Dante Alighieri's poem The Divine Comedy
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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 se
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e of Filippo is somewhat mysterious in an unaided reading of the poem and it is disturbing, as are all his tirades against personal and political enemies, in the context of a poem that is supposed to deal with questions of eternity, virtue, and sin. When Dante is satisfied by seeing the other souls mangle Filippo and the "Florentine, gone mad, turn[ing] on himself and bit[ing] his body fiercely," the reader retains an uneasy feeling that Dante rather than God is meting out punishments (140).
Section 7: At this point the travelers have reached the end of the upper region of hell and they meet with opposition from the demons who guard the entrance to lower hell and the city of Dis. The terror of both men is vividly described and the image of the heavenly messenger who arrives to open the gate for them somewhat undercuts the tension that had been built up. This messenger acts like a bored and annoyed functionary who has been interrupted at something more important and unwillingly takes time out to help the hapless poets.
The mood of gloom returns, however, when they enter the city in which a huge plain stretches out filled with red-hot open graves into which the souls of heretics and their followers are crammed. All of them
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Approximate Word count = 3043
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)
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