Dante's Inferno
Dante’s Divine Comedy is the tale of one man’s spiritual journey in the quest for salvation. He enters the Gates of Hell, descends to the bowls of the earth where he encounters Satan, and eventually is able to ascend through Purgatory. His journey culminates with his contemplation of the Mystic Rose. Dante’s description of his journey to Hell is as gruesome as his depiction of its master. As ugly as he once was beautiful, Satan is depicted as a huge, hideous dragon-like beast, with a shaggy coat of matted hair. The beast has 3 heads, each with a set of wings. The 3 colored faces, black, white, and yellow, are each gnawing on the body of a traitor that Dante considered the worst: Judas, Brutus, and Cassius. Described as the “Great Worm
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A rose is the perfect flower, and white is the color of purity. The yellow core of the flower is the radiance of God. Dante is captivated by the Threefold Light and cannot look away. In what he calls “the abyss of light” he sees three colored circles. He speaks of squaring the circle, and feeling drawn into the power, knowing that he cannot go. His time is not now. Dante espoused an idea from Aristotle: the Prime Mover. Since everything is in motion, something must provide the primary impulse. For Dante it is the Great Wheel that spins eternally, whose impetus is the Primal Cause, where everything observes an inner order and is impelled to find its proper station by the love of God. “Infinite order rules in this domain”. As Pythagoras believed that the number is the heart of all things and brings harmony to the universe, Dante speaks of studying the face of God like a geometer dedicated to squaring the circle, who cannot find the principle he seeks. The medieval mind loved order. In Dante’s Paradiso there is a harmony to the universe, and all things fit together. By the end of this epic poem, Dante feels that the “wheel whose motion nothing jars” has altered his life. Although Dante has a rebirth of virtue and purposefulness, the reader never learns what he sees. His vision of God is not described in terms that can be fully explained. This is as it should be. I believe that man will be
A rose is the perfect flower, and white is the color of purity. The yellow core of the flower is the radiance of God. Dante is captivated by the Threefold Light and cannot look away. In what he calls “the abyss of light” he sees three colored circles. He speaks of squaring the circle, and feeling drawn into the power, knowing that he cannot go. His time is not now. Dante espoused an idea from Aristotle: the Prime Mover. Since everything is in motion, something must provide the primary impulse. For Dante it is the Great Wheel that spins eternally, whose impetus is the Primal Cause, where everything observes an inner order and is impelled to find its proper station by the love of God. “Infinite order rules in this domain”. As Pythagoras believed that the number is the heart of all things and brings harmony to the universe, Dante speaks of studying the face of God like a geometer dedicated to squaring the circle, who cannot find the principle he seeks. The medieval mind loved order. In Dante’s Paradiso there is a harmony to the universe, and all things fit together. By the end of this epic poem, Dante feels that the “wheel whose motion nothing jars” has altered his life. Although Dante has a rebirth of virtue and purposefulness, the reader never learns what he sees. His vision of God is not described in terms that can be fully explained. This is as it should be. I believe that man will be