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Ana Paula Silva Santos
English 211 Dr. Tom Richardson 11/01/2018 Final Exam Epic (Inferno) Epic is defined as a narrative poem that is involved with bravery, courage, superhuman deeds, and heroic, big adventures, and we see that in Inferno. Dante’s inferno takes us through this adventures story, where Dante is lost literally and spiritually and as a request from Beatrice, the Roman poet Virgil who was Dante’s favorite poet, his hero, goes to find him lost in the woods and from there he helps Dante on his journey to find God, going through hell, purgatory and paradise. But focusing in his journey through hell we can see why this is such an epic poem, he describes his journey with such a wealth of detail that it is capable of terrifying even the most unbelieving. For Dante to reach his goal he must pass through all nine circles of hell, and in each circle, Dante and Virgil go through numerous adventures and experiences to give chills to the readers. The Inferno described by Dante is in the form of a funnel, which moves toward the center of the earth, where Lucifer is waiting. In each circle different sins are punished according to their degree of gravity; less serious sins are punished in the first circles and the more serious sins in the latter. Their journey first starts in the ante- inferno, there are the people that have had the choice between good and evil and could not choose therefore being rejected by heaven and hell. There they come to the river that is the boundary of hell where many souls wait for a boat ride from Charon who appears in Greek mythology on the river to Hades, and we will see a lot of Greek and Roman mythology in this poem. So, they go on the boat to encounter limbo the first circle of hell. The first circle (limbo) is the place for the virtuous and unsaved pagans, for those who died before the coming of Jesus Christ, their souls wander in complete darkness, the place for those with lack of Christianity. And there Dante got to see famous poets like Horace, Homer, Ovid and Lucan, also some Roman history heroes like Hector, Aeneas and others. Moving on from there they go to the second circle where they find the judge of hell, Minos, and he hears all the confessions of the dead and decides where is their place in the nine circles, and he that by wrapping his enormous tail wrapped around the person being judged and each turn represents a circle below, in this same circle are those who have committed the sin of lust, and there with Virgil’s help, Dante avoids Minos judgment. In the third circle, we found the souls of gluttons, stuck in a dirty mud, and they are punished as they lie prostrate under a heavy rain of hail, water, and snow, being scratched, skinned and torn by a huge three-headed dog named Cerberus, which depicts endless appetite. On the fourth circle, guarded by Plutus Greek god of wealth is where greed is punished and there Dante and Virgil see how the sinners are punished which is very weird even for hell, they have as punishment, to roll with their own breast’s great weights, which represent their riches and they are bound to exchange insults among themselves. In the fifth circle of hell are those accused of wrath, these are found in a lake full of water and blood, beating and torturing themselves. At the bottom of the Styx, the spiteful are not shown and are forbidden to rise to the surface. And there Dante and Virgil get ferried across the Styx by this devil named Phlegyas and they present all the torture in that punishment. The sixth circle The City of Dis, place of those who in life were heretics, those who did not believe in the existence of God and Jesus as their Son, have their punishment in a very painful way as they are burial in open tombs, where fire comes out. There the fallen angels do not want to let Dante and Virgil through the gate and when Virgil tries to talk them down he is attacked by furies and they (furies) also ask for the help of Medusa but Virgil covers Dante’s eyes and the big man himself sends help to them by sending an angel that opens the gates of Dis for them. And once they are inside the Hell city of Dis Dante even chats with a couple of the sinners and there Virgil alerts him that they've entered the really bad part of hell and from now on he should not talk or make eye contact with any soul. In the seventh circle is the ones who practice violence, this circle is divided into three valleys: In the first valley, they are to the souls of those who were violent against the neighbor, here they remain immersed in a river made with the blood of which they oppressed. On the bank of the river are the Minotaur and the centaurs who shoots arrows at the souls that rise from the blood; In the second valley are those who have committed violence against themselves, these become dark and twisted trees; In the third valley are those who practice violence against God, against nature and against art, and are condemned to remain in a desert of hot sand, where raging flames of fire, a barren and lifeless place, contrary to the created world of God. And in this gate, the centaurs help them throughout the river of blood but leaves them in the second valley the terrifying forest that they manage to go through and go to the eighth circle. The eighth circle is divided into ten subcircles to punish different kinds of sins, and this part of hell is more like the classic impression we all have of hell, the classic fire and brimstone. In the first are the panders and seducers, continually whipped by the demons, and there Dante even sees Jason the Greek hero we all know from Argonauts and he is there because he is accused of seducing a couple of women in his way to win the Golden Fleece, but knowing Dante as we do I am guessing he is there because Dante strongly dislikes all Greek heroes, like all of them. In the second are the flatterers, they are immersed in feces, which represents the dirt they have left in the world. The third is the fate of the simoniacs, buried upside down and their legs burned by flames, there Dante has an encounter with a former pope that also accuses two others still living popes of also being guilty of the same crime. In the fourth are the sorcerers, who as punishment have their heads turned to the back, that does not let them look ahead, and guess what? another Greek hero, there we see Tiresias the prophet from the Oedipus the King, that had his abilities given by the great Apollo himself, so I do not really think it is fair for him to be there besides Dante’s hate for Greek heroes. In the fifth are the corrupt, submerged in a boiling tar lake, and as soon as they get there a demon drops a soul into the lake, scaring Dante, and right after Virgil asks Dante to hide and goes to try to talk to the demon into letting them pass, and he was successful and the demons even guide them across the tar lake but in the way the demons keep taking souls out of the lake and torturing them with their tooth and claws, but one of the souls escapes and falls back into the lake, and when the demons tries to grab him/her they get stuck too. Dante and Virgil see they are mad and try to sneak out, but the demons somehow think all that it is Dante’s falls and go chasing him, but Virgil grabs Dante’s up and slides out into the next level of the eighth circle. In the sixth are the hypocrites, these are clothed in heavy golden leaden cloaks; On the seventh, are thieves, who are stung by serpents who cross them and disintegrates them. In the eighth, the bad counselors, people who abused their position of power are punished, here they are surrounded by endless flames, which remain burning, as we can see Dante hater Greek heroes because he is Italian so in the Roman side of history and for obvious reasons he hates, even more, the heroes involved in the Trojan War and that is why we find Odysseus and Diomedes there burning in that endless flame, I guess Dante did not think that Odysseus did not go through enough on the Odyssey. The ninth are those who sow discord and are then stabbed and mutilated by demons; In the tenth, is the place for the alchemists, and they are punished by experience stinking ulcers and all other kinds of diseases known by humankind simultaneously. Ninth and last circle, is a frozen lake to represent the lack of love, and that's where the traitors are, and this circle just like the eighth is divided into subcircles but that one has only four. The first, is the Caina, where those who betray their relatives are punished, these are only with their thorax and their head out of the ice; In the second, the Antenora, are those who have betrayed their homeland, here only the heads are off the ice; The third, called Ptolomaea, is where the traitors of their guests are punished, with only their faces exposed and when they cry, their tears freeze and cover their eyes; The last one is called the Judecca, its name clearly refers to the most famous traitor of history, Judas Iscariot and is the fate of those who betrayed their lords and benefactors, remaining completely submerged in the ice lake, aware of everything. And in the middle, there is Lucifer, who with his three heads holds Judas on one side, and on the other Brutus and Cassius, responsible for the death of Julius Caesar. There Virgil puts Dante in his back and starts climbing down Satan and thereafter they see the stars and they are in the center of the earth (Purgatory). It is not hard to see why this is such an epic poem, this story had so many creatures from circle one to the end, so many supernatural things going on, also Dante and Virgil journey through hell is full of so many adventures, heroic deeds coming from Virgil and so on. So, it is easy to say that this poem applies perfectly to the term epic. Work Cited
“9 Circles of Hell (Dante's Inferno).” 9 Circles of Hell (Dante's Inferno) -
History Lists, www.historylists.org/art/9-circles-of-hell-dantes-inferno.html.
The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (Chaucer, Circling)
The dialogues between History and Literature allow us an analysis of the medieval world under new forms of approach. In essay I will focus on the female condition portrayed from two sealed tales of the literary work the Canterbury Tales, by the medieval writer Geoffrey Chaucer, I will focus on how the writer represented the cultural time and place where the story was told. Let’s see how the author represents stereotypes in the part of the women back then, good and bad ones. In the Clerk's Tale, the protagonist is a fragile and submissive woman to her husband, in The Tale of the wife of Bath, the character is irreverent and contentious, that demands, for example, the right to the sexual pleasure, in addition states that the woman must command the relationship in a marriage. From these two stories, I will try to present the author's perception on the roles of women in medieval life, in English society of that time. Common sense and tradition often portray women as fragile, submissive and inferior to men, living in a society of patriarchal customs. The writer Geoffrey Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales presents both the traditional female figure and its opposite: in the first case, the character Griselda, in The Clerk's Tale; in the second, the character Alice, in The Wife of Bath’s Tale. With Alice much more than expressing her physical characteristics, the author highlights Alice's profile as a fearless woman who does not miss the opportunity to speak her mind. We also realize that the character, besides having a great monetary power as a result of her various marriages, she has experiences of life and world, in the wife of bath we see, marriage is a negotiation, she is in search of her autonomy, Alice uses her body, revealing a freedom amid so many restrictions. However, the character is stuck in a society in which patriarchy and religion reign. In this way, she cannot detach herself from such references, but still because of her bargaining, she is a woman who, by knowing very well the system of male domination in which she is, knows how to use such bargain for her own benefit. In this sense, she ends up becoming a protagonist, even within a context of male domination. In the clerk’s tale with Griselda we see the other side, the model of the woman idealized for the time. Griselda fits very well this idealization, because the character is equivalent to a divine being, compensating all the evils caused by Walter. In this tale the writer shows us, that woman constantly needs a superior male authority to judge and discipline her, the valorization of women is not seen as an affirmation of their value but rather as to dignify those who exalt her. Work Cited
Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue by Geoffrey
Shmoop Editorial Team. “The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue & Frame Story Summary.” Shmoop, Shmoop University, 11 Nov. 2008, www.shmoop.com/canterbury- tales-prologue/summary.html.
