Canto

the pity Dante held for the people sentenced to the inferno started to deteriorate as Virgil took Dante further into hell. Even when people started to talk to him, he felt as if they deserved everything they were receiving in Hell. At one point in canto VII Dante even pushes a person back into the pit they came from. It is easily seen that Dante stops caring and sympathizing with the people in the inferno is when he was is in the ninth circle and second ring of hell. Dante is talking to Ugolino…

and resurrection that is, “by grace alone, not that ‘twas merited”, not one account of anything else (Canto VII.41). Christ’s crucifixion put death and sin to its seed. The crucifixion accompanied by His death and resurrection humanity was brought to eternal life. Along with the coexistence of justice and mercy, everyone in heaven gets along because “sins of passion have also been put to death” (Canto VIII). The fact that earthly passions do not translate in Paradise further highlight the…

he comes face to face with these fears and, occasionally, overcomes his fears. These fears bring questions of Dante’s virtue and of his fate, both physical and spiritual. One distinct example of the pilgrim’s fear of the unknown can be found in Canto XVII, in which he and Virgil ride on the back of Geryon, the flying beast of fraud, down to the 8th circle of Hell, the circle of fraud. During the entirety of this trip, the mortal poet fears for his life. Considering his period, his…

One of the 20th century's most influential voices in American and English literature, Ezra Pound was born in the small mining town of Hailey, Idaho, on October 30, 1885. The only child of Homer Loomis Pound, a Federal Land Office official, and his wife, Isabel, Ezra spent the rest of his childhood just outside Philadelphia, where his father had moved the family after accepting a job with the U.S. Mint. His childhood seems to have been a happy one. He eventually attended Cheltenham Military…

of corruption in the Church? Describe the punishment of fortune tellers, as described in Canto 20. What famous Greek seer does Dante meet at this Point? Why does Virgil again scold Dante for showing pity? Why is sticky pitch an appropriate punishment for grafters? Cantos 2l and 22 are often called the gargoyle- cantos. Why? Why does Virgil hide Dante when they first enter the circle of grafters? In Canto 22, there is an extended military image. Describe it. Why are the hypocrites' cloaks…

this story, Dante uses vivid imagery to depict the severity and consequences of sins. In Dante's Inferno, Dante Alighieri shows us how the sinners face harsh punishments as the price they have to pay for selling away their morals. For example, in canto xiii, the sinners are embodied in oak trees for committing suicide. Minos left their souls there and they took root and grew. They explain their situation…

I felt like Canto V (2nd Circle of Hell) demonstrated Dante's passion for using literature as a mode of influencing his readers. I love Canto V because it paints a picture in your head of a romantic story which is eventually consumed with sin and suffering. Not that I like sin and suffering (I don't), but Dante's mastery of love poetry is astounding. Canto V is a romantic love story in which a woman named Francesca tells about how…

Gaspar De Villagrá is considered to be the first published poet in the United States as he recounts his journey through epic poetry. The poem, Historia de la nveva Mexico, is divided into three separate parts and then into thirty-four various cantos. As Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez comments in his passage describing the origins of Villagrá’s poetry and expedition, “Villagrá’s poem serves a utilitarian purpose: that of justifying actions and highlighting services in hopes of obtaining royal favor,”…

Ariel worries about Belinda while she is at the party, “Whether the nymph shall break Diana’s law, / Or some frail china jar receive a flaw.” (Lines 105-106, Canto 2) These comparisons and contrasts can go from mildly trivial to absolutely brutal, “…tyrants fierce that unrepenting die, / …Cynthia when her manteau’s pinned awry.” (Lines 7-8, Canto 4) Pope is comparing the death of a tyrant to a woman’s pesky scarf that won’t stay…

Simony, which refers to the selling and buying of church offices, was considered one of the evilest sins of Dante’s time. Even though Nicholas is the main character in this Canto, he is seen as an insignificant character in Dante’s Inferno and he is only there to herald the more important arrivals of Boniface VIII and Clement V and connote political ambition. In Inferno, Nicholas admits to Dante, “I was a son of the she-bear…