What Does The Beast Symbolize Dante's Inferno

At the most fundamental level, Dante associates the setting of darkness with sin and sin’s deceiving nature through contrasting the darkness of Hell with the light of Heaven. In the first Canto, Dante sees that his escape from the wilderness is the pursuit of the sun; although Virgil, his guide, offers a better path to achieve his goal, the sun nonetheless represents a lack of sin. Immediately from the start, the darkness represents animalistic sin, such as incontinence or violence. However, Dante’s incorporation of sins against reason with darkness do not become clear until later in his journey. In Hell, darkness, like the degree of sin,

The Inferno is a tale of cautionary advice. In each circle, Dante the pilgrim speaks to one of the shades that reside there and the readers learn how and why the damned have become the damned. As Dante learns from the mistakes of the damned, so do the readers. And as Dante feels the impacts of human suffering, so do the readers. Virgil constantly encourages Dante the pilgrim to learn why the shades are in Hell and what were their transgressions while on Earth. This work’s purpose is to educate the reader. The work’s assertions on the nature of human suffering are mostly admonition, with each shade teaching Dante the pilgrim and by extension the reader not to make the same mistakes. Dante views his journey through hell as a learning experience and that is why he made it out alive.

In Dante’s Inferno, the relationship between Dante the Pilgrim and Virgil the Guide is an ever-evolving one. By analyzing the transformation of this relationship as the two sojourn through the circles of hell, one is able to learn more about the mindset of Dante the Poet.  At the outset, Dante is clearly subservient to Virgil, whom he holds in high esteem for his literary genius. However, as the work progresses, Virgil facilitates Dante’s spiritual enlightenment, so that by the end, Dante has ascended to Virgil’s spiritual level and has in many respects surpassed him. In Dante’s journey with respect to Virgil, one can see

Dante’s descent into Hell in Inferno, the first part of his Divine Comedy, tells of the author’s experiences in Hades as he is guided through the abyss by the Roman author, Virgil. The text is broken into cantos that coincide with the different circles and sub-circles of Hell that Dante and Virgil witness and experience. Inferno is heavily influenced by classic Greek and Roman texts and Dante makes references to a myriad of characters, myths, and legends that take place in Virgil’s Aeneid, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Some of the most important references, however, are the most obvious ones that are easily overlooked simply because of the fact that they are so blatant. Dante is being escorted through Hell by the

But Virgil comes to the poor, powerless Dante. He will never really do anything alone from this point on, which is good because in order for Dante to understand and learn he must have a teacher, t here must be some authority for Dante. There is a grey hound that is mentioned (canto 1, line 78-88, Alighieri). I think that this grey hound is Virgil, because he represents the savior of Dante. He is said to represent intellect, and in Dante's mind that is what is needed to be reasonable, and reason conquers all desires and weaknesses.

The journey through Hell is one many fear and don’t want to experience. It can be thought of as scary or even horrific. A glimpse into this mysterious yet frightening resting place is depicted throughout Dante’s Inferno. The poem describes Dante’s heroic journey into the dark depths of the Inferno and during this journey he meets many different monsters and creatures. These creatures are of large importance on Dante’s spiritual journey since they not only challenge his presence in Inferno, but they also are guards or defenders of Hell. Three of these main creatures, the leopard, the lion, and the she wolf carry large importance with them and represent categories of sin in relation to hell. It is the encounters with these beasts and creatures that create a connecting element from Dante’s Inferno to The Epic of Gilgamesh.

Dante’s Inferno begins in a dark forest, a place of confusion, because he lost his way on the “true path”. Seeking an escape, Dante finds a hill where the sun glares down on him. This light seen in Dante’s Inferno symbolizes clarity as the sun represents God. After encountering three beasts and turning back to the murky forest, Dante crosses paths with the great Roman Poet, Virgil. Virgil is an aid and guide to Dante to Heaven, the ultimate Paradise. He warns Dante he must pass through Hell and Purgatory in order to reach his salvation in heaven. Virgil is depicted as nature or human reason perfected by virtue. It is strongly emphasized that Virgil can only take Dante so far in his journey by guiding him to heaven. Much like St. Thomas Aquinas’ reasoning, nature or human reason can only bring you so far in the journey to God. As Virgil and Dante approach the mouth of Hell, Virgil preaches to Dante about a woman in Heaven who took pity upon Dante when he was lost in hell. The woman Virgil speaks of is Dante’s departed love Beatrice. After Dante hears that Beatrice is heaven he now sheds the fear of traveling through Hell and Purgatorio.

Before Virgil arrives to guide Dante on his journey, Dante shares that he doesn’t recall how he lost his way. He tells “How I entered [the dark wood] I cannot truly say, I had become so sleepy at the moment when I first strayed, leaving the path of truth” (Inferno I.10-12). Because he strayed from the holy path, Dante finds himself lost and trying to find his way back on the right track. Dante’s ultimate goal is to to free himself from the dark wood of confusion and chaos. Looking up from the wood, Dante sees “the hilltop shawled in morning rays of light sent from the planet that leads men straight ahead on every road” (Inferno I.16-18). Dante begins to move towards the light, but is blocked from passing by three

In the note to Canto V regarding Francesca and Paulo, the Hollanders exclaim that “Sympathy for the damned, in the Inferno, is nearly always and nearly certainly the sign of a wavering moral disposition” (112). Indeed, many of the touching, emotional, or indignation rousing tales told by the souls in Hell can evoke pity, but in the telling of the tales, it is always possible to derive the reasons for the damned souls’ placement in Hell. However, there is a knee-jerk reaction to separate Virgil and, arguably, some of the other souls in limbo from this group of the damned, though, with careful perusal of the text, the thoughtful reader can discern the machinations behind their damnation.

After emerging from the dark woods after Dante’s vision, Dante and Virgil find themselves at the gates of Hell, which were inscribed with “Abandon every hope, Ye that Enter.” ( This should be found in the second or third Canto of The Divine Comedy, at the place that Dante and Virgil are about to enter Hell). If it is not there, just leave the sentence and remove the brackets for the citation) Hell is a funnel shape pit that is divided into nine terraces. Virgil, Dante’s escort resides in the area known as Limbo. He is placed in this area because he died before Christianity. Nevertheless, Virgil is not subjected to Hell. Each terrace provides living space for individuals who were in Hell for the different categories of sin for which they were suffering. The lower the terrace, the more severe the punishment. Satan resides in the very bottom level of Hell. Dante gives a very vivid description of his first sight of Satan when he writes, “The emperor of the despondent kingdom so towered—from midchest—above the ice, that I match better with a giant’s height than giants match the measure of his arms; now you can gauge

In the beginning of his epic, Inferno, Dante seems to have “abandoned the true path” (1.12). He is lost in a dark forest, which symbolizes not only Dante’s loss of morality, but all of humanity’s sins on Earth. The Dark Wood of Error is a foreshadowing of what the afterlife would be like for Dante without God and without any meaning. Dante appears to be suffering through a mid-life crisis as he flirts with the idea of death, saying, “so bitter–death is hardly more severe” (1.7). Dante has lost his dignity and moral direction following his exile from Florence. Dante must travel through Hell and witness the worst crimes ever committed by humans. By traveling through the depths of Satan’s world, Dante is given an opportunity to reconnect with Christianity. Many people claim that Dante journeys through Hell for revenge, but in fact he is hoping to reset his own moral compass and find God.

Dante is a poet who wrote an epic poem called The Divine Comedy. This epic poem is about Dante’s journey as he goes through 3 levels, which he calls Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. In the Inferno, he meets Virgil, his guide throughout his voyage. They both pass through the nine circles of Hell, where they witness many different punishments for those who have done awful things in their past. Good versus evil is a major theme that occurred throughout Hell. In the Inferno, there are times where Dante sees good and evil and also represents it himself.

Virgil and Dante proceed down into Hell; in Hell Dante sins in every circle, committing the sin that represents each circle. After Dante sins in each circle he begins to learn and grow as a person realizing his mistakes but Dante is still his proud, careless self. In the circle of the wrathful, containing the sinners full of anger, Dante scolds one man saying “may you weep and wail to all eternity, for I know you hell-dog”. Dante is becoming angry just like the

Dante is like the son Virgil never had. This comes to light most apparently in their flight from the two-timing demons. In lifting Dante to his chest and carrying him as he sprints toward safety, Virgil becomes a mother figure to the terrified Dante. Hmmm, father and mother? You’re right in guessing that something bigger is going on here. As an unofficial poet laureate of the Romans, Virgil is a kind of patron spirit of Italy. Moreover, as the consummate speaker and writer of Latin – the ancestor language of Italian – Virgil is, in a sense, the fore-father of Dante’s native language. The two poets’ kinship traces back to their respective languages.

     The Inferno by Dante is a story of a mans voyages through the treacherous depths of hell. Dante is a man who has strayed from the path of a catholic way of life. Now he needs to travel through hell to reach the virtuous path that will take him to heaven. He is guided through hell by a man who is in limbo, the first circle of hell, named Virgil. Virgil takes him through hell and shows him people suffering for the sins that they have committed. Together they travel through the nine different stages of hell observing who is in each stage, what there punishment is, and what sins they committed to get there. Virgil was sent to guide Dante through hell by Beatrice who is the love of Dante’s life. Beatrice plays a