Analysis of the Inferno of Dante Alighieris Divine Comedy Essay

Analysis of the Inferno of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri is considered by many as the first great poem in the Italian language and perhaps the greatest poem written in Medieval Europe. The poem is so famous that one of the minor characters, Capaneus the great blasphemer, has his name on a mesa on one of Jupiter's moon Io (Blue, 1). Also, the poem is divided into three canticles, or sections, "Inferno," "Purgatorio,' and "Paradisio." For the purposes of this paper, only "Inferno" will be discussed. In "Inferno," Dante the Pilgrim is lost. In his wanderings he encounters three specters, the leopard, the lion, and the she-wolf. Dante runs away from these three foes and is stopped by Virgil, a Roman era poet. Virgil promises to show Dante hell, purgatory, and then Beatrice, a dead friend of Dante's will show him heaven. Dante agrees and they embark. Dante and Virgil see many scary and terrifying sites in hell. He first sees the indecisionists who in life could not make up there mind who in death are forced to run after a flag. They visit Limbo, where those who were not baptized but lived a virtuous life stay. They see various sinners of the lesser circles, Paolo and Francesca, the adulterous lovers and the sinners who committed anger, greed, avarice, and gluttony. They enter the City of Dis and see the heretics in their coffins. They travel down a river of blood where the murderers are kept. As they travel farther down into hell, they see worse sins and even worse punishments for those sins. Finally they see Lucifer. Then, they climb a rock cliff and escape hell.... ... understand these levels, literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical, one must first understand Dante's symbolism. Works Cited Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Trans. Henry F. Cary. New York: P.F. Collier & Son Corp., 1960. Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Trans. John Carlyle. New York: Vintage Books, 1959. Blue, Jennifer. "Io Nomenclature Mensa." Io Nomenclature. http://wwwflag.wr.usgs.gov/USGSFlag/Space/nomen/jupiter/ioTOC.html > (30 December 1999). Forman, Roberts, J. "Dante Alighieri." Magill's Survey of World Literature. Vol. 2. New York: Marshall Cavendish Corp., 1993. 500-503. Kashdan, Joanne G. "The Divine Comedy." Masterplots. 1727-1731. Pirandello, Luigi. "The Poetry of Dante." Dante. Ed. John Freccero. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965.