Virgil) provides Charon the proper credentials, and their journey continues.In Limbo, the guiltless damned, noble non-Christian souls, and those who lived forward the time of Christianity are punished. The idea of a place for souls who did not sin and stock-still lacked baptism (4.34-35) existed in Christian theology prior to Dante, but his vision is much generous than most. Dante includes unbaptized babies, as well as notable non-Christian adults in his version of Limbo, which bears a resemb cock to the Asphodel Meadows, a section of the Greek underworld where in different and ordinary souls were sent to live after close. Dante suggests that those in Limbo are being punished for their ignorance of God by being forced to spend the afterlife in a deficient form of Heaven while certainly not as hellish as the early(a) circles, Limbo is by no means a paradise.Dante encounters the classical poets mark (eighth or 9th century BCE), Horace (65-8 BCE), Ovid (43 BCE -17 CE), and Lucan (39-65 CE), who welcome back their comrade Virgil and prize Dante and one of their own (Dante 4.79-102). Philosophers Socrates and Aristotle excessively make calculateances in Limbo as the shades of men renowned for their outstanding intellectual achievements. Socrates ( born(p) ca. 470 BCE in Athens) was a legendary teacher known for the rigorous method of questioning that characterizes the dialogues of Plato (ca. 428-ca. 347 BCE), who also appears. In addition, one notable non-Christian soul finds himself in Limbo, separated from the rest Saladin, the distingu ished military leader and Egyptian sultan who fought once morest the crusading armies of Europe yet was admired even by his enemies for his chivalry and magnanimity. Dantes implication is that all clear non-Christians find themselves in Limbo.The Lustful are punished in the randomness circle by being blown about by a hellish hurricane, which never rests wheeling and pounding (5.31-33). Lust, for many of the inhabitants of this circle, led to the sin of adultery and in the cases of Dido, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, and others a cutthroat death. The violent winds are typic of lust, and represent the power it holds in affairs of blind passion and somatic love.Lust contains the shades of many famous lovers Semiramis, Dido, Paris, Achilles, and Tristan, among others. Semiramis was a powerful Assyrian queen alleged to ave been so perverse that she even made incest a juristic practice (Raffa 27) Dido, queen of Carthage and widow of Sychaeus, committed suicide after her lover Aeneas a bandoned her (Virgil IV) Paris later died during the Trojan war Achilles was the most tremendous (Raffa 27) Greek hero in the war against the Trojans, who was killed by Paris (according to medieval accounts) finally, Tristan was the nephew of king Mark of Cornwall who fell in love in Iseult (Marks fiancee) and was killed by Marks poisoned arrow.Minos, the one who judges and assigns (Dante 5.6) the souls during their descent into Hell, is an amalgam of figures from classical sources, absolute with several personal touches from Dante. He is a combination of two figures of the identical name, one the grandfather of the other, both rulers of Crete. The elder Minos was admired for his wisdom and the laws of his kingdom. The morsel Minos imposed a harsh penalty on the Athenians (who had killed his son Androgeos), demanding an annual tribute of fourteen youths (seven boys and seven girls), who were sacrificed to the Minotaur, which appears later in Inferno. Minos long commode which he wraps around himself, that marks the sinners level (Dante 5.11-12) is Dantes invention.Gluttony is punished in the third circle. The souls of the damned lie in a vile, grimy squish brought about by cold, unending, heavy, and accursed rain (6.7-8). These former gluttons lie sightless and heedless of their neighbours, symbolizing their cold, selfish, and empty pursuit of hedonism and empty sensuality. The slush, representative of surplus and sensuality, serves to cut one off from both the outside world and from Gods deliverance. swinish individuals of note include a Florentine contemporary of Dantes, identified as Ciacco (pig in Italian). Ciacco talks to Dante regarding the governmental conflict in the urban center of Florence betwixt two rival parties, the White and Black Guelphs, and predicts the defeat of the White Guelphs, Dantes party. This event did and so occur, and would lead to Dantes own exile in 1302. As the poem is sterilize in the year 1300, forwards Dantes e xile, he uses the events of his own life to dilate the unique ability of shades in Inferno to predict the future, a theme which is re spring uped to later in the poem.Cerberus, guardian of Gluttony, is similar to the beast of Greek mythology. In the Aeneid, Virgil describes Cerberus the three-headed heel which guards the entrance to the classical underworld as loud, huge, and terrifying. Dantes Cerberus displays similar canine qualities his three throats produce a deafening bark, and he eagerly devours the fistful of dirt Virgil throws into his mouths like a dog intent on its meal. Cerberus bloodred (6.16) eyes, greasy, black (6.16) beard, and large gut get in touchion him to the gluttonous spirits whom he tears, flays, and rends (6.18) with his clawed hands.The Avaricious and the Prodigal are punished together in the fourth circle. avarice, or greed, is one of the inequities that most incurs Dantes scorn and wrath (Raffa 37). Prodigality is defined as the opposite of Avarice t hat is, the trait of excessive spending. Both groups are forced to forevermore joust with one another, using cumbersome stone weights as weapons. They call out to each other Why do you hoard? Why do you squander? (Dante 7.30). Here Dante describes the punishment of both extremes, criticizing excessive desire for and against the ownership of material goods using the classical principle of moderation.In the fifth circle, the wroth and the Sullen are punished. The wrathful fight each other eternally on the surface of the river Styx, which runs darker than deep purple (7.103), while the sullen lie gurgling beneath the water. Dante describes how the Wrathful combat one another They struck each other not with hands alone, but with their heads and chests and with their feet, and tore each other piecemeal with their teeth (7.112-114). The wrathful are damned to eternally difference and fight without direction or purpose, while the sullen have indrawn into a black sulkiness from which t hey can find joy in neither God nor life.In the fifth circle, Filippo Argenti, a prominent Florentine and a Black Guelph, calls to Dante. A hotheaded character (Raffa 40), little is known regarding Filippo except what transpires in Inferno. He quarrels with Dante, lays his hands upon the boat the poets travel on, and is eventually torn apart by his wrathful cohorts. The two men were semipolitical opponents, but Dantes behaviour towards Filippo indicates a more personal grievance. Perhaps he had humiliated Dante in life, or had taken some part of Dantes situation after his exile from the city.Phlegyas is the solitary boatman (Dante 8.17) who transports Dante and Virgil in his boat across the Styx, the circle of the wrathful and sullen. He was known in Greek mythology for his eager behaviour in a fit of rage, Phlegyas set fire to the synagogue of Apollo because the god had raped his daughter Apollo promptly slew him in response. Phlegyas appears in Virgils underworld as an admoni tion against showing contempt for the gods (Virgil 6.618-620), a role which he reprises in Inferno.Between the fifth and sixth circles lie the walls of Dis, the fortressed city of Lower Hell (Raffa 39). The fallen angels who guard the gate of Dis refuse entry to the two poets, requiring the arrival of a messenger from Heaven to open the gate for them. Dante designates all of Lower Hell circles six through nine, where the most overserious of sins are punished as the walled city of Dis, with its grave citizens, its great battalions (Dante 8.69). The first five circles, which exist outside of Dis, are collectively known as Upper Hell, as they are where the lesser sins are punished.With the appearance of the three infernal (9.38) Furies, who threaten to call on Medusa, Virgils credibility and Dantes survival appear to be at risk. Furies were often invoked in Virgils classical world to particular revenge on behalf of offended mortal and gods. Medusas hair was turned into snakes by a n angry Minerva after Medusa made love with Neptune in the goddesss temple, and became withal horrifying to look at without being turned to stone. Dante describes Medusa as the Queen of never-ending requiem (9.44). The Furies call evil thought (Allecto), evil words (Tisiphone), and evil deeds (Magaera) (9.45-48) describe the three manifestations of sin, which can turn people to stone by making them obstinate cultivators of earthly things (Raffa 41).Heretics are punished inner the walls of Dis, in a spreading plain of lamentation and atrocious pain (Dante 9.110-111) resembling a cemetery. The sixth circle contains souls trapped and enwrap in fiery tombs for failing to believe in God and the afterlife. Since they did not believe in Hell, the Heretics are punished by being tight by from it in the most unpleasant possible way inside a flaming sepulchre.Among the tombstones of the sixth circle, Dante encounters more Italian contemporaries. A gibe of Epicurian Florentines are d isocvered sharing a tomb Farinata degli Uberti, a Ghibelline and Cavalcante de Cavalcanti, a boyfriend Guelph and the father of Guido Cavalcanti, Dantes fellow poet and closest friend. Farinata is an imposing figure, rising out of his worsen sepulchre from the shank up and arrestming to have great contempt for Hell (10.31-36). As the leader of the Ghibellines, Farinata was an enemy to the Guelphs, the party of Dantes ancestors. Farinata declares that his colleagues would have annihilated Florence (10.92), had he not interceded forcefully, an act which has earned him Dantes respect. Cavalcante was an enemy to the Ghibellines, like Dante, and wed his son Guido to Farinatas daughter in order to foster peace surrounded by the two parties. Dantes best friend, Guido Cavalcanti, was a poet who held the philosophical belief that love is a dark force which leads only(prenominal) to misery and death. Therefore, Cavalcantes appearance in Hell might be more a matter of guilt by associat ion to his sons worldview than any kind of reflection on himself.The Minotaur is the guardian and mythological symbol for the seventh circle, Violence. At the sight of Dante and Virgil, the minotaur reacts like one whom vehemence deva acress within (12.15), and his frenzied bucking allows the travellers to proceed unharmed. The Minotaur is a physical manifestation of effect in Inferno almost every part of the Minotaurs story, from its population to its demise, contains some form of violence (Raffa 55).The sinners in the seventh circle are split into three groups the violent against people and property, the violent against themselves, and the violent against God and nature (Dante 11.28-33). The first group comprised of assassins and murderers, among others are immersed in Phlegethon, a bloodred, boiling (12.101) river of blood and fire, up to a level commensurate with their sins (12.73-75). Because they committed such acts of battue and destruction in their lives, they are puni shed by being immersed in a river of that which they have spilt. The second group the suicides are transformed into knotted, knotted (13.5) thorny bushes and trees, which are fed upon by Harpies. These souls have given away their physical bodies through suicide, and are forced to maintain treelike forms. These anguish trees cannot speak until Dante accidentally injures one and causes it to bleed. Dante uses the soul-trees as a metaphor for the state of mind which leads to self-harm and suicide. Finally, the third group blasphemers and sodomites reside in a devastate of sand, fire and brimstone falling from the sky. The blasphemers lie down upon the sand, the usurers recline, and the sodomites wander manifestly aimlessly in huddling groups, all while being burned by distended flakes of fire (14.28-29). This symbolizes how those who act violently against God and that which God has provided are unendingly unable to find peace and comfort in their lives.Among those immersed in Phlegethon is black lovage the Great, submerged up to his eyebrows in blood. He suffers for his reputation as a cruel, bloodthirsty man who inflicted great harm upon the world and its peoples. In the woods of suicides, Dante hears the tale of Pier delle Vigne, who killed himself after falling out of favour with emperor butterfly Frederick II (Dante 13.64-69). Dante encounters his mentor, Brunetto Latini, among the sodomites. Surprised and touched by this encounter, Dante shows Brunetto great respect and admiration, and then refuting suggestions that the poet Dante placed only his enemies in Hell (15.43-45).The Centaurs are men from the waist up with the lower bodies of horses (Raffa 55) who guard the river Phlegethon. Thousands of centaurs patrol the bank of the river, using bows and arrows to play along damned souls submerged. In classical mythology, Centaurs are best known for their uncouth, violent behaviour. Chiron, leader of the Centaurs, enjoyed a favourable reputation as the sage charabanc of both Hercules and Achilles. Pholus and Nessus the Centaurs assigned to escort Dante and Virgil have fully earned their electronegative reputations, however Pholus who Virgil describes as full of rage (Dante 12.72) had been killed when a fight skint out during a wedding after he and his fellow centaurs attempt to carry off the bride and several other girls, and Nessus was killed by Hercules with a poison arrow for attempting to rape the heros wife, Deinira, after Hercules entrusted him with carrying her across a river (12.67-69).The penultimate circle as well as the most detailed is Fraud, which Dante describes as a place in Hell made all of stone the comment of crude iron (18.1-2). This circle is separate up into ten littler soaps panderers and seducers, flatterers, simonists, sorcerers, barrators, hypocrites, thieves, ambidextrous advisers and evil councillors, sowers of discord, and falsifiers. Panderers (pimps) and seducers march eternally in op posite directions, lashed cruelly (18.36) by demons. Just as they used passion and seduction to reverse others to their will, they are now themselves driven by hellish demons. Flatterers exploited other people using language, therefore, they are plunged in excrement (18.113), representing the false words they produced. Simonists payed for positions of power within the Catholic Church, and are placed upside-down into holes in the floor, with both soles of their feet on fire (9.25). The holes into which their heads are planted resemble baptismal fonts, used in several religious rituals a constant reminder of the corrupt nature of their former positions in the church. Sorcerers, astrologers, and false prophets have had their heads twisted toward their haunches (20.13) so that they can not see what is ahead of them. This symbolizes the twisted nature of magic in general specifically, it refers to the use of forbidden means to see into the future. Dante felt particularly unforgiving towards politicians after his exile from Florence, thus, corrupt politicians (barrators) are immersed in a stew of clumsy pitch (21.8). Their punishment represents the sticky fingers, corrupt deals, and dark secrets inherent in positions of political power. The hypocrites listlessly walk with lagging steps, in circles, with features tired and defeated (23.59-60), wearing leaden cloaks, representing the falsity behind the appearance of their actions. This falsity literally weighs these souls down and renders any physical body of progress impossible. The thieves are pursued and attacked by lizards and snakes, their bites causing them to undergo dissimilar transformations (24-25). Just as they stole in life, their very human individuation becomes subject to theft in Hell. Fraudulent advisers and evil councillors are enclose within individual pyres. These individuals did not give false advice out of ignorance rather, Dante refers to blandishment used by talented people for insidi ous ends (Raffa 99). In life, they caused those whom they advised to do ill without dirtying their own hands now they are punished alone in their fires. The sowers of discord are hacked apart, their bodies dividing as in life they caused division among others. Their wounds are quickly healed, only to have themselves hacked apart again (Dante 28.139-142). Dante considers falsifiers (alchemists, counterfeiters, perjurers, and impersonators) a disease upon society, and their corrupting influence is reflected in their diseased bodies and minds (Raffa 99) in the tenth pouch.In the eighth circle, Dante meets a number of notably fraudulent individuals. Venedico Caccianemico, who sold his own sister to the Marchese dEste, is recognized among the pimps in the first pouch, despite his attempts to avoid detection (Dante 18.40-60). In the fifth ditch, the thief Vanni Fucci is burnt to ashes before being reincarnated Agnel blends together with a reptilian Cianfa and Buoso exchanges forms with F rancesco. Vanni Fucci was a black Guelph from Pistoia, a town not far from rival Florence Dante says he knew Vanni as a man of blood and anger (Dante 24.129). Agnel is thought to be Agnello Dei Brunelleschi, a man who joined the white Guelphs Dantes party but then switched to the black cabal when they came to power. Both he and Cianfa are renowned for their thievery. Buoso stole while do in public office, then arranged for Francesco de Cavalcanti to take over and mistake on his behalf. In the eighth pit, Ulysses and Diomedes are condemned for the deception of the Trojan Horse, luring Achilles into the war effort, and stealing a statue of Athena from Troy (26.58-63). Dante encounters the schismatic prophet Muhammad the poet views Islam as an off-shoot from Christianity, and likewise condemns Ali, Muhammads son-in-law, for the schism between Sunni and Shiite Muslims (28.22-33).The Malebranche (Evil claws in Italian) are the devils of the fifth pocket of circle eight who bring to Hell the shades of corrupt political officials and employees. They are agile, smart, and fierce (Raffa 77), they are armed with long hooks, which they use to keep the shades under the surface of the black pitch (Dante 21.55-57). It is likely that the names Dante coined for individual demons (Bad Dog, Sneering Dragon, Curly Beard, etc.) are based on developed family names of civic leaders in Florence and the surrounding towns.The Giants physically connect circles eight and nine standing on the floor of circle nine, they tug over the inner ledge of circle eight with the upper fraction of their immense bodies. They are archetypal examples of defiant rebels Nimrod, who attempted to build the editorial of Babel before it was knocked down by God and his people were scattered Ephialtes, who fought against Jove and the other Olympian gods and Antaeus, whose relationship with the titans who stormed Mt. Olympus damned him, despite the fact that he was born after his brothers had waged wa r against the gods. Nimrod has been punished by being forced to speak an incomprehensible language that is, his language is as strange to others as theirs is to him. Ephialtes, like the rest of the titans who challenged the gods, is immobilized with heavy chains. Antaeus is not given any exceptional punishment, for he is only guilty by association. It is Antaeus who assists Virgil and Dante by lowering them down to the ninth circle, after being enticed by Virgil with the prospect of eternal fame upon Dantes return to the world (31.115-129).The final circle is Treachery, a frozen lake at the warmness of Hell, which is divided into four Rounds Ca?na, Antenora, Ptolomaea, and Judecca. In Ca?na, traitors to their kindred are immersed in ice up to their faces. In Antenora, traitors to political entities are located similarly in the ice. In Ptolomaea, traitors to their guests are punished, lying on their backs in the ice, with only their faces uncovered. In Judecca, the traitors to their lords and benefactors are completely encapsulated in ice, distorted in pain.In the first round of Treachery, Dante encounters Mordred, who attacked his uncle King Arthur and was pierced mortally by Arthurs lance (Dante 32.61-62). In the second round, Count Ugolino pauses from his ceaseless assault upon the head of his rival, Archbishop Ruggieri, to tell Dante how Ruggieri imprisoned and killed him with his children. This story, the longest single episode related by a damned soul in Inferno, serves as Dantes final dramatic authority of mankinds capacity for evil and cruelty. Fra Alberigo, who had his brother killed at a banquet, explains a gravestone conceit of Dantes Inferno sometimes, a soul falls into Hell before they have actually died. Their earthly bodies are possessed by demons, so what appears to be a walking, living man is actually beyond the bit of repentance (33.134-147).Finally, match the emperor of the despondent kingdom (34.28) lies at the centre of the Inferno. As ugly as he once was beautiful (34.34-36), Lucifer is a wretched contrast with his limited autonomy and mobility. Lucifers three faces (black, yellow, and red) burlesque the doctrine of the Holy Trinity three persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) in one divine nature the Divine Power, Highest Wisdom, and Primal Love which also created the gates of Hell, and, by extension, the entire realm of eternal damnation. His flapping wings revert the wind that keeps lake at the centre of Hell frozen, while his three mouths berate on the shade-bodies of the three archtraitors Judas, Brutus, and Cassius the gore mixing with tears gushing out of his three sets of eyes (34.53-57).Dantes Inferno heralded a revolution in Christian theology through its innovative use of poetic justice, historical and contemporary figures, and classical mythology. By combining these disparate elements into a single, gummy poem, Dante effectively changed the way the Western world imagined the afterlife and Hell i n particular. By focusing on the details of the scenes and the identities of those whom the fictional Dante converses with, Inferno illustrates a horrifyingly real and immediate vision of Hell, one which has persisted at least in some part to this day. By focusing on the personal journey of one man through the afterlife, the focus of the narrative is shifted onto the reader, who can easily identify with Dante as the first-person narrator. While the circumstances surrounding the creation of the Divine Comedy Dantes exile from Florence, his fall from political grace, and his eventual death soon after the completion of his magnum opus are rather tragic, they all contribute to Dantes work in a way which colours the textbook and gives it a personality and passion which is still felt to this day. For seven carbon years, Inferno has elicited strong responses from its readers from fascination to revulsion and everything in between (Raffa 5). Regardless as to the readership, the respo nse to Inferno has been, and will continue to be, anything but apathetic.