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Stefano Zanella
UWP 001 section 001
Mr. Aaron Benedetti

Dantes Divine Comedy: Analysis Through This Allegoric Journey

Close reading project

I chose to analyze Dante Alighieris Divine Comedy because of the intriguing nature of the text.

The revolutionary way the author, Dante, outlined how ones actions while living will influence their

afterlife not only captivated me, but inspired me to further examine his pioneering piece of literature

through the lens of a close reading. Close reading is a method that is optimal for reviewing such

literary pieces because it requires slow, attentive, thoughtful analysis and interpretation. This slow,

thoughtful analysis helps the reader understand the correlation between this allegoric journey and the

process one goes through when reflecting on their life. The poem is structured to stimulate self-

reflection, specifically on whether or not one has been living a Christian life. The poem was written in

Ancient Italian, which was spoken exclusively in Italy, where Christianity was indubitably the

dominant religion (Tompsett, Winchester). So, Dante was reaching out to the Christian community

rather than working to convert. It is therefore important to analyze this text in order to better understand

how religion influenced the literature, culture, and general morality of the Middle Ages.

The late Middle Ages, from the 13th to the 14th century A.D., was a golden era for literature.

Among all the works conceived in this era, we find a poem written in rhymes, judged by many as one

of the greatest works of world literature. The books name is Divine Comedy, written by the Italian

Poet Dante Alighieri (1265 1321), is divided into 3 smaller portions, named Hell, Purgatory and

Heaven, which describe the nature of the afterlife, based ones behavior while alive. The poem is
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written as an allegoric journey, which Dante took from Jerusalem, in order for us to understand how to

behave properly.

The aforementioned portionsHell, Purgatory, and Heavenare preceded by a brief

introduction, and then the focus shifts to the state of each reign and what makes one a likely

candidate for placement therein. In Hell, Dante talks about those who did not behave according to

saintly concepts in life and did not repent their souls before their death. Purgatory describes life after

death for those who made poor decisions but eventually repented for their sinful behaviors, which

earned them redemption. Heaven, on the other hand, describes the celestial course of the souls who

behaved properly in their mortal existence, according to Middle-age values like honesty, honoring your

family, worshipping God, and heeding the word of The Bible. However, these values are sometimes

vastly different from those enshrined today, which makes the punishments and rewards difficult to

understand from a secular, 21st century perspective. At the time of Divine Comedys conception,

adultery or even dying whilst at odds with your father were considered valid enough reasons to go to

hell. Nowadays, such transgressions against Christian doctrine are accepted and considered benign

when evaluating the trajectory of ones afterlife. This allegoric world is designed in a particular way.

Dante, from Jerusalem, enters the underworld, which is described as a cave that passes through the

Earth until reaching the core. He then climbs up a mountain located on the other side of the Earth,

representing Purgatory. When the poet reaches the summit of this mountain, he is able to ascend to the

heavens (Tompsett, Winchester).

The introduction explains how Dante begins his journey, and, allegorically, the readers journey

from the city of Jerusalemthe center of the spiritual life for Catholicism. After some time exploring

the city, fascinated by the rich history of Jerusalem post-Crusades, the poet wanders outside the city

limits and gets lost in a forest. This, according to medieval values, symbolizes deviation and the
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inevitable loss of heavenly guidance. In this forest, the author meets a leopard, a she-wolf, and a lion,

which symbolize three of the seven deadly sins: lust, greed and pride. According to medieval beliefs,

the leopard is a symbol of lust because leopards, having no mating season, could mate whenever they

pleased, unlike other animals which have seasonal mating cycles (Michelangeli). The she-wolf is used

as a symbol of greed because of perennial hunger. In the middle Ages, wolves were thought to be evil,

insatiable animals which resembles greed as the insatiable longing for unneeded excess (Michelangeli).

Dante depicts the lion as a symbol of pride because of its majestic appearance and tendencies to let the

lioness hunt for him (Michelangeli). Proceeding past those three animals, Dante meets the poet

Virgilio, who, having been very clever during his life, ends up as the authors spiritual guide. As

Dantes spiritual guide, Virgilio aids Dante maneuvering through the reigns of Hell and Purgatory,

respectively. In Heaven, the author seeks the assistance of a new guide, as Virgilio is denied access to

this, the final reign, because he was unfamiliar with the word of Christ, being born almost a century

before Christs birth.

Hell describes the life of somebody who did not behave according to the middle age concepts

and beliefs, but neglected it and did not redeem their soul. Although societal folkways and taboos have

fluctuated with the decline of the Christian churchs influence, crimes such as murder and especially

egregious cases of theft are still perceived as evil acts in the public eye. In this way we, in the 21st

century, can somewhat relate to what is described in this book, in that those who did commit such

crimes are present in Hell. Thanks to Virgilio, Dante is able to explore how this reign is structured and

ruled by mythological figures, like the ancient Greek king Minos. The purpose of Hell is to eternally

punish the souls of the people who misbehaved in their mortal life. These souls are tortured according

to the sins they committed in their previous lives, following the concept of the contrapasso (Angliss).

Contrapasso is the process of punishing the souls of the sinners which resembles or contrasts with the

sin itself.
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Dante takes the reader through all these tortures and punishments, describing them in incredibly

precise detail, likely to perturb the reader, as they are so realistic. For example, in the thirty-third

chapter of Hell, Dante describes the Count Ugolino and the punishment he received in hell for

cannibalizing his own sons: an insatiable craving for other human souls, forcing him to eat people for

an eternity despite his ostensible awareness of the acts repugnance. The imagery and onomatopoeic

verbiage used when Dante witnesses Ugolino devour someone works to create a bone-chilling effect,

like writing about the sound his teeth make when scraping against bone (149). Dante writes about the

Count Ugolino that La bocca sollevo dal fiero pasto quell peccator, forbendola a capelli del capo

chelli avea di retro guasto [] Quandebbe detto cio, con li occhi torti riprese l teschio misero co

denti che furo a losso, come dun can, forti. This stanza translates to that sinner lifted his mouth

from the ferocious meal, cleaning his blood-soaked teeth with the hair of the head of the other body he

had bitten from behind [] When he said this, turning his eyes, he began to gnaw at the miserable

skull with his teeth, which scraped, like those of a dog, that bone. By doing this, Dante makes the

passage come alive, almost making the audience formulate a mental image of the passage. This effects

are obtained by appealing to the audience sense of sound. The author does this in order to horrify the

reader by the consequences some actions could have on their soul, and therefore prevent them from

sinning. At the end of this first portion, Dante sees the three worst sinners of all history: Lucifer, Judah,

and Brutus. These three characters are chosen by the poet for specific reasons. Lucifer was an

archangel of God, but when pushed by jealousy, became evil and decided to contend with God himself.

Judah is chosen for having given Jesus to the Romans, who were looking for Jesus to bring him to

execution. Brutus, the adopted son of Julius Caesar, historically killed Caesar because of opposing

political views.

In Purgatorya place in which souls are committed to reflect on their mistakesDante works

to teach the reader some practices to redeem their souls, should they find themselves in this limbo, and,
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ideally, get them to think critically about their own actions, with the ultimate goal of understanding

their wrongdoings and act differently in the future. Dante does this by enriching the Purgatory portion

with examples of souls working to get to Heaven and describing their endeavors in great detail, like

devout praying and asking archangels to be punished for the sins committed.

Dante eventually moves on to Heaven, the most interesting book among the three. Here, he

leaves Virgilio and meets his new guide, Beatrice, who lived her whole life following Christian ideals

and was the only woman with whom Dante ever fell in love. Unfortunately, she fell victim to a plague

around the year 1300 A.D. and thus ascended into Heaven. When in Heaven, Dante also meets many

ancient people as well as contemporary famous people who behaved according to societal rules and

thus ended up in Heaven. The author uses these figures to show the readers how they should conduct

their lives, following and understanding how their existences were relatively sinless and allowed them

to earn the greatest gift of all: the contemplation of God. For example, in the sixth chapter of Heaven,

Dante meets the Roman emperor Justinian, who says: questa picciola stella si correda di buoni spiriti

che sono stati attivi perche onore e fama li succeda (342), which translates to this reign [Heaven]

welcomes the good souls of those who were active in the search of honor and fame. Justinians search

of honor and fame was embodied by his expansion of the Roman Empire, which, though bloody,

spread Catholicism throughout a barbarian-inhabited Europe. Compelling his subjects to abandon

hedonism for the pursuit of moral existence, Justinian earned his place in Heaven by imbuing a broad

swathe of the worlds population with the moral doctrine of the time. It is likely the reader is supposed

to interpret this example to mean that convincing people to live by the moral standard of the time will

get them into Heaven.

Close reading is a method that is optimal for reviewing such literary pieces because it requires

slow, attentive, thoughtful analysis and interpretation. Using this method, which required so much

diligence while analyzing, allowed me to discover and observe information that I never would have
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been able to find using other methods. The close reading method also requires the observer to establish

a more personal connection with the reading itself. That being said, I, personally, find this book

extremely interesting and fascinating. Interesting, because it symbolizes the journey that I think one

should take in order to live a fulfilling life and still be able to reach Heaven. This journey is so well

structured that it should not make the reader feel abandoned in the description, making it easy to

follow. Redemption is shown to the reader through contrapasso, a symbolic instance of poetic justice

(Anglis) which allows us to see how sins are punished. Fascinating, because this piece, despite being

over 10,000 pages long, exhibits great care for details, which, ipso facto, are never neglected. The

descriptions are so accurate that they are able to describe the shape of the clouds on top of Dantes

head, as well as the thin patterns found on the petals of a rose on the ground. As mentioned previously,

the reader is almost personified by Dante as he engages this journey, in which Dante experiences

everything he needs to show the reader a possible way to reach Heaven. The goal of this essay was not

to show what values are likely to give one the best life after death, but rather provide the reader with a

closer look at the religious convictions of the time and how they shaped every facet of peoples lives,

from their daily routine to literature and culture. On top of that, I wanted to show that the Divine

Comedys purpose is to stimulate self-reflection in the reader, who might later be pushed to change

their own lifes trajectory.

Works cited

Angliss, Brian. Dantes Inferno and contrapasso. Progressive Culture / Scholars & Rogues, 7

Nov. 2013, scholarsandrogues.com/2013/10/30/dantes-inferno-and-contrapasso/

Dante. La Divina Commedia. online ed., ebooksbrasil.org, 2015.

http://www.ebookbrasil.org/adobeebook/ladivinacommedia.pdf

Michelangelo, Martina. Lallegoria delle tre fiere nel primo canto dellInferno, 11 Oct. 2013,

http://www.cantidivinacommedia.it/l-allegoria-delle-tre-fiere-del-primo-canto-dell-inferno.html

Tompsett, Daniel, and Donald Winchester. Dante Alighieri and The Divine Comedy. Religion

and Spirituality: Dante Alighieri and The Divine Comedy, 2013, www.vision.org/visionmedia/religion-

and-spirituality-dante-alighieri/64177.aspx.