Works by Dante Alighieri

Inferno by Dan Brown was published on May 14, 2013. Inferno is a literary thriller. The basic plot of the novel revolves around Zobrist, an evil genius, and his horrifying plot to drastically reduce the world’s population in order to balance the environment and centers around one of world’s most mysterious literary masterpieces, Dante’s Inferno. The story starts in Florence where a hospitalized Harvard professor Robert Langdon is awoken with a head wound that leaves him unable to recall how or…

In the poem The Inferno by Dante Alighieri, Canto XIII (13) is very important to the storyline, because without it, there would not be any detail about those who hurt themselves and how they affected others in Hell and on Earth. Dante uses symbolism to describe almost everything in this canto and it is key to understanding exactly what is happening during the story. The way he describes the sinners and their punishments in this canto is extremely helpful in describing future events as well.…

In the poem The Inferno , Dante Alighieri uses various allusions, many of them referencing Greco-Roman myths that were well known at the time. They are to create a sense of familiarity with the reader and help them better understand the ideas Dante is trying to convey about God’s justice and the reasoning behind the punishments in correspondence to each sin. With his intended audience’s knowledge of these Greco-Roman character’s stories, it would be unnecessary for Dante to provide additional…

1. In the epic poetry, The Inferno of Dante translation by Robert Pinsky (1320), Dante Alighieri implies that the sinners in Hell are selfish and only care about themselves which is also one of the biggest reasons that they ended up in Hell. Alighieri supports this claim by introducing the ten pouches in the eighth circle as they are all connected through fraud which is basically is deceiving others for financial or personal gain which is very much being selfish. The author purposely emphasizes…

Jeffery Farnol, “For vengeance is an emptiness, and he that seeketh it wasteth himself.” Just as Farnol implies, Edmond Dantès was drowned in his desire for revenge. Dantès’ life was ruined when three men, jealous of his perfect life, framed him for treason and sentenced Dantès to fourteen years of pain and sorrow in the Chateau d’If, France’s most notorious prison. When Dantès eventually escapes, he sets out on a quest to avenge himself by making his enemies suffer just as he did. In The Count…

Guelph and the other being the Ghibellines. Many Florentines including Dante were affected by the Guelph-Ghibelline conflict. This conflict was the political division at Florence of the loyalty between Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy. The Papacy, held the Pope as head of the Roman Catholic Church, during this time, the Guelph often received advice from the Pope in order to defeat the Ghibelline. This helped me understand why Dante used symbolic imagery and the severity of the sinners’…

Love makes a person do things that they would normally not do. In Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, written by Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante tend to look out for each other. When Dante tries to stop the kids from shooting the sparrows, Ari supports him, even though he doesn’t really know why. Another time is when Dante is helping the bird on the street and a car is coming at Dante. Ari risks his life by jumping in front of the car to save his friend. By the…

In the prison of Chateau d'If, Dantes had occupied a cold, dark chamber with no human contact and received malnourishing food and little water which, if not already, drove him mad. Everyone around him refused to listen to the truth, with the idea infused in their heads that he was guilty and there was nothing more to him than a traitor. This jurassic change in environment tinted Dante’s optimistic views to a more pessimistic mindset of the world he once knew. Dantes’ struggle wasn’t only…

leopard represents fraudulence, the lion symbolizes violence, and the she-wolf represents immoderation. The animal that seems to pose the greatest problem for Dante is the she-wolf. Even though Dante states that it was the leopard that caused him “more than once she me turn about to go back down”, it was the sight of the she-wolf that made Dante loose all hope as he thought at first sight, “Then, a grim she-wolf -whose leanness seemed to compress/ All the worlds cravings, that had made miserable…

Within the opening lines of the first canto Dante writes “Midway upon the journey of our life/ I found myself within a forest dark,/ For the straightforward pathway had been lost” (Alighieri 1. 1-3). This passage shows that Dante is suffering a mid-life crisis and that he is searching for a spiritual answer to help him find himself within the dark forest. The third line referring to the straightforward pathway being lost is talking about how Dante has become lost in life. Emotionally and…