Saint Augustine And Dante s Divine Comedy - 1275 Words

Ancient and modern day philosophers have often toiled over the notion of sin and the punishment for sinful practices. Readings such as The Confessions and The Divine Comedy both touch on atonement of sins, but they do not seek out penance in the same way. Both Saint Augustine and Dante place themselves in their novels as both are going about a journey of salvation. Augustine uses The Confessions to address his earlier sins and organize proper perspective on theological issues he himself and the Catholic Church have disputed over. Dante uses The Divine Comedy to tell of a journey through Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory in which he is sanctified and purified through the experience of watching other souls engage in the process of purgation. Although both texts have the same goal of purification of the soul, Augustine and Dante go about to separate journeys that atone for their sins in contrasting ways. Dante’s Divine Comedy takes place over Easter week, in three different places. Dan te the Pilgrim’s journey begins in Inferno. Dante travels through Hell and witnesses the punishment rewarded to the sinful whom renounced God. Dante’s experience in the seven layers of Hell is a gruesome and mournful one. Dante is a living man and does not participate in the punishment, but rather is a watcher of sorts that passes through unto the next stage, Purgatorio. In Purgatory there are seven terraces upon which there is a different penance for the seven deadly sins: pride, envy, wrath, sloth,Show MoreRelatedThe Divine Comedy By Dante Aleghiri1648 Words   |  7 Pages Dante Aleghiri s Divine Comedy is widely taught and written about. In it Dante, the author, details his trip through Hell, Purgatory, and then Paradise. The Divine Comedy was written during Dante s exile from his beloved city of Florence Italy. The work itself is read at various different levels. One could read it as a theological work, a political work, simply as a poetic work, or even as a phil osophical work. In his work, Dante’s Paradiso: No Human Beings Allowed philosophy professor BruceRead More Francescas Style in Canto V of Dantes Inferno Essay5060 Words   |  21 Pages Canto V of Dantes Inferno begins and ends with confession. The frightening image of Minos who  «confesses » the damned sinners and then hurls them down to their eternal punishment contrasts with the almost familial image of Francesca and Dante, who confess to one another. In a real sense confession seems to be defective or inadequate in Hell. The huddled masses who declare their sins to Minos do so because they are compelled to declare or make manifest in speech the character of their offenses