Inferno

A student who struggles to read and understand poetry struggles all the way through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, just to find a few tidbits of information. This process requires the reading of each Canto two to three times just to find a tidbit of imagery to even get a glimpse of what is happening in three different books. “Why do you let pretension sore so high, Being as it were but larvae – grubs that lack The finished form that shall be by and by?”2 (pp 146) Why is the student who is a…

In Canto thirty one, the focus is centered around large ideas. The main focal point are the giants who Dante describe as “lofty towers” (265). These giants are depicted by Dante as those “whom Jove still rumbles at / With menace when he thunders” (267). First, they were defeated by Jove in the battle of Phlegra which consisted of Jove invading a plain in which a group of one hundred giants, the Gigantes, lived. The Giants were outnumbered by Jove and his allied gods which resulted in the gods…

Dante, while writing about Hell, is wrestling with inner struggles that are testing him psychologically. He writes from the standpoint of an exiled Guelph who cannot return to his home in Florence by the consequence of execution. In Dante’s Inferno, his characters featured in Hell are among a community of which he is familiar in mind and by association. Here I examine Dante’s reasoning behind crime and punishment, in association with the behaviors of those whom he has placed in Hell, and attempt…

capable of; it would logically follow that in Hell, these sins would be punished in respectfully distinct manners. However, how would one qualify which sin is the most egregious, and how would one decide which punishment would fit the crime? In The Inferno, Dante seeks to answer these questions in a grand categorization of religious sins, beginning with those of lack of baptism and ending with those of treachery. However, there is a particular emphasis put on the representation of religious…

mathematics at the University of Bologna, but they did not give him the job. Even though he did not get that job, he was asked by the “Florentine Academy to give two lectures about a prestigious literary group, on the arrangement of the world in Dante’s Inferno” (Helden). After doing that, he discovered an ingenious idea about the center of gravity. Because of this idea, he ended up begging the chairman of mathematics at the University of Pisa for a job to continue his research. He got his dream…

often of religious origin and represented important social gathering (Rouff); therefore, any interruption of social, political, or moral norms relating to hospitality was viewed as particularly alarming in the context of medieval Italy. In Dante’s Inferno, such crimes of deceit in the context of hospitality are designated to the ninth circle of hell, the lowest circle of hell. Appeals…

In Dante’s Inferno we see a story about a man and his descent into hell, he travels into different areas or circles of hell and witness’s the punishment or symbolic retribution that each circle holds. Dante’s tale happened in the 1300’s so what would one of those circles look like today? Lets take for an example the politician. The politician is a man or woman, who is supposed to represent, and protect the average American. However, as we see every night on the nightly news, most politician…

“When I had journeyed half of our life’s way, I found myself within a shadowed forest, for I had lost the path that does not stray” (Inferno 3). Actually, this does not describe my death, but comes from a dusty old book I read at one point. I died on April 10th, 2018, on my 21st birthday, in the strange city of Boston. During that fateful night, my friend Erin Valley and I were walking down Commonwealth Avenue, returning home from the seventh bar of the night, reveling in our ability to…

talent during the Renaissance. For example, in the Foreword of Dante’s Inferno written by John Freccero, he explains that despite Dante’s position as a Christian poet, there is no suggestion of Christian mercy in his writings. Freccero states “In spite of Dante’s reputation as the greatest of Christian poets, there is no sign of Christian forgiveness in the Inferno.” (Freccero ix) Another example of humanism in Dante’s Inferno is the criticism that Dante expresses towards Pope Boniface VIII.…

I feel as though I am about to die of dehydration, or spontaneously combust, (While I am exaggerating, I should have seriously considered bringing ice - a lot of ice) and yet comparing this heat to that ancient inferno is identical to comparing a sea to an ocean. Simply put, There is an immeasurable difference between the two that perhaps is incomprehensible. Unfortunately, the flare forced every drop of precious water to evaporate, and thus life decayed soon after…