The Cantos

In Canto 3 of The Divine Comedy: Inferno, the pilgrim, and Virgil arrive at the gate of hell. They enter and as Virgil explains, the souls who had no goal in life, no direction, no intellect to choose God, reside here. They are the neutrals. They move along until they reach the river of Acheron where Charon, after a bit of hesitation, takes them across to the other side. On this side, there is an earthquake which causes Dante, the pilgrim, to faint. In this canto, Dante takes us through the…

Dante’s Inferno depicts the journey through the circles of Hell embarked upon by a character who shares his namesake, and his companion-guide Virgil. Throughout the nine circles he is met by various sinners of increasing degree. The punishments they receive are meant to be fitting and are therefore symbolic of the sins that were perpetrated above in the land of the living. Dante’s tale also includes the passage to hell in which he is met by creatures acting as a foreshadowing of what awaits…

At times, the question of interest in our minds is, where do we go in our afterlives? It is quite reasonable to say that many people have different convictions of where death will take them. Specifically, christians believe that there is a heaven and a hell and depending on how they carry out the Great Commission will determine their fate. Alluding to a part of the Divine Comedy, Inferno, by Dante Alighieri, it is illustrated to the readers in this poem that people who have partaken in a certain…

that myths “won’t tell you what makes you happy, but it will tell you what happens when you begin to follow your happiness, what the obstacles are that you’re going to run into,” which is clearly demonstrated by the myths in “Canto 5” of the Inferno (Campbell 373). In “Canto 5” of the Inferno, Dante makes allusions to myths to convey the sins of deceive and lust which serve as an illustration for what to avoid when “following one’s bliss.”…

again. In the ninth bolgia, Dante encounters Muhammad, disemboweled for promoting Islam and causing a division among God’s followers. “Livide, insin là dove appar vergogna eran l’ombre dolenti ne la ghiaccia, mettendo i denti in nota di cicogna” (canto XXXVII, verse 34). Each sinner gets punished depending on the nature of their sin. If they spread false advice, like Curio, their tongues are cut off since the origin of their sins came from their tongue. Those who caused a rift among family…

nine levels and some levels have sublevels. Every level has a different sin. Snakes are in Hell to torture and give sinners their punishment and are present in many cantos throughout The Inferno. Snakes are seen as the image of deceit because the devil formed into a snake when he deceived Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In Canto 24, we are in the seventh pouch of the eighth circle of hell where thieves are placed. Here the snakes chase after naked sinners and coil behind the sinner’s hands…

phrase instead of a single word. When Belinda gets on the boat to go to Hampton Court, the author describes her beauty while criticising her at the same time, “If to her share some Female Errors fall, Look on her Face, and you 'll forget 'em all.” (Canto II, Lines 17-18) In this quote Pope is saying that even if Belinda makes mistakes, people forgive her because of her looks. While this is praising her beauty. it is also calling Belinda a superficial person, who isn’t the brightest, but gets by…

is shown by his first guide, Virgil, who himself resides in the limbo section of hell. Throughout the beginning of the journey, Dante the pilgrim displays the very human feeling of being fear. We can see his fear starting in the second tercet of Canto I as he wakes up in the dark wood. This fear can be attributed to the feeling of being lost, as he has no idea of how he came to enter the woods. What also contributes to this fear is his surroundings. This is his first glimpse at the sinister…

meaning, even when for various reasons it may not always, in fact, beget a new life." (Amoris Laetitia, 56) Sexuality that is not expectant of new life is evil for its violence towards nature. In Dante’s The Inferno sexuality is addressed in a couple of Cantos. People who are married and engage in unnatural sexual activity would be in the seventh circle of Hell.…

the souls in these places are receiving completely different experiences in the way in which their vices are being dealt with. If love is the source of all benevolent and malicious works as detailed in Canto seventeen, then Hell is the prison of misusage of love. On the other hand, Purgatory…