Week 3: Randi Taylor

Dante Alighieri’s The Inferno, has many different aspects that are difficult to grasp for today’s audience. Not only is the language different, but the overall structure of literature has changed over the years. Therefore, it is critical to look at different ways to interpret the text in order to obtain a through understanding of the text. One such method that I found beneficial was to pay special attention to the contrasting ideas. Contrast allows one to understand multiple ideas by establishing the differences, as well as all the author to set into motion a certain tone, and picture of the piece as a whole.

Alighieri uses many different contrasts through out the text to aid the reader in better understanding the difficult concepts. One such contrast involves the difference between light and dark. All things good in his world are represent by light and brightness, the “Light of God” is a constant idea through out the passage, and can be contrasted against the “Dark wood of Error” quite easily and offers a clear difference between good and evil, or more direct, in this situation, God and Satan. By developing this contrast early on in the poem it enables the reader to refer to any mentions of light as an idea of good and those of darkness as bad, it doesn’t allow much for the areas of both light and dark, but there is definitely a difference, that makes the ideas easier to follow. There is also a large contrast between sexes. It appears that the “three beasts” that prevent Dante from instantly reaching out to good are all female; in fact, he makes a point of the she-wolf being the fiercest of the three beasts and almost single minded in preventing any from gaining access up the hill. The only other mention of a female figure is that of almost deity figures. Divine Love, Beatrice, Compassion, the Virgin Mary, Divine Light, Saint Lucia, and Contemplative Life, Rachel all are in positions of great power and respect. However, all the men mentioned are merely a vessel used to do the bidding of the females, or being punished for doing wrong. Clearly, there is a significant difference between the sexes in this text.

Clearly, there are many contrasting ideas with in The Inferno, but I believe with a basic idea of how these contrasting ideas will help one pick up on key points with in the poem the reader will be able to determine a better understanding of the text without too much difficulty.