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Dante's Inferno
Dante Alighieri carefully selected Virgil as his guide through Hell because he could provide insights from the ancient world. As a man who lived in Rome’s pre-Christian past, Virgil was...
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Dante's Inferno
Dante is the author of Inferno,but he is also the protagonist and the point of view character. As the character from whose point of view the story is told, he acts as a catalyst for the reader to...
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Dante's Inferno
Virgil's primary role is to serve as Dante's guide through the hell. Dante, at 35, is halfway through life and feels he has lost his way. With the help of Beatrice, Dante gains what no mortal man...
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Dante's Inferno
Dante's ideas about sin (as seen in Dante's Inferno) were consistent with Roman ideology. For some, his categorization of sin could seem backward based upon the fact that he categorized the sins of...
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Dante's Inferno
As nearly every single canto in Inferno concerns a portion of hell containing an ironic punishment that is described in vivid detail, it would not at all be difficult to choose two cantos to...
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Dante's Inferno
As a literary device, a foil is a character that contrasts and emphasizes the qualities of another character, generally the protagonist. True foils always have a number of things in common with the...
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Dante's Inferno
The three types of sin that Dante describes in Inferno are thus: Incontinence, sometimes referred to as "inconstancy" or simply, "urges." Violence, including violence against God, others or one's...
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Dante's Inferno
In Canto III of Inferno, Virgil shows Dante the tortures awaiting "neutral" souls who served neither God nor Satan, and are thus claimed by neither Heaven nor Hell. They are accompanied by the...
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Dante's Inferno
Charon has absolutely no intention of letting Dante and Virgil on his boat to cross the river of Acheron. See, the thing is, they aren't dead, and Charon's boat is strictly for dead people. You...
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Dante's Inferno
Dante frequently alludes to the classical antecedents of Italian society, both in Greece and Rome. The religions of those states provide the sources of the numerous myths that he refers to or...
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Dante's Inferno
Charon is the ferryman of Hades, who transports souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divide the world of the living from the world of the dead. Dante is keen to find...
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Dante's Inferno
Charon is the ferryman who transports the dead to Hades. He is characterized by Dante as a prickly white-haired old man with fiery eyes. He refuses initially to take Dante across to the land of the...
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Dante's Inferno
Canto 18 is about those who have been condemned to hell for fraud. There isn't an obvious priest character in this section—I think you may be referring to Alessio of Lucca, whom Dante says is so...
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Dante's Inferno
In canto 3 of Dante's Inferno, Dante and his guide, the Roman poet Virgil, come to the banks of the river that separates the realms of the living from Hell, which only spirits may enter. An old man...
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Dante's Inferno
When Dante attempts to cross the river into the Underworld, Charon, the boat driver, tries to prevent him from going. He is angered that a living soul would attempt to enter the Underworld and see...
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Dante's Inferno
The first circle of hell is called limbo. Though the people here have lead virtuous lives, they were either unbaptized—including unbaptized babies—or born before the beginning of Christianity....
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Dante's Inferno
In the Purgatorio, canto 31, Beatrice says that Dante has betrayed her through being attracted to other women in the ten years since she has died. He has not been been faithful to her beauty, which...
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Dante's Inferno
As Dante and Virgil approach the gates of Hell, Dante starts getting more than a little scared, not least because the inscription above the gates says "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."...
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Dante's Inferno
There's an interesting distinction to be made when speaking about Inferno between the God of Christianity, and the Greek and Roman pagan influences. In Inferno, Dante weaves these two cosmologies...
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Dante's Inferno
There are two complications worth discussing before delving into the various particular examples that you are asking for. The first is that while Inferno does combine pre-Christian Pagan influences...
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Dante's Inferno
After Dante stumbles away from the good and righteous path at the beginning of the Inferno, he finds himself challenged by three wild beasts representing vices that lead to damnation. Soon, Dante...
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Dante's Inferno
Dante's Inferno is the first part of the three that make up the epic poem The Divine Comedy, the second being Purgatorio and the third, Paradiso. In it, Dante, both as a poet and a pilgrim, embarks...
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Dante's Inferno
The binary between light and dark is a very present theme in Dante's Inferno. At the beginning of the poem, Dante tries to climb a mountain to the light shining over it, but Virgil tells him that...
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Dante's Inferno
For an epic about Hell, Dante spends much more of his time concerned with humanity than deity. Dante delineates the various human vices and sins that lead people to eternal damnation and the...
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Dante's Inferno
This is an incredibly tricky question, and I believe there is a very multi-layered answer. Who is ultimately responsible for the consumption of sexual and violent messages from media? Is it the...
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Dante's Inferno
The Divine Comedy is a fourteenth-century epic poem written by the popular Italian poet Dante Alighieri. The poem is separated into three parts: Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso...
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Dante's Inferno
La Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy) is a fourteenth-century epic poem written by one of the most well-known Italian poets: Dante Alighieri. It consists of three parts: Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio...
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Dante's Inferno
Inferno tracks Dante's descent through the various circles of hell under the guidance of the Roman poet Virgil. Virgil plays a critical role within the poem—for it should be noted, Dante is not...
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Dante's Inferno
Judas Iscariot was one of the original twelve disciples of Jesus. But he notoriously betrayed Jesus to the authorities for thirty pieces of silver. When a crowd descended upon the Garden of...
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Dante's Inferno
Virgil is Dante’s traveling companion in Dante’s Inferno. Virgil is a poet from Ancient Rome who appears in ghost form, but he comes to Dante and guides him through the Inferno. Virgil is...
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Dante's Inferno
This is a good question. Charon, as you know, is the ferryman who takes people across the river in the underworld. Dante was familiar with Charon from Virgil's Aeneid (6.298-304 and 384-416)....
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Dante's Inferno
I think that Dante's understanding of the inferno and what it means to sin has parallels to the real world. The modern setting believes in categorization. Simply put, there is a category and...
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Dante's Inferno
In Dante's Inferno (by Dante Alighieri), Dante is on his life's journey and realizes he has become lost. The Roman poet Virgil comes to the rescue (at the request of Beatrice) to help Dante...
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Dante's Inferno
This will be an interesting placement because the characterization of Gilgamesh that is present at the start of the narrative is not the same vision at the end of it. In many ways, Gilgamesh is...
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Dante's Inferno
Your question was originally tagged with the novel Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers (a Vietnam War novel), but you had listed The Inferno at the bottom; so I'm assuming that you're referring to...
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Dante's Inferno
Canto XXXI of Dante's Inferno introduces the Ninth Circle of Hell, the level containing the very worst of the sinners. In Dante's vision, this circle consists of the traitors. The traitors are...
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Dante's Inferno
Dante's idea of love is that of courtly love. It is not a physically passionate relationship-more of an unrequited adoration that does not usually get consummated. Courtly love was rarely between...
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Dante's Inferno
Dante (the character) comes upon Brunetto Latini in Dante's Inferno, Canto XV. Dante is in the Seventh Circle (saved for those who commit murder, suicide, sodomy, and usury). Latini, a sodomite, is...
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Dante's Inferno
Virgil is speaking to Dante in the lines in question, 1.1.118-120. To understand these lines, it is useful to back up a bit, to the previous six lines. At the end of the first Canto, Virgil is...
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Dante's Inferno
The notion that lies behind the Inferno is a spiritual one predicated on the idea of an exploration of one's sense of religious devotion. Whether this is real or not is dependent on the point of...
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Dante's Inferno
Dante and Roman poet Virgil travel to hell. There are 9 circles of hell in Dante's vision. As they travel deeper and deeper the circles become more intense. The first circle is called Limbo. Here...
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Dante's Inferno
It's awesome that you're reading Dante's Inferno—it's a great and super important work! Satire is the use of irony, humor, and exaggeration to expose hypocrisy, stupidity, or evils. Social...
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Dante's Inferno
The one thing that many readers need to always remember is that associations between an author and his or her characters should not be immediately assumed. Many times, the author does not allow his...
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Dante's Inferno
In this canto, as in most cantos, there are several characters. The main characters are Dante and Virgil, his guide. Charon, the ferryman from Greek mythology who transports the dead, is in the...
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Dante's Inferno
In Canto 3, as Dante and Virgil stand on the "melancholy shore" of the River Acheron, the last barrier to their entrance into the underworld proper, Dante describes the approach of Charon: And...
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Dante's Inferno
The problem Dante encountered in depicting a Hell consistent with Christian theology is a problem that goes to the root of theological notions of salvation, sin, punishment, and redemption. Dante...
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Dante's Inferno
One of Dante's messages is his belief that various types of sin will have different consequ3encesz in the afterlife. Of course, the religious control of almost all aspects of life during Dante's...
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Dante's Inferno
Dante's Inferno is an allegory, which means it is a work that operates on both a literal and a symbolic level at once. Take the first canto of Inferno, for example. Dante wakes to find himself in...
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Dante's Inferno
In Dante's Inferno Canto XX, Dante uses many analogies, direct comparisons between two things. Because he is traveling in hell, Dante must make realistic, earthly connections so the reader can...
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Dante's Inferno
Soothsayers are fortune tellers, or people who claim to be able to predict the future. In Canto XX, Dante and Vergil encounter these souls, forced to walk with their heads forever facing backwards....
