Dante's Inferno

Dante's Inferno The purpose of this review of Dante's Inferno was to detail two cantos from the tale and derive how accomplished a writer Dante actually was because of his use of imagination and reality. In canto five, after entering the second circle of hell and coming across the gatekeeper and Infernal judge named Minos, Dante and Virgil meet and converse with two tormented souls called Paolo and Francesca of Rimini. Dante hears there troubled story of adulterous love and how they were murdered.

In canto thirteen, after having been carried across a river by a centaur, Dante and Virgil enter the second level and seventh circle to discover it houses the tormented souls of those who have committed suicide to end the natural lives. Dante hears the tale of soul called Pier delle Vigne and discovers the reason for his presence in the dreadful place. While on that level, Dante also sees hounds chasing, catching and tearing apart the inhabitants. Dante had a definite interplay between reality and imagination.

For example, one would think that with the many tortures and the constant torment, these levels of hell would reek horrendously. Although not from either Canto five or thirteen, this example demonstrates how the author combined real and imagined to describe the smell of hell and his imagination makes it very real.

"Dante arrives at the verge of a rocky precipice which encloses the seventh circle, where he sees the sepulchre of Anastasius the heretic; behind the lid of which pausing a little, to make himself capable by degrees of enduring the fetid smell that steamed upward from the abyss, he is instructed by Virgil concerning the manner in which the three following circles are disposed, and what description of sinners is punished in each." (DANTE) Dante captures the stench precisely.

In Canto five, Dante has gone down to the second level of the beginnings of hell after being cautioned by Minos. The atmosphere of this level is loud and disturbing and Dante uses that vivid imagination of his to describe Minos. "There Minos stands, Grinning with ghastly feature; he, of all Who enter, strict examining the crimes, Gives sentence, and dismisses them beneath, According as he foldeth him around: .. " (DANTE). Dante notices two individuals together in torment and asks to speak with them.

The woman, Francesca of Rimini, was although married when human, fell in love with the other spirit, Paolo. Their hell was to spend the eternal future together for having commited the sin of adultery. Dante uses his reality prose here to show that although Francesce admits she committed adultery, she points out that she simply fell in love and they fell to temptation but one. "For our delight we read of Lancelot, How him love thrall'd. Alone we were, and no Suspicion near us.

Oft-times by that reading Our eyes were drawn together, and the hue Fled from our alter'd check. But at one point Alone we fell. When of that smile we read, The wished smile so rapturously kiss'd .. " (DANTE) Dante accurately describes passion and does not have to use imagination as he did to describe Minos. The author made it clear that adultery was a weakness that should have been overcome. Francesca and Paolo clearly represented the sin of adultery.

In canto thirteen, Dante and Virgil entered an area that had no path. Dante uses his imagination to describe both the level and the scene within the level.

"Still in the seventh circle, Dante enters its second compartment, which contains both those who have done violence on their own persons and those who have violently consumed their goods; the first changed into rough and knotted trees whereon the harpies build their nests, the latter chased and torn by black female mastiffs." (DANTE) Virgil convinces Dante to pull on one of the branches and to the dismay of Dante, he sees and hears that the branch bleeds and cries out.

Dante is offered an explanation by the spirit, Pier delle Vigne, of his condemnation for eternity within the tree. Here, Dante rolls back from imagination to use reality to describe the life of Vigne. "The faith I bore to my high charge was such, It cost me the life-blood that warm'd my veins.

The harlot, who ne'er turn'd her gloating eyes From Caecsar's household, common vice and pest Of courts, 'gainst me inflamed the minds of all; And to Augustus they so spread the flame, That my glad honours changed to bitter woes. My soul, disdainful and disgusted, sought Refuge in death from scorn, and I became, Just as I was, Unjust toward myself." (DANTE).