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Dante Alighieri's poem The Divine Comedy

Dante Alighieri's poem The Divine Comedy describes the poet's journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise. In the first two regions Dante is guided by the Roman epic poet Virgil who helps him overcome his fears, shows him the way around various obstacles, and provides a running commentary on the sights Dante sees. In the section on hell, the Inferno, the two poets meet a variety of individual sinners and observe the gradation of punishments as they progress through the nine circles toward the figure of Satan frozen in the deepest pit of hell. In the Inferno Dante does not offer extensive explanations of the gradation of sins or the relationship between sin and punishment. These things are taken, more or less, for granted, and, instead, the sights he sees and the stories he hears serve as warnings about the danger of failing to worship God as he requires. The rules are, with very few exceptions, absolute and the only means of escaping eternal punishment is through living correctly and, failing that, receiving absolution from the Church. Both the pity and the anger Dante feels in hell are meant to be instructive--inspiring the reader to fear the wrath of God.

Section 1: In the first three Cantos Dante, who has fallen into despair, wakes up in a dark wood and confronts three animals--a leopard, a lion, and a wolf. According to Musa they are symbols of, respectively, the sins of Fraud (punished in the eighth and ninth circles), the sins of Violence (punished in the seventh circle), and the sins of "Concupiscence or Incontinence" (punished in circles two through five) (73). Thus the hierarchical ordering of the afterlife starts from the very beginning of Dante's journey.

He is greeted by Virgil who reassures him about his fear of undertaking such an important journey by telling him that the Blessed Virgin has arranged it out of pity over Dante's despair. The key words with which Virgil encourages the poet are those Beatr...

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Dante Alighieri's poem The Divine Comedy. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 18:16, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1707972.html