Dante's Inferno, itself a piece of a literary trilogy, repeatedly deploys the leitmotif of the number three as a metaphor for ambiguity, compromise and transition. A work in terza rima that details a descent through the Nine Circles of Hell, Inferno encompasses the temporal, literary and political bridges and chasms that connect Dante's Centaur-inspired work between the autobiographical and the fictional, the mundane and the divine and, from a contemporary point of view, the Medieval and the Modern Dante's recognition of the Renaissance as the metamorphic period of our millennium and of himself as its poetic precursor (until his deposition by Shakespeare).Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get the original essay Inferno is a work of transition between two points, as the opening lines attest: "When I had traveled the half of our life's journey, / I found myself in a shady forest, / for I had lost the path that does not go astray" (I, 1-3). Echoes of these famous lines can be heard in Robert Frost's "The Road Less Traveled"; while Frost's poem is concerned with duality and the firmness of decision, Dante's tercet implies an interval of great indecision and limbo. except cut off: “I cannot say clearly how I got into the wood; I was so sleepy just when I left the true path” (I, 10-12) is almost sleepwalking, again. another fusion of two worlds, the conscious and the unconscious This division of self is best explained by Dante's exile and his loss of national identity. He examines this state of alienation through a geographical metaphor: "And just as he who, with exhausted breath, / Having escaped from the sea to the shore, returns / To watch over the dangerous waters he left, / thus my spirit, still fugitive,/ turns me to look attentively at the pass/ which has never allowed any man to survive” (I, 22-27). Certainly, Dante was in exile when he wrote Inferno, but his journey took place before then. This “omen” underlines the theme of cyclical time in the epic, that of historical repetition in confused times. The tangle of temporalities is never more evident than in the Sixth Circle, made up of the Heretics. Dante is informed of his future difficulties in returning from exile in Florence: "If they were slow," he said, "in learning this art, that torments me more than this bed." And yet the Lady who reigns here I will not see her face burn fifty times before you know how heavy this art is” (X, 77-81). As Mandelbaum points out, “Dante himself learned in 50 months how difficult it is to try to return from exile” (Notes, Canto X, 81). This vision of the future is also granted to the damned: “It seems, if I understand correctly, that you can see / in advance what time brings, / but that you are denied the sight of present things. »/ We see, even as men of clairvoyance,/ those things, he says, which are far from us;/ the most high Lord grants us as much light./ But when events approach or arrive, our minds / are useless if we are not informed of them; by others,/ we should know nothing of your human state./ So you can understand how our consciousness/ will die completely the moment/ the portal to the future is closed'" (X, 97-108). The rhyme The schema of The Inferno also presents the reader (or, more appropriately, the listener) with a forward-looking view The terza rima “aba bcb dcd” allows each line to function as both the meat of the tercet sandwich and the bread. the cyclical and unifying aspects of time are presented here sonically,for the reader can see the framing lines of the upcoming tercet through the middle line of the current tercet. The number three even has mathematical significance pi is approximated as three, thus reinforcing the circular imagery. A similar pattern is generally employed in the final lines of each song, which describe the current setting and the next: "And so, between the dry bank and the marsh, / we circled a great part of this loathsome pond ,/ our eyes turned towards the slime swallowers./ We finally arrived at the base of a tower” (VII, 127-130). More important than the devices with which to compose Dante's language is his language itself. Brucker explores the implications of Dante's revolutionary use of the vernacular: “Yet his Divine Comedy was written in the local Tuscan dialect; not in Latin. And although this work contains the universal concepts of the classical and Christian traditions, it is also a Florentine poem, filled with the particular values, emotions and concerns of that tradition. The poet did not succeed in reconciling all the contradictions between the two traditions, but his genius allowed him to overcome these discordant elements, and to create a magnificent synthesis mixing the ideal and the reality, the universal and the particular. (215). like the French fabliaux, these stories were light and comic. Dante's work is the natural predecessor of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which were written in the English vernacular as opposed to Latin, but which were also comic tales of. The fabliau origin in which the characters have remained fairly constant throughout The Descent from Hell, pun intended, is that of spiritual catharsis and change. Even the tripartite structure of The Divine Comedy follows the Aristotelian conception. of a drama in three acts in La Poétique, with a beginning, a middle and an end (Hell, Purgatory and Paradise). all of this correlates with the metamorphosis of the protagonist. Although Dante writes in a deeply moral tone, the immorality of sinners is not always so clear. Those in the First Circle, Limbo, are condemned, albeit lightly, for their ungodly, pre-Christian beliefs: “...they have not sinned; and yet, although they have merits, this is not enough, because they lacked baptism. ,/ the portal of faith which you embrace./ And if they lived before Christianity,/ they did not worship God in the proper way;/ and of such spirits I myself am one'" (IV , 34-9). The "portal of faith" denotes the filtering powers of religion, and the filters often blur the image. It is normal that Limbo resides in the First Circle; and subterranean due to their lack of anchoring in the divine world It is yet another Dante trio, the celestial, the earthly and the infernal (and if we choose to make the correlation, "Paradise"). is the celestial, the infernal is obviously "Hell", and our time on earth is "Purgatory"). Further ambiguity arises in the Second Circle, where Minos warns Dante to be careful "in whom you trust; /the door is wide, but make no mistake!” and where the environment is suitably foggy: “I have reached a place where all light is muted,/ which roars like the sea in a storm/ when it is beaten by contrary winds” (V, 19-20, 28-30). Dante meets Francesca, who persuades him of his relative innocence through her poetic description of love: "'Love, which canquickly grasp the gentle heart,/ took hold of him because of his beautiful body/ took away from me how it was done, still hurts me./ Love, which frees no beloved from love ,/ grabbed me so strongly with his beauty/ that, as you see, he has not yet left me./ Love led us both to one death'" (V, 100-6 ).Its anaphoric refrain of "Love" and its captivating powers stand out as lyrically enchanting, even among the legendary comparisons of Dante the poet, but the emotional reaction of Dante the traveler is suspect after all, he was warned not to; not to be deceived, and he concedes that "pity seized me, and I was like a lost man", much like his initial state before his descent (V, 71-2). there is no greater sorrow/ queen looking back on a happy time/ in misery" (V, 121-2), another continuation of the past-present thread, and she then recounts the power that a book had on her love: "One day, to pass the time, we read/ of Lancelot.../ And time and time again this reading brought/ our eyes to meet and made our faces turn pale,/ and yet only one point made us conquered./ When we read how the desired smile/ was kissed by one who was such a true lover,/ this one, who will never part with me,/ while his whole body trembled, kissed my mouth. / A Gallehault indeed, this book and the one/who wrote it too; that day, we no longer read" (V, 130-8). Mandelbaum explains that "Since Gallehault is a character who encouraged the queen and her lover, the book is indeed a Gallehault", because it serves as a guide to Paolo and Francesca. -between'" (Notes, V, 127-138). Not only is literature once again used as a bridge, but the power of words is what is truly on display here. Are Francesca's odes sincere or seductive? Since marriage was so often an arranged affair in Florence and, with "wealth, antiquity, and the possession of high communal office...were the most important factors in determining social status", Dante's fainting before the notion of true love is nevertheless achievable. constitute another trinity, also with poetic implications: the passage from thought to language and speech. Here, thought is parallel to the memory of the “crime”, Lust, while language is the factual account and speech embellishes the act. and the empowering qualities of the Arthurian romance she read highlight Dante's vision of poetry. Even though Francesca cajoles him, he seems to suggest, her lyricism excuses it. After all, lechers are only placed in the second circle; their crime is victimless, and the third actor is an emotion, not a vice. Less ambiguous is Dante's indictment of the greed that divided Florence between the White and Black parties. The Usurers of the Seventh Circle each wear a purse with the heraldic emblem of his family around his neck, and one purse is "bloody, / and it sported a goose whiter than butter" (XVII, 62-3). The symbolic meaning of the warring factions, asphyxiated by their own nepotistic, violent and immoral practices, which make them fat like a "gestating azure sow", compactly explains the dominant view that usury is unnatural and anti -mercantilist (XVII, 64). Unlike the harmless lechers of the Second Circle, loan sharks capitalize on the loss of others. This is Dante's underlying moral concern, to denounce selfishness and disloyalty. The final circle contains three of history's greatest traitors, Judas, Brutus and Cassius. Lucifer gnaws them in his mouth, a digestive image which reconciles the exterior and the interior: “In each mouth he used it like a grinder / with teeth, 1980.