Language in Dante’s Inferno Essay -- Divine Comedy Inferno Essays

Language in Dante’s Inferno What befalls language in damnation? In Dante’s Inferno, the traveling pioneer investigates language’s varieties and subtleties as he endeavors to speak with hell’s pitiable and corrupt occupants, in spite of different language obstructions and determined cacophonies. Dante specifically brings together language’s irregularities in damnation; that is, he relates the pilgrim’s unsuccessful endeavors to speak with specific shades, and the unfathomable dialects and sounds that ambush him, with an image from Christian folklore: the Tower of Babel. Dante compares this Christian fantasy with Virgil’s emblematic relationship with raised discourse in the Inferno. Virgil works as the pilgrim’s control and lovely motivation, and in spite of his situation in damnation as an agnostic, Virgil despite everything transmits supernaturally enlivened language to his student. In this manner, despite his undefined rawness as a shade in heck, Virgil speaks t o clarity and centered idea, which comforts the traveler and gives a respite from hell’s noisy sounds. At last, the pilgrim’s relationship to language is diverse: it empowers the explorer to interface with Virgil and find his place in the custom of celebrated artists through supernaturally enlivened and private discourse; yet, it secludes and alarms him when it is boundless, enhancing his individual misery; in this manner, at last attracting him closer to his comprehension of the shades’ own torment. Virgil’s edified language brings forth in part from Beatrice, a celestial occupant of paradise, who stresses over the prosperity of the traveler, and incompletely from his status in a long convention of popular artists, starting with Homer. However, in spite of Virgil’s relationship with illuminated and raised ... ... His relationship to Virgil is improved by their comparable relationship to language as writers, and by the test of making a graceful heritage on earth that counters the inheritance of the pinnacle of Babel in damnation. Eventually, the pilgrim’s want mirrors the truth of Dante’s own heritage, one that is vastly persuasive. Works Cited Alighieri, Dante. The Inferno. Vol 1. Trans. Robert M. Durling. New York: Oxford UP, 1996. Barolini, Teodolinda. Dante’s Poets: Textuality and Truth in the Comedy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1984. Dronke, Peter. Dante and Medieval Latin Traditions. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986. Durling, Robert M., Ronald L. Martinez. Notes. The Inferno. Vol 1. By Dante Alighieri. Trans. Robert M. Durling. New York: Oxford UP, 1996. Eco, Umberto. Workmanship and Beauty in the Middle Ages. Trans. Hugh Bredin. New Haven, CT.: Yale UP, 1986.