Inferno Essays (Examples)

Infeno as an Epic

An epic poem has seveal standad featues to it. These include that the poem is a naative on a lage scale; that the poem is a stoy of adventue, usually involving a heo on some kind of quest; that the poem begins in the middle of the action o in medias es; that it contains a link to myth o legend; that battles and peilous jouney's ae a majo pat of the action; and that thee is a efeence to the supenatual, Gods o the undewold. By compaing the poem "The Infeno" to these qualities of an epic, it will be shown that the poem qualifies as an epic poem, meeting evey one of these qualities.

Fistly, the poem is a naative on a lage scale. The poem is a naative on a lage scale in thee ways. It is an epic in tems of its…

Inferno by Dante Alighieri

The gates of hell are littered with monsters, and the monsters are the gates to the sinners' hearts. In Dante Alighieri's Inferno, monstrosity is not only shown through the punishments of the sinners in each circle of hell; it is also shown in the grotesqueness and violent traits exhibited by each corresponding demon that Dante meets. Cerberus, the Harpies, and Lucifer are just some of the prominent creatures inhabiting the underworld, all exhibiting the ugliness of the sins portrayed in their own circles -- gluttony, suicide, and betrayal.

As Dante enters the gates of the underworld in Canto VI, he is met with "monstrous and cruel" (12) Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guards the entrance of the dead. Cerberus is a fearsome creature, a giant beast that claws at the sinners of the first circle: gluttony. In classical Greek mythology, Cerberus is nothing but a fearsome…

tracing the relationship of Dante and Virgil based on Robert Pinsky's translation, the Inferno of Dante.

Review The Inferno of Dante.

Both writers and scholars demonstrate their thinking and polarism in this epic poem. Dante's selection of Virgil to lead him through the underworld is significant unto itself.

Robert Pinsky is a distinguished poet and translator of "The Inferno of Dante" (Farrar, traus & Giroux, 1994). The "Inferno" -- which is the first part of Dante's "Divina Commedia" -- remains a popular and compelling poem for modern readers; there have been at least fifty English versions of the "Inferno" in this century alone. Of course, any translator must rely on previous translations and commentators in undertaking such an ambitious task, and Pinsky has said that he depended largely on Charles ingleton's scholarly, painstakingly literal prose translation (1970), and on the best-known nineteenth-century American verse translation, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1867).…

Dante's Eighth Circle

Ulysses in Dante's Eighth Circle of the Inferno

In the Eighth Circle of the Inferno, Dante places all those souls whose vice was falsehood. It is a sensible dwelling place for them since it is the last Circle before the final Ninth Circle wherein dwells the Father of Lies, Satan or Dis. In the Eighth Circle, one finds flatterers, panderers, fortune tellers, hypocrites, thieves, evil counselors and more. hat all of them have in common is their practice of distorting the true nature of things. For that reason does Dante find Ulysses in the ditch of the evil counselors in Canto XXVI. This paper will examine a passage from this Canto and examine its context, significance, and my reaction to it.

In the eighth ditch of the Eighth Circle, Dante meets the evil counselors whose sin was to abuse their position and gift from God (which was…

Bhagavad-Gita and Dante's Inferno

This is a comparison between the Bhagavad-Gita and Dante's Inferno on the concept of heaven, hell and God. It has 2 sources.

Most religions and religious concepts that are well-known are ones that have concepts of a 'heaven,' a God. The 'Bhagavad-Gita' is an example of a book that presents a religious concept that consists of a belief in God (Krishna), heaven and demons, and it is one that is associated with Hindu beliefs. Through its teachings, it is said to encompass all human beings no matter what their religious beliefs are. In contrast and similarity to this is 'Dante's Inferno', a book that is not a book that teaches but rather presents a moral within an event that is not concerned with a specific religion but rather human beliefs as a whole, including the concept of heaven, hell and God as major components in it.…

The text is in this sense highly educational because it draws the attention, through literary language, to aspects which are often disregarded in everyday life nowadays.

In a general manner, Dante's Inferno, as is the trilogy the Devine Comedy may also represent the interior feelings of a tormented soul, trapped in its sinful thoughts and actions. A symbol in this sense can be considered the continuous circles of the Inferno which represent the decaying levels of humanity. The upper levels may still present some innocence as the sins are not evil but rather innocent because the people trapped in the Limbo lost the divine contact with God; for the lower levels however, which include fraud and treachery, the sins are unpardonable. Thus, while the Church can bring back faith, fraud and treachery as understood by Dante cannot be forgotten.

Indeed, parts of Dante's journey are today dissolute. Aspects such as…

.. By this way, no good spirit ever passes" (25). e also know what it means to be a Christian when Virgil tells Dante that the spirits they see in the first level of hell are there because while they were "before Christianity, the worshipped not God" (27). Here we know that Dante is trying to impress the importance of pleasing God.

It is also important to note that while Dante interjects politics into his poem, it is clear that political beliefs do not factor into the equation when it comes to living a good life. Politicians from all lifestyles are in hell as well as religious figures. For example, we see Brunetto and Pope Nicholas III in hell for their sins. Brunetto addresses Dante with a "sense of shame" (86) and Pope Nicholas III is quick to "declare his own evil ways" (102). ith these very real figures, Dante…

Dante's Inferno / Siddartha / City of Glass

Discuss the role of process and travel in shaping the journey of the protagonists, comparing and contrasting at least two of the texts we have read.

In both Dante's Inferno and Hesse's Siddhartha, the process of finding the way to get onto the "path of Truth" as well as the journey to that Path are central to the stories. Religious doctrines mostly pretend to show a person the "Path." Christianism is often criticized for being exclusive since the follower is expected to take the teachings of this religion as the only way to gain salvation. On the other side, Hinduism is considered to count among the less restricting religions. This is, of course, subject to interpretation. Theat is why, both Dante and Hesse approach the theme of enlightenment from a slightly different point-of-view. In the case of Siddhartha, the idea is that…

The punishments Dante witnesses and which he imparts to the reader of his epic are appropriate in that they evoke a powerful psychological reaction.

If the punishments had been self-inflicted, the tone and meaning of the work would change dramatically. One of the underlying messages of the Inferno is of the absolute nature of God's power and of the nature of eternity. Hell in the Inferno is no temporary state of being but rather eternal damnation for sinners. If the punishments had been self-inflicted, the power of both God and Satan would have been undermined by the power of human will and repentance. The fact that Satan and his minion Minos exact these punishments on the human sinners proves the power of the divine over human beings. If the human sinners elected to punish themselves it would have demonstrated the power of human will can overcome the wrath of God…

Dante's Inferno And Manzoni's The Betrothed

Alessandro Manzoni's only novel The Betrothed is a national institution in Italy and second in popularity in this history of Italian literature only to Dante's Divine Comedy. He was a liberal nationalist from an aristocratic family and a leading supporter of the reunification (Risorgimento) of Italy. His novel is set in Lombardy in 1628-31 and was in fact a call for liberation from foreign rule, which was still the norm in the fragmented Italy of the 1820s. Manzoni had been an unbeliever as a young man, but later rejoined the church and became very devout, which is why he took Dante seriously and incorporated themes and images from his work into The Betrothed. He believed in sin, salvation and damnation, and the power of conversion experiences that both he and the characters in his story underwent. Dante was also from the aristocracy and his…

Dante's Inferno: Canto

The canto is moving in that it depicts the passionate love of one for another and how, even once killed, both will stay together for eternity. No wonder that this canto and the love of Francesca for Paolo have remained a favorite of classical artists. And yet I am left with confused conclusions regarding what Dante wants to convey. On the one hand, he puts the lovers in Hell, but on the other hand he faints for them and seems to feel more suffering and empathy with these citizens of Hell (that even seem, through their love, to triumph over their surroundings) that it seems as thoguh Dante criticizes the ruthlessness of their suffering and may even condemn it as senseless. Torn between the fervently religious mores of his time that perceived even meek extra-marital love as adulterous and between his own romantic experiences, it seems to…

Dante's "Inferno," Reader Response

Dante's "Inferno" tells the story of Dante, a good man who has lost his way on the road of life and so finds himself on the precipice of Hell. "hen I had journeyed half our life's way,/I found myself within a shadowed forest,/for I had lost the path that does not stray" (I, 1-3). Having strayed onto the path that leads to a permanent residence in Hell, Dante is kept from passing by several great beasts and, when he has lost all hope and is sure he will be devoured, encounters Virgil who directs him to another path, this one a direct route to Hell. The idea here seems to be that if he continued on the path he was treading, he would have been devoured and become a permanent inhabitant of Hell, a fate Virgil's intervention -- upon Beatrice's request -- is meant to prevent.…

Hell

Aligheiri Dante's "Inferno" is the first of three books in Dante's classical work "The Divine Comedy." The "Inferno" pursues Dante's journey through Hell on his path to discovering God. He begins at the bottom Hell in sin, and must fight his way to the top through a variety of adventures, where lovely Beatrice awaits him in Paradise. In modern times, Dante's work is still quite applicable, because there are many people who deserve to reside in Hell. Instead of nine circles, today there are three -- High Hell, Middle Hell, and Deepest Hell. High Hell is reserved for those who have sinned, but not critically.

The punishment in High Hell would be similar to Dante's labyrinth, but a great beast would not guard it. Howard Stern would guard it, and his continual and never-ending comments would be audible throughout the labyrinth. There is no exit from this labyrinth, and…

The Inferno: Cantos IV

The epic poem The Inferno, the first part of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, tells the story of the author on Good Friday in the 14th century. Lost in the forest, he encounters the spirit of the poet Virgil, who promises to reunite him with his beloved. In order to do so, they must take a path through hell. The Inferno is Dante’s tale of the underworld and subtle commentary on sin. There is much that is revealing regarding all the separate parts of this epic poem. This paper will discuss the many themes of the fifth Cantos. This Cantos shows us Dante’s panache for mixing history and myth as a means of confusing the reader, making the backdrop of hell appear more hellish. Also the relative innocuousness of the sins of the sinners of this level of hell also gives the entire presentation of…

Dante's Inferno Before Referencing

Dante's conception of his poetic identity in "The Inferno"

On the surface, it may seem as if Dante of "The Inferno," conceives of himself as a naive man. In the middle of his life, he is found in a dark wood, wandering, symbolizing his uncertain sense of poetic and personal mission. He is confronted by a poetic guide who will lead him through the underworld and teach him about the nature of sin: "For the straightforward pathway had been lost" (I.3). But the fact that the greatest of classical poets, Virgil, comes to greet Dante in his lost and fallen state is itself an indication of Dante's high esteem of himself as a poet. Dante characterizes himself as a great poet in progress, not simply a naive pilgrim. After all, Dante is important enough that the great Latin author will tend to his spiritual needs, and…

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. hile on that level,…

The second category of sin punished in hell is violence, as God wants violent people to suffer in seventh circle of hell because of their dedication to ignore their human natures in favor of behaving similar to animals. Hell punishes here people who committed violent acts against others, against themselves, and against God or one of His creations.

Dante focuses on two main concepts when talking about violence: bestiality and infertility. Humans are typically considered to be a combination between angels and animals, meaning that they are expected to share traits with both groups. The seventh circle of hell contains a series of creatures that appear to be human, but that also have characteristics from animals. Infertility is most probably meant to be a reference regarding the fact that violence is always in vain, considering that it never generates any benefits. Life appears to be absent from the seventh circle,…

Upon entering a place that appears to be hell, though it looks oddly like a coldly modern, windowless hotel, each of Sartre's characters expects to be tortured for his or her supposed sins. The wait; however, turns out not to be for the arrival of some "other," but rather the discovery that one's own self, and one's fellow human beings, perform the job perfectly well.

arcin, like Judas, is consumed by the need to possess powers and capabilities beyond that of any other human being. Much as Judas cannot submit to the ultimate Divine Truth, arcin fins it impossible to admit his own frailties. He detests Ines for recognizing his failings, but fails to see that his greatest weakness is his lust need for self-preservation despite the toll it takes on his psyche and his character. arcin would, in his own mind, be a noble man, if there were never…

Introduction
Dante’s Inferno, in essence, gives a vivid account of hell from the poet’s perspective. There are a wide range of lessons that could be learnt from this particular divine comedy. In this discussion, I concern myself with the greed circle. This fourth circle hosts those souls undergoing punishment for greed. Here, Dante and Virgil meet souls who are condemned to drag heavy loads from one place to another. The all important question I shall be seeking to answer is: is greed satiable? A bottomless pit, greed fatigues an individual and keeps one focused on an eternal pursuit of needs that will never be fully satisfied.
Discussion
In Dante’s inferno, greed, as has been pointed out in the introductory section, is identified as the fourth circle of hell (Fowlie 141). This is where the souls of persons undergoing punishment for their materialism, possessiveness, and greed undergo punishment. It is important…

Images of Refined Love:

Beroul's Tristan and Dante's Inferno

Love has many faces, earthly and sacred. Passion is love, but so is devotion. Sometimes one must fight for one's beloved, and sometimes it is one's beloved who dispels the demons. The medieval concept of Refined Love combined these aspects of the quest within and the quest without, of the noble and the ignoble, and of the sinful and the sacred. The knight who sought the hand of the forbidden lady risked transgression against the laws of the church. If his love was pure; if he did not let that love become physical, he could remain righteous. The virtuous maiden was one of the most potent symbols of the age. Mary, the Mother of God, had been born without sin, and had conceived without sin. Chastity was of the noblest of virtues. The soul unsullied by earthly love made for itself…

Numerology and the Political Overtones of 'Inferno'

There are many layers contained within Dante's "Inferno." There is a spiritual layer, a literal layer, a political layer and many other subtle, underlying themes. One of the key elements in "Inferno" is the use of chronology and numbers to express certain ideals about his foes and political views. Numbers play and important symbolic role in the Catholic Church and their use as symbols cannot be ignored, especially that of the chronological placement of his foes on the road to Hell. Many authors of the time used a standard numerology system to express certain viewpoints or ideals (Guzzardo, p. 7). The following research will support the thesis that Dante's experiment was successful in the use of allegory to hide underlying political ideas, that were otherwise dangerous in his time, and that chronology and numbers played an important role in his ability to do…

Annotated Bibliography
Alighieri, Dante. "The Divine Comedy, Volume I: Inferno, trans. Mark Musa." New York: Penguin Classics, 2003.
Translator Mark Musa provides a blank verse translation of the first book of the Italian epic, Dante’s Comedia. The first book focuses on Dante’s descent into Hell, after becoming lost and confused a in a dark wood—a metaphor for Dante’s stumble from the path of the straight and narrow that leads to Heaven. Having fallen by the wayside, Dante is confronted by three beasts, whereupon aid arrives to guide Dante back to the straight and narrow thanks to Beatrice, who is watching over Dante from Heaven. However, it is a very circuitous route, and Dante can only get there by taking a course through Hell, the intention being that he should see what happens to souls who die in the state of mortal sin: they spend eternity suffering in Hell.
To guide…

Inferno, Canto 12" by Alighieri Dante. Specifically, it will contain an analysis of the simile and meaning of Canto 12. This work will focus on his use of the epic simile, especially as it relates and illuminates the role of knowledge in the poem.

CANTO

In Canto 12 of Dante's "Inferno," Dante employs an epic simile in which he compares a bull on the way to slaughter to the dreaded Minotaur, guardian of the labyrinth, and a living symbol of the violence throughout the story that Dante must face to make his way finally to Paradise. This simile portrays both the tension of the moment, and the story as a labyrinth Dante must negotiate to find his ultimate reward, life in heaven with the woman he adores.

The "Inferno" is the first of three books that make up Dante's classical work "The Divine Comedy." The "Inferno" follows Dante's journey through…

Nature of Justice -- ecular or Divine?

Comparative Essay

The comparison of Antigone and Dante's Inferno is interesting as they are really quite different in style, tone, context, and story type. Both stories address the choices made by mankind, and the allegiances that people form and that impact their actions. Dante is in charge of the telling in his story, but Antigone must suffer through the interpretations, telling, and retelling of her story and that of her opponent.

Antigone. Third of the three Theban plays, Antigone is a tragedy attributed to ophocles circa 442 BC. Of the three plays set in the city of Thebes, Antigone was created first but is chronologically the last in the stream of events. Establishing the premises related to the characters in the story is dominant in the first part of the play, then the action relentlessly advances toward the outcome, which the reader assumes…

Dante, Boethius, And Christianity

Dante Alighieri, author of the Divine Comedy, of which the Inferno is the first of three books, called Boethius, an early Christian, "The blessed soul who exposes the deceptive world to anyone who gives ear to him." But Boethius was not a non-conflicted Christian, and it seems, neither was Dante, who wrote the Divine Comedy at least partly as a sort of historical-political payback. (For example, in Canto VI of the Inferno, Ciacco mentions Pope Boniface VIII, the reigning Pope of his time, "whose intervention in the affairs of the city was, in Dante's view, a main cause of its miseries" (Sinclair, p. 95). St. John, on the other hand, was a non-conflicted Christian, who believed wholly in Jesus as the son of God, and entertained no other ideas. Although he likely wrote, and therefore thought in Greek, his devotion to Jesus, as one of Jesus'…

Tom Shulich ("ColtishHum")

A comparative study on the theme of fascination with and repulsion from Otherness in Song of Kali by Dan Simmons and in the City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre

ABSACT

In this chapter, I examine similarities and differences between The City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre (1985) and Song of Kali by Dan Simmons (1985) with regard to the themes of the Western journalistic observer of the Oriental Other, and the fascination-repulsion that inspires the Occidental spatial imaginary of Calcutta. By comparing and contrasting these two popular novels, both describing white men's journey into the space of the Other, the chapter seeks to achieve a two-fold objective: (a) to provide insight into the authors with respect to alterity (otherness), and (b) to examine the discursive practices of these novels in terms of contrasting spatial metaphors of Calcutta as "The City of Dreadful Night" or "The City of…

Dante and Beatrice

An Analysis of the Relationship of Beatrice to Dante

Dante describes his meeting with Beatrice at an early age and in La Vita Nuova (The New Life) discusses and poeticizes the love he instantly held for her. Beatrice becomes for Dante a gate to the divine love that he examines in La Comedia, today referred to as The Divine Comedy. This paper will analyze the relationship between Dante and Beatrice and show how her role in his life is like that of a muse -- an agent of God, drawing the poet closer and closer not to herself but to the Divine.

The Vita Nuova

In the Vita Nuova, of course, Dante is drawn solely to Beatrice without anticipating the higher love that Beatrice reflects in her own person. It is this reflection in her that attracts Dante, although he does not place it as a reflection…

There it is called the underworld and truly reminds one of the subconscious in many ways. For the Greeks, this is just one aspects of life after death.. In some sense it seems more closely associated with the Christian idea of limbo. Heaven has its counterpart in the Elysian fields. In the Inferno hell is again representing the subconscious, but in it's more visceral and active and judgmental aspect. In general the "nature" of man to be violent, deceiving, etc. is found in hell in varying degrees. Yet one has some pity for many of its inhabitants, the same as in the Odyssey.

But why these visions of gods and hell by these authors? Jung points out that the introversion necessary to look within is the common factor:

The visionary phenomena, produced in the first stages of introversion, are grouped among the well-known phenomena of hypnagogic vision. They form, as…

hen considering the effectiveness and logic of this, I do not think that similar methods should be used to punish those who have been judged guilty of crimes in our era.

The first reason I disagree with Dante's methods is that there seems to be no point to the punishments given. I believe that punishing people in a way that is fitting to the crime will only work to reinforce the kind of behavior that led to the crime. One clear example is with people who have committed wrath, with all these people placed together so they will be violent against each other. In considering these people, there is little chance that they will become better people because of the punishment. Instead, they will have little choice but to become increasingly violent. In this way, the crime fitting the punishment has no positive outcome, but has a negative one. It…

For some people, beating on drums and meditation is a spiritual way to experience their religion on a higher level, which releases a different understanding.

The Decameron includes a frame story about the plague in Florence in 1348, which can be explained from the following.

AN EPOCH-AKING EVENT in the development of early Italian narrative is the canonization, thanks to the astounding success of Boccaccio Decameron, of the cornice, the framing device. The formula of the novelliere aperto, the loosely structured anthology of stories (such as the Novellino), becomes secondary to that of the novelliere chiuso, in which a meta-story encompasses all others. In contemporary developments within the genre of lyric poetry, the fragmentary collection evolves into the prosimetrum (Dante Trita nuova) and the canzoniere (Petrarch Rime). In order to monitor the progress of literary forms out of the archaic period, one must focus on the development of innovative modes…

Indeed, similarities between Virgil and Dante's depiction of the underworld were evident in Canto IX, wherein Dante witnessed suffering in the City of Dis:

To the high tower with the flame-tipped top

Where at one spot there straightaway stood up

Three infernal Furies stained with blood,

Their bodies and behavior that of women.

Their waists were cinctured with green hydras;

For hair they had horned snakes and poison adders

With which their savage temples were enwreathed.

This passage reflects Dante's subjective interpretation of what Limbo, or the City of Dis, is like: similar to Virgil, he believed that the underworld is a place where suffering thrives and moral decline the cause of humanity's hardships. Furthermore, the underworld is a state where restlessness and dissatisfaction in life is the norm rather than the exception. Fury, as reflected in the passage, reigns in the underworld, an emotional state that was the result…

Dante, Sophocles, Gilgamesh REVISED

The Epic of Gilgamesh, Dante's Inferno and Sophocles Oedipus the King are all classic and foundational estern texts which depict, en passant, the importance of humankind's demand to know, to explore and penetrate the unknown, to arrive at ultimate truths about existence and its mysteries, and to find meaning or value therein. I hope to demonstrate with reference to specific episodes -- that of Utnapishtim in Gilgamesh, of the episode of Ulysses in Dante's Inferno, and in the great address to the protagonist hymned by the chorus of Sophocles' tragedy of Oedipus -- this complicated depiction of human intellectual overreach.

Dante provides us with the basic topos of this kind of overreach as a sort of failed heroism, or heroism that breaks forth the bounds of Aristotelian temperance (or sophrosyne) and becomes, paradoxically, a vice. (The Aristotelian definition of sin is central to Dante, since his…

teacher & student relationship between Dante and Virgil in Dante's Inferno

his paper presents a detailed examination of the relationship between Dante and Virgil in Dante's Inferno. he writer uses examples and character analysis to present the relationship between the two to the reader.

he unfolding of Dante's Inferno is one in which the reader is drawn into the personality characteristics of the players. Because the topic of the writing is enmeshed in the understanding of hell it is important that the reader become attached to the various players in the work so the reader can understand who the events took place. he relationship between Dante and Virgil is extremely important to the context of the story. Dante and Virgil have a relationship that provides a tour and pathway to the ideas the writer wants the reader to understand and grasp. he relationship between the two moves in several directions…

Dante

One of the great ironies of Dante's Inferno is the centrality of earth-bound fame, moral reputation, praise and blame. The importance of reputation would seem to contradict Virgil's efforts in leading Dante through Purgatory to impart a more meaningful moral message. Yet it is important to remember that Dante travels alive; Virgil's lessons are instructive in a direct and practical manner. Dante ascertains life lessons from those he encounters in the afterlife, so that he may improve his prospects for earthbound fame. The importance of fame seems paradoxical when considered in light of the transitory nature of existence. However, Purgatory presents the consequences of a poor public relations scheme. Investment in moral reputation has the potential to strengthen The Divine Comedy's overarching pretensions, by linking the importance of one's earthly life to the life beyond.

Dante makes it clear that reputation does not necessarily have to be pristine to…

Juliet knows there is no hope of reasoning with her father. Capulet's treatment of his daughter is symptomatic of his general lack of respect for women -- he tells the nurse to "Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl" and will not listen to his wife when she tells him he is too 'hot' in his reproaches of his daughter (III.5). His attitude is why Juliet lies to him and concocts a plan with Friar Lawrence to pretend to be dead, and be reunited with Romeo. She knows what her father wants to hear: "Henceforward I am ever ruled by you," she says, after she has created the plot involving the magic potion (IV.2). She believes has no choice: he refuses to listen to her when she tries to be honest.

Although Shakespeare wrote his famous romantic play during the 16th century, the types of attitudes he portrays as existing…

Dante

Of all the people for consideration of placing in Inferno, Osama Ben Ladin is by far the most worthy candidate. He is directly responsible for the death of thousands of innocent men, women and children and has caused unspeakable grief and sorrow, not only in the United States, but around the world. His actions directly led to military intervention in Afghanistan and possibly in Iraq as well. These events have led to the loss of thousands more, with many being civilians unable to escape the death and destruction of war. Ben Ladin is also guilty of betraying the Muslim religion, using it to justify hate, war, and mass murder and has mislead the religious beliefs of his followers. In doing so, he states that God has blessed a group of vanguard Muslims, the forefront of Islam, to destroy America.

There's no question of whether Ben Ladin should to go…

'"("Arabian Nights Entertainments," 891) Thus, the spiritual renewal and the moral lesson of forgiveness are accomplished by the miracle of love. The larger frame of the story thus comprises as major lesson on love as a magical and healing power.

Dante's Divine Comedy is an extremely ambitious and impressive work, and one of the greatest writings inspired by the Christian religion. Needless to say, love is essential to Christianity and it is preached in all its different forms. Dante's poem with its effusion of imagination and symbols, as well as through its morally compelling content is similar to the Arabian Nights in that it can be classified as a monument of ingenuity. The structure of Dante's Divine Comedy with its three main divisions and its one hundred cantos is very symbolic. Thus, not accidentally, Dante and his guide Virgil travel progressively from the outward circles to the lowest circles of…

The Aeneid

Taking a character from The Iliad and setting him on his own journey, the Roman Virgil's epic The Aeneid necessarily contains certain parallels with the earlier Greek text. The overall story of this lengthy poem in and of itself reflects many of the same basic understandings of mankind's place in the universe, its relationship to the gods, and the relationships that exist within society and between men that are already described above, demonstrating that no real fundamental change has occurred in this schema. Aeneas, the titular hero of the tale who flees his native Troy after it is sacked by the Greeks, is as important as the individual heroes of the war itself, but more than a tale of individual heroism The Aeneid is the story of the founding of a people and the long trajectory of history and humanity. It is a tale for and in many…

Pride in Literature

As a universally human characteristic, pride plays an important part in world literary themes. However, pride can be defined and perceived differently, and the term also has many different definitions. For example, pride can refer to a dignified type of satisfaction, as comes from taking pride in one's work. More often in literature, though, pride is depicted in a negative light and is usually featured as a tragic flaw that, if not overcome, brings about the hero's downfall. Moreover, the implications and meaning of pride in literature has changed over the course of time. Pride was portrayed as a necessary but dangerous trait of powerful leaders in the ancient epics of Greece and Mesopotamia like Gilgamesh, the Iliad, and the Odyssey. The trait of pride reached a sort of thematic culmination in the Old English work Beowulf, in which the title character's pride contributes positively to his…

Twelve-Step Program to Escaping Dante's Hell

Dante's The Inferno paints an incredibly vivid picture of what Hell is like. The journey Dante undertakes in order to progress past his 'lost' stage and escape Hell can be likened to the 12-Step Program a recovering alcoholic must complete in order to finally escape from the clutches of drinking to excess. This paper endeavors to explore Dante's journey through the perspective of this 12-Step Program. y going through each step, one can witness the introspective and emotional self-examination Dante goes through, with a little help from his support group, in order to get out of Hell.

The first step that every recovering alcoholic must take involves the process of admitting his or her problem. Alcoholics must acknowledge that they are helpless when battling their addiction and they must admit that this addiction to drink has wreaked havoc on their lives to the point…

In The Inferno, Beatrice is more the goal to which the poet aspires as he passes through Hades, and later through Purgatorio before reaching Beatrice in the ideal Paradise.

Many of the elements of courtly love, which Dante expresses elsewhere with reference to his beloved Beatrice, are evident in this epic work as well. For example, Beatrice and the Virgin Mary are the two women who send Virgil to guide the poet through the Inferno, and this also adds luster to Virgil as a spiritual guide as Dante adheres to the Italian, Christian view of women, a school touched by sentiment and by the elevation of women to a high place. Beatrice is the ideal woman who is held in highest esteem by Dante. She is his symbol of all that is high and beautiful, and her selection of Virgil does him credit. Virgil is to be his guide through…

" James a.S. McPeek

further blames Jonson for this corruption: "No one can read this dainty song to Celia without feeling that Jonson is indecorous in putting it in the mouth of such a thoroughgoing scoundrel as Volpone."

Shelburne

asserts that the usual view of Jonson's use of the Catullan poem is distorted by an insufficient understanding of Catullus' carmina, which comes from critics' willingness to adhere to a conventional -- yet incorrect and incomplete -- reading of the love poem. hen Jonson created his adaptation of carmina 5, there was only one other complete translation in English of a poem by Catullus. That translation is believed to have been Sir Philip Sidney's rendering of poem 70 in Certain Sonnets, however, it was not published until 1598.

This means that Jonson's knowledge of the poem must have come from the Latin text printed in C. Val. Catulli, Albii, Tibulli, Sex.…

Miller and Eliot on Beauty

Comparing and Contrasting "Beauty" in Miller and Eliot

Arthur Miller and T.S. Eliot are two 20th century American playwrights. hile the latter is more commonly noted for expatriating to Britain and writing some of the most memorable poetry of the early 20th century, the former is noted for his famous depiction of the common man's struggle to find meaning and fulfillment in Death of a Salesman. As distinct as the two writers may seem, they both conceive of and treat the theme of beauty -- Miller analyzing its absence in Salesman, and Eliot analyzing its abandonment in several poems like "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and "The asteland." This paper will compare and contrast both writers and show how they deal with the theme of beauty in their works.

The Absence of Beauty in Salesman and "Prufrock"

Beauty is missing from illy Loman's…

Finally, Vigil's pesence thoughout the Divine Comedy is thee fo a philosophical eason, as well; he is meant to epesent the claity of eason in a spiitually chaotic univese.

Home, autho of the geat epic the Odyssey, also appeas in Dante's Divine Comedy, in the Limbo section of the Infeno. Home was also the autho of the Iliad, which tells the stoy of the Tojan Wa. Home's pesence in Dante's wok effectively connects the Floentine poet with the politics and poetics of ancient Geece. This is futhe symbolized by the fact that Home, in the Infeno, leads as "Lod" thee Latin poets - Hoace, Ovid, and Lucan. This futhe undelines the effect that the ancient Geeks had on the Romans - and the double influence that both had on Dante as a poet and politician.

The Latin poet Lucan, although not as well-known as Hoace and Ovid today, was an…

Unlike Teiresias, she does not use divination or prophecy but only her memory of events on earth. Finally, Odysseus sees the shades of various prominent characters from the Iliad and learns from this the manner of their deaths.

Dante is led to the Inferno (described as a physical journey under the earth, but, by this late date, clearly the journey is metaphorical) by Virgil. He does not seek divination, but does encounter (Canto XX) diviners, who, in poetic justice, are forced to walk with their heads turned backwards because, while on earth, they could not see the future as they claimed. Like Odysseus, Dante sees the eschatological fate of many recently deceased contemporaries. But in this case, the theme is used by Dante to suggest that his and his family's political enemies (he was a White Guelph) were, literally, damnable.

In the Odyssey, the journey to the underworld takes place…

In terms of Renaissance philosophy, Galileo Galilei is an example of a humanist who strongly defended the gradual flourishing and subsistence to the scientific revolution happening in his society during the Renaissance period. Galileo was a strong advocate for the usage of science in discovering truth and new knowledge, using the principles of mathematics and philosophy in strengthening the study of astronomy and physics in the society. Through Galileo, the nature of free scientific inquiry prevailed, challenging, though not condemning, philosophical and theological issues that cannot empirically answer truth and reality in life. Dante Alighieri's "Inferno," meanwhile, is a literary piece that represented his inquiry into the spiritual and humanistic foundations of human existence during his time. In a period wherein theological foundations and philosophies are being questioned, Dante's "Inferno" confronted the moral and spiritual issues being questioned by Dante and his society during this challenging period of Renaissance.

Following…

Desire has been a key catalyst awakening love from its passive state. "Till love, at last, out of its dreaming starts." The yearning and desire that struck strongly at the heart has caused the rebirth of desire, and the awakening of true love. Moreover, the power of the desire can be so great as to become a permanent fixture of the heart: "...and often, rooting there with longing, stays." The word "rooting" closely mirrors the earlier imagery of nature; the word "stays" is a direct repetition of the last word in line six: "stay." Rossetti portrays the heart as a fertile ground for the flourishing of love and passion.

Therefore, in "Love and the gentle heart," Rossetti refers to the type of love shared between the spouses in an old married couple. The married couple relies on the staying power of a gentle heart, a heart subject to nature's innate…

Apart from taking an authoritative role in the Symposium, many people consider her to be behind the doubts of her existence. She passes her wisdom to Socrates who in turn passes it to his many friends. She distinguishes the difference that existed between good and beautiful in the context of love. She emphasizes the significance of the object of love even in beauty and birth.

Duchess of Malfi by John Webster

The story presents a penetration of the surface of the anarchy of life that does not guarantee a divine moral pattern. Instead, the outcome is a cycle of terror. The Duchess are yet to conquer the horror to realize spiritual victory. My first encounters with the book Duchess of Malfi was through the course CL/EN2051: English Literature Before 1800. The Duchess of Malfi takes place during the 16th Century at the Duchess' palace in Italy. Ferdinand and the Cardinal…

[footnoteRef:32] This lack of forces for other Pacific struggles generally weakened the Japanese war effort, as the Japanese were forced to fight those battles with insufficient men, weapons, ammunition and other related materiel. [27: Eric Hammel. Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea: The Naval attle of Guadalcanal, November 13-15, 1942. Pacifica, CA: Pacifica Military History, 1999, p. 346.] [28: Colin G. Jameson. "attle of Guadalcanal: 11-15 November, 1942." www.history.navy.mil Web site. 1944. http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/battleguadalcanal1942.htm (accessed March 18, 2013), p. 78.] [29: Robert Leckie. Challenge for the Pacific: Guadalcanal: The Turning Point of the War (Paperback). New York, NY: antam ooks, 2010, pp. 127-128.] [30: Mark Stille. USN Cruiser vs. IJN Cruiser: Guadalcanal 1942. New York, NY: Osprey Publishing, 2009, pp. 19-20.] [31: Leckie, p. 306.] [32: Ibid.]

The Allied victory at the Naval attle of Guadalcanal through the leadership of Vice Admiral William F. Halsey, the Southwest Pacific Theater commander, was also a…

Management Project in the Health Care Organization Setting

This study describes the implementation of a syndromic surveillance system. The syndromic surveillance system collects and analyzes prediagnostic and nonclinical disease indicators, drawing on preexisting electronic data that can be found in systems such as electronic health records, school absenteeism records and pharmacy systems. The systems are utilized to identify specific symptoms within a population that may indicate a public health event or emergency such as signaling an outbreak of an infectious disease. school absenteeism records and pharmacy systems. The systems are utilized to identify specific symptoms within a population that may indicate a public health event or emergency such as signaling an outbreak of an infectious disease.

Informatics Management Project In The Health Care Organization Setting

Part One - Introduction

The objective of this study is to describe the implementation of a syndromic surveillance system. Syndromic surveillance systems collect and analyze…

Dante's journey through his 'mid-life' crisis. It uses 7 sources in MLA format and it has a list of bibliography.

Mid-life is a period in life in which adults take on new responsibilities, in the family, and at work and changes are often wrought within, not only in the physical but also in their spiritual self. The realities of life often stare them in the face, a very real possibility of death begins to strike them, their faith or lack of it is in doubt, very often there are crises in personal or work life, there is a general need to "reappraise previous life structures with an eye to making revisions while there is still time" (Huyck, 1997).

The term of "mid-life crisis" was originally coined by Jaques (1965) who claimed that people encounter a crisis as they realize their own mortality and a change in time frame from "time…

Dante Aligheri

Dante's Purgatorio

Dante's Divine Comedy depicts three possibilities of life after death: Inferno, or Hell, where the unsaved spend eternity, Purgatorio or Purgery, where the saved who still have some sins to account for go, and finally Paradiso, or Paradise, the final destiny of the faithful. The Canto's of each possibility are told through the viewpoint of Dante and Virgil, who make the journey together. The discussion that follows is focused on the insights and meaning derived from the two artists' journey through Purgatorio.

The Spiritual Meaning of Purgatorio

The main, spiritual meaning of Purgatorio focuses on the fact that it is a transitory state between the death of the body and the spirit's ascendance to heaven. In contrast to Inferno, the souls doing penance here have the hope of its end and of their final admission into paradise. The atmosphere in this place also substantiates the feeling…

Qu'an simila to and diffeent fom the Holy Bible? Give examples fom each wok to illustate thei similaities and diffeences

The Qu'an is the holy book of Islam, the eligion established by Muhammad while the Holy Bible is the saced book of Chistianity. Thee ae a numbe of ways in which the Qu'an is simila as well as dissimila to the Holy Bible. Fo states, both of them consist of chonicles, teachings, poety, and epimanding. Seveal chonicles encompass the simila basic occasions and individuals. The Qu'an and the Bible both teach the ceation of the wold by a distinct almighty, all-knowing God who commands human beings to follow the moality set out fo them. Fist of foemost, one of the key simila doctine is that God, efeed to as Allah in the Qu'an, and Yahweh in the Bible, is the only ceato of all things in the univese and whose…

Dante’s Love
Dante’s love for Beatrice is truly at the core of Dante’s Divine Comedy. She is the one who prays for him when he first becomes lost in the dark wood and it is through her intercession that Virgil arrives to guide him through Hell—the dark night of the soul—to Purgatory, where Dante finally meets Beatrice, who then conducts him through Paradise—after rebuking him in Cantos 30 and 31 of the Purgatorio for having “taken himself from her and given himself to others” (Purg. 30.126). Beatrice reminds Dante of his “error” in succumbing to the songs of the “sirens” (Purg. 31.44-45) and thus serves for Dante as more than just a muse: she is virtue par excellence—which, of course, is why Dante places her in Heaven in the Paradiso and why she, not Virgil, serves as his guide for the final act of the Comedy. In real life, Beatrice…

The poet is in turmoil and he turns from his love in order to prevent tarnishing or "spoil" (Pound 2) her because she is surrounded by a "new lightness" (3). This poem reflects upon the importance of experience. Like the poets mentioned before, this poet wants us to consider every aspect of our actions. e should not only think of what we want to do but also how that desire and acting upon it will alter our lives. Robert Frost is focused upon the experience of nature. In "Dust of Snow," the poet brings poetry to life as if it were music. hen we read:

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree (Frost 1-4)

Here the poet wants to explore rather than embark on some discovery. These writers are different in their individuals styles but they each desire to connect with…

The "respectable" women did not have anything to worry about, and this shows the great class distinctions in England at the time. The author continues, "They reinforced prevailing prejudices about the East End as a strange territory of savages, a social abyss, an inferno" (Walkowitz 77). To the upper class, these people did not exist, and should not exist, especially the pubic women who were forced to make their life on the streets.

In addition, after the murders, there was so much public outcry that several of the lodging houses these women relied on were raised, which made them homeless as well as desperate. The public simply wanted the problem to disappear, but it just relocated the women to an even more precarious position. There were even people that tried to profit off the women's deaths, opening up museums with wax figures of them depicted in detail. In reality, these…

This, perhaps, has made me more of an avid listener that is eager to appreciate what others have got to say rather than being a high decibel demagogue that would neither brook any resistance nor would tolerate any dissidence, however mild that may be.

Thus, the very essence of communication, which is nothing but a means of encouraging and stimulating others to share their views while attempting to skillfully shepherd them to veer around towards the speaker's perspectives, and the form it would finally acquire, is heavily influenced by the speaker's personal behavioral traits.

Listening as a Potent Tool for Effective Communication

We must have heard numerous times the exhortation, "Listen carefully, I don't want repeat myself," in some form or the other but in our excessive eagerness to make ourselves heard, we have ignored such requests and pleas and put an unceremonious end to many a potentially enriching communication.…

Caderousse does nothing to prevent an innocent man from being accused. He has only a superficial role as part of the plot to frame the young man, and does not profit from it because of his incompetence and addiction. He even understands, however dimly, that Dantes will be able to take revenge, should the plot be discovered. When "one gets out of prison,' said Caderousse, who, with what sense was left him, listened eagerly to the conversation, 'and when one gets out and one's name is Edmond Dantes, one seeks revenge'" (Chapter 4). Caderousse eventually meets an untimely end, after murdering a man to whom he sold the jewel the Dantes deliberately gave to him, because Dantes knew that Caderousse's temper would result in the drunkard's destruction.

Villefort is perhaps the most complex character in The Count of Monte Cristo. At first, he states that he believes that Dantes is…

Their prostration before the Job had come to replace God for so many immigrants, even constituting something reflective of the mythological characterization of the circles of Hell. The author, once again describing the Lean, tells, "The barrow that he pushed, he did not love. The great God Job, he did not love. He felt a searing bitterness and a fathomless consternation at the queer consciousness that inflicted the ever mounting weight of structures that had to! had to! raise above his shoulders! hen, when and where would the last stone be? Never . . ." (Di Donato1, 8)

This last passage reflects a major device for punishment in Dante's Inferno, a classic literary description of the Seven Circles of Hell. The concept of a never-ending task which never gets smaller or larger, and which never proceeds any closer to or further from its goal, is described as a punishment designed…

The image of the fog is significant because the protagonist is comparing himself to the fog in that he skirts along the outside of what is happening. If he is like fog, moving slowly and quietly, he does not have to become involved but can still see what is going on. hen he writes that there will be time to "prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet" (27), he is simply avoiding the issue by putting off the inevitable. The protagonist convinces himself that there will be time to do all that he wants to do, such as "murder and create" (28), and "drop a question on your plate" (30). Allan Burns suggests that the images are important to the reader in that they "underscore Prufrock's low self-esteem: he identifies with the lonely working class men" (Burns 47) and the image of his dead being chopped off…