...Aguilar, Kryztelle Mae P. World Literature AB Psychology 05/08/2015 About the Author Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) remains Italy's greatest poet. He was born in the city of Florence, in the region of Tuscany, Italy in the spring of 1265. He wrote the Divine Comedy(Commedia) from 1308 to 1320, completing the work the year before he died. The Divine Comedy is one of literature's boldest undertakings, as Dante takes us through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and then reaches Heaven (Paradiso), where he is permitted to partake of the Beatific Vision. Dante's journey serves as an allegory of the progress of the individual soul toward God. While Dante was critical of the Catholic Church as an institution, his writings remained faithful to his schooling by the Dominicans, where he learned the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274). The Divine Comedy signaled the beginning of the Renaissance. The Commedia by Dante had everlasting impact on Italy, for the Tuscan dialect became the literary language of Italy. He died in political exile in Ravenna, Italy in September 1321. The Divine Comedy 1308-1320 INFERNO "Midway in our life's journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood. How shall I say what wood that was! I never saw so drear, so rank, so arduous a wilderness! Its very memory gives a shape to fear. Death could scarce be more bitter than that place! But since it came...
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...Purgatory Canto XVI. The Divine Comedy is one of Dante’s great collections of poems. It portrays many themes such as love, suffering, justice, fate and free will. As we move on to the Purgatory, Dante has strict views about his political vision, and we see that through his encounter with Marco Lombardo in Canto XVI. Dante and Virgil encounter Marco in a smoke filled space. Marco Lombardo is a courteous and well informed person as he serves as a center point for Dante’s ideas about human responsibility, free will, political institutions. In Canto XVI of the Purgatory, Dante and Virgil are traveling as they encounter smoke that was “too much to bear” (Pur. XVI 7). Through the blinding smoke, Dante hears the voice of a soul under the name Marco Lombardo. Marco agrees to help Virgil and Dante escape from this smoke infested space. As Marco guides Virgil and Dante through the space, Marco tells of a problem that has been haunting him. “the world, indeed, as you have just declared, Is destitute of every virtue known, swarming with evils, ever breeding more. “(Pur. XVI 58-60) Marco is essentially saying that the world is swarming with evils which consequently give rise to more evils. These evils are created by people not exercising their free will and decision making to aid them in their decisions. “You men on earth attribute everything to the spheres’ influence alone, as if with some predestined plan they moved all things If this were true, then our Free Will would...
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...The Divine Comedy The afterlife has all been speculation based on ones own beliefs. Some people believe there is simply nothing while others believe that there is a heaven or hell. In the “Divine Comedy”, Dante is lost in a forest when he is found by the spirit of Virgil. This spirit then leads him through the circles of Hell the terraces of Purgatory and the spheres of Heaven. On his journey he sees spirits either punished or rewarded for their decisions on earth. The main theme of The Divine Comedy, written by Dante Alighieri is the choices made in a man’s life and where those choices will put him after death. Dante Alighieri’s version of Hell describes all of the punishments of those condemned, in accord with their sin. On entering Hell, Dante and Virgil read a sign, describing the horrors of hell and that there is no escape. “Through me you enter the city of woes… Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” (Dante Inferno Canto III) As they travel through Hell they see all of the various punishments for the condemned. They find that each sinner is condemned to a punishment that is in relation with his or her sin. For example, the Misers and the Spendthrifts are in Circle IV. Their sins were that they worshipped money so much that they hoarded it, or had so little regard for money that they spent it wildly. Nothing is so loathed to a miser as a spendthrift. So, their punishment is to bombard each other continually with huge stones expressing the antagonism between excessive...
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...Research Paper: Divine Comedy Epic poems were popular as early as Ancient Greece. These poems depicted the events and the ideas of the time they were written in. One such epic poem was Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. Written in the early fourteenth century the Divine Comedy takes on an allegoric view of the Christian and of the political beliefs held by Dante at the time. Dante was part of a political group in Italy known as the White Guelphs, who favored the Pope as leader over the Holy Roman Emperor. This held influence in the Divine Comedy. In trying to get these ideas out the people Dante wrote the epic poem in the vernacular of the Italian people. The Divine Comedy is centered on Dante and his two guides. The poem takes the reader on a journey with Dante and his guides through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. This is accomplished through the poem being broken up into three main canticles. Each one of these canticles contains thirty-three cantos. The number three is an important Christian symbol as it symbolizes the Trinity. This is important to Dante in his poem due to his religious beliefs. As the reader gets a literal description on Dante’s travels, the reader symbolically gains insight on how people viewed the progression of a person’s soul toward God. The first canticle is about Dante’s and his guide, Virgil’s, descent through the ten circles of Hell. As they descend through Hell the reader learns about the 10 circles. The deeper in Hell the...
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...Jason Liu & Peter Lin English 11 Ms. Wan Sep 28 2014 Francesca da Rimini in The Divine Comedy In order to better understand Francesca’s role in The Divine Comedy, it is necessary to first understand her backstory and how Dante is able to identify her. In many ways those who are personally identified by Dante in the Inferno are there for specific reasons. Each fallen character plays the role of shedding light on a specific human emotion or vice that acts as a pitfall. Francesca’s pitfall was lust, and thus she is condemned to be blown around for all eternity in the gusts of the second circle of the Inferno. This symbolizes how the passions in life blew the condemned whichever way they went, no matter the cost to those who they hurt. In her vivid interpretation, Francesca remains inexpiate to her infamous acts and even absolves herself from responsibility of sin of lust in a stern and regretless tone. Francesca is not repentant for her action while alive on Earth which is interesting side note. The love that she speaks of effects Dante so much because in a sense regretless tone about her adultery. She regards her trespass with Paolo as “past happiness” and this memory crave in her soul. It is meaningful because it is “no greater pain than to remember”(121). Her words elaborates all the details that how the others transgressed. She arouses Dante’s empathy by convincing him that she is the victim of the affair. The book she read, Paolo and Lancelot...
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...Well-traveled people are known to tell stories of their adventures. Travelers will describe the highs and lows of their adventures and encourage or discourage their listeners to either attempt the journey or avoid it altogether. In Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (approximately 1317-1321), Dante he casts himself as an ordinary, sinful, distracted wanderer. Making his story relatable to the common person, Dante grabs his fellow travelers by the hand and has them follow him on his journey through the three areas of afterlife: Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. In sometimes-graphic detail, he describes these places and what can be expected in each level. Dante wants his fellow humans to avoid the eternal effects of sin. In order to assist those around him, he recounts his tale of falling from God’s grace and finding redemption in order to help others from being slaves to their poor choices. Dante believed that men choose...
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...Throughout Inferno of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, the law of retribution plays a major role. The law of retribution is especially relevant in Canto V, Canto XII and Canto XIII. In these sections of the text Dante discovers that the sins one committed directly correlate with their punishment in Hell. This law of retribution is closely followed in order to make the sinners suffer and to serve as a constant reminder of what they have done. Canto V depicts the sinners of lust. These sinners gave into their sexual desires and because they did not repent, they are forced to float in a violent storm for eternity. “The windblast out of Hell, forever restless, thrusts the spirits onward with its force, swirling and mauling and harassing...
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...The character of Dante changes throughout the divine comedy. There are four main points that should be noticed throughout the comedy that contrast the ways that he is acting. He progresses from a man that is straying from God's path, to a man of holyness and well being. Below are the four main transition points that Dante the character goes through. Beginning the story is a 35 year old man, lost hopelessly in the woods of life, until he notices that he is lost and decides he needs to do something about it.”So drugged and loose with sleep had I become when I first wandered there from the True way.”He tries to make his way to heaven but is halted by sin. Then, he meets Virgil, who takes him on a journey which begins the transformation of Dante. This is the start of Dante transforming into more than one who is lost, not following God to a good God following person. Dante and Virgil travel down into hell (the Inferno) only for Dante to faint in the second circle. He is so overwhelmed by this emotion that he faints.”Blind, like one whom sleep comes over in a swoon, I stumbled into darkness and went down.”As he descends down throughout the Inferno, sympathy leaves him. He hardens himself against all empathy...
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...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,...
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...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...
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...The Devil and the Modern Manager The Devil and the Modern Manager Organizational lessons from the Inferno – first part of Dante’s Divine Comedy By Mainak Sankar Maiti (1730 words) Fig 1 – “The Abyss of Hell” by Sandro Botticelli1 Introduction Dante Alighieri wrote the epic poem “Divine Comedy” (Italian: Divina Commedia) in the period 1308 A.D to 1321 A.D. Considered one of the greatest works on World literature, the poem is an allegorical representation of man’s journey towards God. The poem is divided in three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Of all the three parts, Inferno remains the most celebrated and the most influential till date. Numerous artworks and books have been inspired by the Inferno. The works inspired by the Inferno range 1|P age The Devil and the Modern Manager from the Renaissance painter Botticelli’s illustrations of the hell to modern computer games. More than seven hundred years have passed; however, the Inferno continues to enthral readers all around the world. But, does the Inferno have anything in store for a manager seeking to achieve organizational efficiency? Dante’s macabre vision of hell was brought to life by Botticelli in his infamous painting “The Map of Hell” or, “The Abyss of Hell”, which remains one of the most fear-invoking artworks of all time. But, can that work invoke some new thoughts in the mind of a management student and expand his span of thinking, his horizons? Hell – the Model Organization “Organizational...
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...of wrongdoing with an alternate sort of discipline, fluctuating according to the level of offense they conferred in life. In his outing through each one of these circles, Dante acknowledges and underlines the perfection of God's Justice and the seriousness of every offense towards the maker of all life. Dante as a Christian understands the perfection of God's justice. He can make an association between a spirit's wrongdoing on Earth and the discipline he or she gets in Hell. In Inferno, Dante clarifies that God made Hell by justice, a particular case of this, may be the point at which he was entering the Gates of Hell, he read on the passageway of the entryway the sign that said, "Sacred Justice moved my Architect I was raised here by the Divine Omnipotence..." (Alighieri Canto III) without a doubt, ascribing the making of Hell to God and his heavenly justice. God's perfect justice is precisely what shapes...
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...Dante’s Influences on Modern Works Over the years some literature works have left a legacy throughout human history. Their legacy was built through their influences on the different works of art, sculptures, later pieces of literature, songs, poem, films and sometimes video games. The Inferno part of Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy is one such literature work that is also one of the most well-known, well-referenced pieces of work today. It described in great detail Dante's vision of what hell would be like, and in doing so invented many of the tropes associated with Hell. This has led to several film adaptations and— most recently — a video game "adaptation”. References to Dante's Inferno in film can be found as far back as, draws heavily from Dante's Inferno. Se7en is a 1995 American crime film starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, and many other star-powered actors and actresses. The film is about the hunt of two homicide detectives, Detectives Sommerset and Mills, for a sadistic serial killer who murders in correspondence to one of the Seven Deadly Sins which his victim has committed. The murderer is determined by his desire to punish the world for its ignorance of the Seven Deadly Sins, viewing himself as akin to the Sword of God in handing out punishment of sins. As Detective Sommerset researches the Seven Deadly Sins to better understand the motive of the killer, Detective Mills simply scoffs at his efforts. Throughout the film, the detectives make numerous references...
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...In the Bible sin is considered sin not matter the action, the form, or fashion. Wrong is considered wrong, and no one is bigger than the other is. This is explained in Luke 12:47–48. Secondly, each level had a certain eternal punishment or suffering. Like the over shadowing of demonic animals or the endless storms, in the bible the environment is described differently. It is said to just be a like a place of darkness. Maybe worse than what Dante idealized. In conclusion, the Divine Comedy has many unique scenes that no other epic could measure up to. From the unfortunate loss of his home to the love of his life being married off and passing away. He used his pain and emotions to create the great story that has influenced the past, present, and will most likely have an effect in the future. Dante not only wrote a story but he wrote something that will always be a line between religion and...
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...St. Thomas Aquinas’ “Summa Theologica” he bases the relationship between nature and grace on the human purpose. Since we are all rational beings with an ultimate goal of reuniting with God, Aquinas’ believes that both grace and nature will allow us to achieve the human goal. Aquinas explains that reason and revelation parallel moral development of virtue and grace. Reason is something you can practice, much like the four cardinal virtues temperance, courage, justice, and wisdom. These three theological virtues faith, hope and love help you achieve grace. These virtues come from gift of God’s grace and perfect the natural abilities of humans to know and love. “According to Thomas natural reason can know the external world without divine illumination and can discern the structure of created things through its sciences. Reason has a legitimate domain in analyzing the human person, ethics and politics. Thomas even extends reason’s competence to certain ‘spiritual’...
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