...The Beasts and Monsters in Dante's Inferno The Inferno is the first section of Dante's three-part poem, The Divine Comedy. Throughout Dante's epic journey into the depths of Inferno he encounters thirty monsters and five hybrid creatures. The most significant of these monsters are of central importance to his journey and to the narrative, as they not only challenge Dante's presence in Inferno, but are custodians of Hell, keeping in order or guarding the "perduta gente". In this essay I am concentrating on these prominent beasts, namely Minos, Cerberus, Plutus and Geryon, establishing why they feature in Dante's eschatological vision and discussing the sources which influenced his inclusion of these particular creatures. These four monsters all fulfil important functions as well as representing important themes in Inferno, establishing them as symbols which reinforce Dante's allegory. Minos, as the infernal judge and agent of God's justice, represents our own conscience and morality. When the sinners come before him "tutta si confessa", which causes the reader to reflect on their own sins.His terrifying treatment of the souls is significant as after Charon, he is one of the first figures who they encounter on their passage into Hell, and his unique method of demonstrating which area of Hell that the souls should be sent to increases the horror and adds to the alarming atmosphere. His warning to Dante, is similar to several of the infernal custodians, who continually remind...
Words: 2998 - Pages: 12
...August 20, 2015 3.2.13 Practice: Revision Strategies The tempest one of the most difficult Shakespearean works in my opion to stage, from its stormy, chaotic first scene to its sureality to its ambiguous resolution, with Prospero facing his silent, treacherous brother and renouncing the power that has made every action in the story possible. Potent language remains the central force and mystery of this fathomless play. Prospero speaks almost a third of the lines in The Tempest, and controls the amount of speech every other character on the island has through manipulation and magic. Prospero’s narrative of how he came to the island, what he did once there, and what he is owed for this history, goes largely unchallenged in the text. Yet the play offers innumerable readings and opportunities for alternate staging, particularly in light of postcolonial discourse about Prospero’s relationship with Ariel and Caliban, the legitimacy of his authority, and the nature of his magic and command over language. Though Prospero can be played many ways, there is no doubt he is The Tempest’s show runner. The metatheatrical nature of the play sometimes detracts from its action on the page, but it also offers the chance to explore exactly why Prospero needs an audience for his revenge, and whether or not it satisfies him, onstage. Prospero restricts the sight and knowledge of the other characters, putting them to sleep or manipulating them with invisible forces, but he often lets us, the audience...
Words: 3114 - Pages: 13
...An Analysis of the Setting in The Inferno Abstract Plutus and Pluto, and their placement in the fourth circle of Hell, were originally very confusing for me. After researching for the interactive oral, I had a much better understanding of him because, in Greek mythology, he is the God of wealth and, in Roman mythology, he is the God of the underworld. Pluto, the Roman God, is not only the God of the underworld, but also of the riches. He is placed in the fourth circle of Hell, that of greed and avarice, which makes sense because of the occupants’ sins, which have to do with riches and wealth. Also, the negative association of money and wealth to greed helped me tie in why a God was in Hell, other than the fact that Pluto/Plutus was Roman/Greek and not Christian. This development not only helped me understand why greed was around the middle of Hell, but also why Pluto/Plutus was there. It also connects to the prevalent idea of retribution, or an eye-for-an-eye, because the God of wealth, riches, and the underworld (money and evil) was around greed (evil due to money). My understanding of the retribution idea in The Inferno was also developed substantially through the interactive oral. Originally, it was easy for me to understand that the punishments were retributive; such as those who tried to look into the future will look backwards (to the past) for all eternity; gluttoners are rained upon by vomit (because they regurgitated what they ate), etc.; but what I did not understand...
Words: 1746 - Pages: 7
...Virgil presents the snakes makes it clear that they are there intentionally to fulfil a role in Laocoon’s death, after which they hide in the temple of Minerva. The snakes hiding in Minerva’s temple serves as a symbol of Minerva and Neptune’s alliance to remove the final resistance towards the unavoidable fate of Troy (Mianowski 72). Laocoon’s death is nothing personal and hardly heroic, merely a needed execution to demonstrate the Gods’ divine power. When Aeneas witnesses Laocoon’s death, he correctly interprets it as a sign that the gods no longer support the city of Troy. However, the citizens interpret Laocoon’s death as a punishment for refusing the Greek gift and demand the horse be brought into the city. These conflicting interpretations of the Gods’ punishment prompt Aeneas to eventually escape the doomed city, while the citizens who misinterpreted Laocoon’s death...
Words: 1315 - Pages: 6
...In the texts The Divine Comedy, On Law Morality and Politics, and Revelations of Divine Love, there is a central theme of divine justice. In Dante’s Inferno, divine justice is God’s will for mankind and the order of the universe. In Saint Thomas Aquinas’ text, divine justice is the consequence of straying away from divine law. Finally, in Julian of Norwich’s work, the purpose of divine justice is to earn God’s mercy and eventually reside in his presence. Using different understandings of divine law and justice, each author is uniquely able to convey a similar message – mankind’s purpose is to achieve salvation and be in God’s grace. In Dante’s The Divine Comedy, the nature of justice seems to be impartial and unexempt from anyone. Specifically,...
Words: 1369 - Pages: 6
...Culture and Religion: Atsumori and Inferno Various factors have been an influence in literature, both for past authors and present authors. These factors may stem from the culture in which we live and the religion in which we partake. In Dante’s Inferno and Motokiyo’s Atsumori, these influences were evident. In this paper, you will see how these influences affected these two historical pieces of literature. Dante’s Inferno included numerous elements suggesting to its’ religious influence. Dante also wrote two other pieces—Purgatorio and Paradiso-- during this time which lead to the belief that these three were symbolic to the Christian trinity; Father, Son, Holy Spirit (1827). Also notable about Dante’s writing is that he ended these three pieces with the same word, stelle (stars). He wrote of the different crimes (sins) and punishments that would be placed upon all citizens if necessary. Those who disobeyed would be cast in to purgatory. Some examples of these crimes were lust, violence against neighbors, and violence against God. These are also extremely comparable to The Ten Commandments in the Christian religion. He also spoke of Lord, Noah, and Abel in this piece (Canto IV, Lines 50-55). Culture also played a role in this piece of literature. Before this time, Dante had been extremely active in the military in Florence. He had lived most of his life supporting the church until later in his life when he began to think the church was corrupt. He lived many...
Words: 489 - Pages: 2
...Pier della Vigna In canto XIII of Inferno, Dante enters the Wood of Suicides where he encounters Pier della Vigna, an Italian statesman who was accused of treason by Emperor Frederick II and consequently blinded and sentenced to life in prison. Born to a modest family, Pier was granted an outstanding legal education and possessed an abundance of rhetorical talent, both of which undoubtedly led to his rise to power within medieval Italian society. As his power grew, Pier’s political enemies began to grow envious of his political standing and started to plot against him, directly leading to his his fall from power and his eventual imprisonment. While he was imprisoned, Pier brutally took his own life by smashing his head against a wall until he died, and thus according to Catholic ideology damned his soul to hell forever. However, Dante’s placement of Pier in the Wood of Suicides as opposed to the circle for traitors, as well as his conversations with Pier point to the fact that Dante pitied della Vigna and empathized with his claims of innocence. In spite of Dante’s empathy for a man whom he saw as a faithful servant who was unjustly punished for a crime he did not commit, Pier della Vigna still violated Catholic doctrine by taking his own life and for this reason his soul will forever remain in the Wood of Suicides where, even after the Last Judgment, all those who took their own lives will in theory retrieve their corpses and hang them on the trees in the wood as a sign of their...
Words: 1254 - Pages: 6
...The Divine Comedy represents the mature Dante’s solution to the poet’s task annunciated in The New Life. Its three canticles (the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso) display a nearly limitless wealth of references to historical particulars of the late Middle Ages and to Dante’s life. Even so, its allegorical form allows these to function as symbols. The Pilgrim’s journey through Hell to Heaven thus becomes an emblem of all human experience and a recognition of life’s circularity. The “Comedy” of its title is, therefore, the situation of life and the accumulation of experience that attends it. Correspondingly, however, chronological placement of the narrative from Good Friday through Easter Sunday, 1300, particularizes the experience even as it implies the death and rebirth that attends a critical stage of any person’s life. The poet tells his readers in the first line of the Inferno that he is midway through life, and indeed Dante would have been thirty-five years of age in 1300. Though he maintains present tense throughout the poem, he is, however, actually writing in the years that follow the events that he describes. This extraordinary method allows the Poet to place what amounts to prophetic utterance in the mouth of the Pilgrim. Dante thus maintains and further develops the thesis of The New Life, that the progress of the Pilgrim corresponds directly to the progress of the Poet. The literal journey that the Pilgrim undertakes toward the Beatific Vision succeeds only...
Words: 3695 - Pages: 15
...While Dante’s placement of Mohammed in Hell is, in itself, implied, the latter’s damnation not only comes from a sense of divine justice but also acts as a reflection on and a warning to Dante on his individual journey to God. Dante, along with many of his peers and influences, views Islam as a false sect broken off from the core of Christianity and Mohammed as a Christian with a corrupted view of doctrine that lures potential followers from a true path of righteousness. Mohammed, like Dante, feels a spiritual discontentment that leads him on a reflective journey; however, as Mohammed turns his personal path, beliefs, and interpretations into its own doctrine, he varies from Dante’s poetic but applicable tale of salvation. Dante’s encounter...
Words: 2972 - Pages: 12
...tragedy, comedy and epic. Louise argues that the whole of redemption fits into these fours elements of poetry. Lyric is the realm of love, the “place of origins and sources…symbolized by the garden.” Lyric represents both the pre-Fall condition of man and the redemptive state. Tragedy is the loss of the garden; comedy is man enduring in the fallen world. Epic, however, restores man to his pre-Fall state. The epic “struggles to build or cleanse,” attempting to complete the journey to the new Eden, one which is “redeemed and made new.” Dante projects his redemptive journey in the Divine Comedy upon the conversation between Statius and Virgil. In Statius and Virgil’s conversation, Dante reveals the necessity of epic, its shortcomings, and lyrics role in redemption. The epic is the journey to redemption and Love lyric is the end. Dante, throughout the divine comedy, reveals the epic struggle. Virgil, the epic poet, does what the saint cannot,...
Words: 1485 - Pages: 6
...fraught with conflicts, doubts, and anger. This discussion engenders no harmonious Christmas feeling of family togetherness. Rather, the growing boy learns that politics is often such a charged subject that it can cause huge rifts even within a single home. Dante's tumultuous departure from the dinner table is the first in a pattern of incidents in which characters declare independence and break away from a group for political and ideological reasons. Indeed, the political landscape of Ireland is deeply divided when the action of the novel occurs. Secularists like Mr. Dedalus and Mr. Casey feel that religion is keeping Ireland from progress and independence, while the orthodox, like Dante, feel that religion should take precedence in Irish culture. The secularists consider Parnell the savior of Ireland, but Parnell's shame at being caught in an extramarital affair tarnishes his political luster and earns him the church's condemnation. This condemnation on the part of the church mirrors Stephen's shame over expressing a desire to marry Eileen Vance, who is Protestant. On the whole, however, Stephen's reaction to his family's dispute is sheer bafflement. These chapters also explore the frequently arbitrary nature of crime and punishment. The fact that the boys in Stephen's class at Clongowes know that they will all be punished for the transgressions of the two caught "smugging" indicates that they are accustomed to unfair retribution. Furthermore, none of the instances of wrongdoing mentioned...
Words: 5021 - Pages: 21
...ARISTOTLE TRANSFIGURED Dante and the Structure of the Inferno and the Purgatorio by Donald J. Hambrick Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Phüosophy Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia August, 1997 Q copyright by Donald J. Harnbrick, 1997 N l*lofational Library Canada Bibliothèque.nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Bibliogaphic Services Acquisitions et seMces bibliographiques 395 Wdingtoci Street OttawaON K 1 A W 395, rua Wellington Ottawa ON K I A O N 4 canada Canada The author has granted a nonexclusive licence allowing the National Library of Canada to reproduce, loan, distribute or sell copies of this thesis in microfonn, paper or electronic formats. L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive permettant à la Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduire, prêter' distribuer ou vendre des copies de cette thèse sous la forme de microfiche/nlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la proprieté du droit d'auteur q ui protège cette thèse. Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement reproduits sans son autorisation. copyright i this thesis. Neither the n thesis nor substantid extracts fkom it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. To Those Who Teach. .. TABLE OF CONTEWS INTRODUCTION...
Words: 39283 - Pages: 158
...A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Context James Joyce was born on February 2, 1882, in the town of Rathgar, near Dublin, Ireland. He was the oldest of ten children born to a well-meaning but financially inept father and a solemn, pious mother. Joyce's parents managed to scrape together enough money to send their talented son to the Clongowes Wood College, a prestigious boarding school, and then to Belvedere College, where Joyce excelled as an actor and writer. Later, he attended University College in Dublin, where he became increasingly committed to language and literature as a champion of Modernism. In 1902, Joyce left the university and moved to Paris, but briefly returned to Ireland in 1903 upon the death of his mother. Shortly after his mother's death, Joyce began work on the story that would later become A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Published in serial form in 1914–1915, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Mandraws on many details from Joyce's early life. The novel's protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, is in many ways Joyce's fictional double—Joyce had even published stories under the pseudonym "Stephen Daedalus" before writing the novel. Like Joyce himself, Stephen is the son of an impoverished father and a highly devout Catholic mother. Also like Joyce, he attends Clongowes Wood, Belvedere, and University Colleges, struggling with questions of faith and nationality before leaving Ireland to make his...
Words: 18420 - Pages: 74
...Dear Charles, Here's a possible rewrite of your thesis: "This paper will examine Augustine's teachings about 'conferred faith' upon infant during baptism. My claim is that Paul misrepresented Paul's teachings on the family's effect upon the holiness of the child." You'll find the "claim" in chapters 1-14 of Turabian's Manual, which is something that our rubric doesn't bring up, but I think it's a good technique. I notice that you have Greek written in Times New Roman font. I have seen other students do this. I have never been able to figure out how this is done. I notice that when I try to add a letter than it comes out in Latin script. These are quotations that you've pasted. This is amazing. I don't know how they do this! Let me know if you can help me! The only defect in this paper that I want to point out is that much of your paper is not really about Augustine's teaching on infant baptism. All subsequent developments of his teachings really have nothing to do with what happened in Augustine's head. Let's take Pannenberg as an example. He may have followers up there in Lutheran country where you minister. His ideas are influenced by Augustine, but Augustine was not a Lutheran. Some seem to think he was a Lutheran or a Calvinist, but they deceive themselves. You must, of course, take Paul into account because Augustine worked with Paul's writings. Paul was a source that Augustine used—or better, abused or misused, as you and argue. Students find it impossible to focus on one...
Words: 6374 - Pages: 26
...VOLUME EDITOR S. WALLER is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Montana State University Bozeman. Her areas of research are philosophy of neurology, philosophy of cognitive ethology (especially dolphins, wolves, and coyotes), and philosophy of mind, specifically the parts of the mind we disavow. SERIES EDITOR FRITZ ALLHOFF is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Western Michigan University, as well as a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian National University’s Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. In addition to editing the Philosophy for Everyone series, Allhoff is the volume editor or co-editor for several titles, including Wine & Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), Whiskey & Philosophy (with Marcus P. Adams, Wiley, 2009), and Food & Philosophy (with Dave Monroe,Wiley-Blackwell, 2007). P H I L O S O P H Y F O R E V E RYO N E Series editor: Fritz Allhoff Not so much a subject matter, philosophy is a way of thinking.Thinking not just about the Big Questions, but about little ones too.This series invites everyone to ponder things they care about, big or small, significant, serious … or just curious. Running & Philosophy: A Marathon for the Mind Edited by Michael W. Austin Wine & Philosophy: A Symposium on Thinking and Drinking Edited by Fritz Allhoff Food & Philosophy: Eat,Think and Be Merry Edited by Fritz Allhoff and Dave Monroe Beer & Philosophy: The Unexamined Beer Isn’t Worth Drinking Edited by Steven D. Hales Whiskey & Philosophy:...
Words: 90119 - Pages: 361
