What makes Canto II so intriguing is not only the abundance of backstory and context given for the purpose of Dante going through Hell, but the eloquent and poetic language used to tell the story and give us our first impression of Dante’s old love, Beatrice. Similar to how Dante is feeling, it is unclear to readers why this man is about to get a personal tour of Hell, so Virgil’s explanation acts as a hook to introduce us to what’s to come. Canto II begins with Dante voicing his apprehension about the upcoming journey, telling Virgil that “‘I am no Aeneas or Paul:/Not I nor others think me of such worth,/And therefore I have my
According to the Bible, hell is an “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”. (The Holy Bible, NIV, Matthew 25:41) However, in the first book of The Divine Comedy, Inferno, rather than being tortured, Satan tortures others by devouring them. “Each mouth devoured a sinner clenched within, frayed by the fangs like flax beneath a brake; three at a time he tortured them for sin” (The Divine Comedy 1: Hell, 34.55-57). Dante centers the purpose of hell around only punishing people – an idea that is not biblical at all. Another way The Divine Comedy is flawed is in the significance of Dante’s guide.
The construction of Frost’s poem closely resembles the poetic structure of Dante’s Inferno, as well as incorporates physical representations of its content. When writing La Divina Commedia in the 1300’s, Dante invented terza rima, an arrangement of rhyming triplets in iambs. It requires the last word of the second line in each tercet to provide the rhyme for the first and third lines in the next tercet (aba, bcb, cdc). It is likely that Dante’s choice of terza rima symbolizes the Holy Trinity, supporting the religious theme incorporated into the Inferno. Due to Inferno’s success, other poets attempted to employ terza rima in their poetry, such as the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer, who used it in “Complaints to his Lady” written in the 14th
The notion of well-known poetic justice is shown in Inferno, where it condemns appropriate actions for each specific sin. From Limbo to Treachery, Dante gives out punishments that is fit with the wicked. Dante also recorded the penalties of those who are famous sinners and unknown people. The poem is all about the kingdom of Satan, which
In lines 1002-1008 it says, “escaped from by anyone: All of us with souls, earth-dwellers And children of men, must make our way To a destination already ordained Where the body, after the banqueting, Sleeps on its deathbed.“ When Grendel was indroduced into the story in the very beginning it was stated that he was living in hell and was a demon doing evil in the world. “Until finally one, a fiend out of Hell, Began to work his evil in the world. Grendel was the name of this grim demon (101).” Later in the text referring back to Grendel’s residence, “So he overcame the foe, Brought down the hell-brute (1274).” The author brings up fate in the story, “speaks only of how no one can escape fate but all must lie in a prepared place after the feast.” Which to christians bring up many debates over whether everyone is predestined or their free
To spare him the result of his own activity is to insult his ideal nature by denying his freedom. Hell is the Creator's final tribute of respect to the being he made in his own image; and, as both Wisdom and Love imply recognition of the essential nature of their object, they concur with Justice in demanding the punishment of the sinner” (125). In this part of the comedy, the reader is introduced to the theme of justice as correlated to a human's exact actions during his or her lifetime. Blow describes The Inferno to be full of varying punishments that are simply a correlation to the misconduct that was done while living. “The
In the book of Inferno, Dante takes a journey to hell and meets the souls that are punished for their sins. It is very interesting and informative to understand the kind of punishment one would have that represents the true nature of their sin, but the reader knows that this is all fictional so it can just be taken as an informative way that fits the purpose of the poem. Augustine providing actual events; the reader can apply Augustine’s experiences with sin to his or her life. Dante’s Inferno is viewed to be encyclopedic and not personal because the story holds no true events. We can make the assumption that It is the true events and experiences that make a story personal because they hold more value.
For example, in The Inferno, Dante's entire story centered on an allegorical journey, made by a fictional version of himself, into the depths of hell. In turn, that journey detailed the various punishments ascribed by God for all sorts of sins and sinful acts and utilized references to numerous historical figures to embellish his storyline. One example of a historical figure’s presence was readily evident in The Inferno, in that the travel companion of the fictional Dante was Virgil. In many ways, the author Virgil was also a literal guide for the poet Dante because he revered the work of Virgil. In many ways, Dante sought to place himself on the same level as or above Virgil.
The first of these monsters is Grendel. Grendel represented the Anglo-Saxon fear of the night but also the consequence of murdering your own family. The story says “He was spawned in that slime/ conceived by a pair of those monsters/ born of Cain…/ punished forever for the crime/ of Abel’s death…” (“from Beowulf.” ln. 19-23). This quote shows how Grendel was punished by God for murdering family just as Cain did to Abel.
To begin his mission, Milton devoted his first book of Paradise Lost to introduce Satan along with his falling angels in Hell attempting to plan a revenge on God. So, Satan is the central figure of book 1, a figure that Milton presents with plenty of epithets and with a magnificent energy and a personal pride. To what extent did Paradise Lost present Satan as a moral agent? Given the politics of the English revolution and restoration, how precisely should we interpret Satan’s language and policy in Hell? Did the spiritual poem reveal the 17th century religious beliefs or Milton’s ones?