The divine comedy: summary and analysis of the work

The divine Comedy is the masterpiece of the Italian writer Dante Alighieri. It was written at the beginning of the 14th century and is part of the humanism. In this verse narrative, Dante uses decasyllables and introduces in literature the tuesday rhyme: the first line rhymes with the third, while the second rhymes with the first and third lines of the next stanza.

Dante is the author, narrator and main character of his book, divided into three parts: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. Thus, Dante, guided by the soul of the poet Virgil, crosses Hell and Purgatory until he reaches Paradise, where he finds the soul of his dear Beatrice, who seeks salvation for her beloved.

Read too: Hell's Barge Car — another work linked to humanism

Topics of this article

  • 1 - Summary of The Divine Comedy
  • 2 - Analysis of the work The Divine Comedy
    • → Characters from the work The Divine Comedy
    • Time of the work The Divine Comedy
    • Space of the work The Divine Comedy
    • Plot of the work The Divine Comedy
    • Narrator of The Divine Comedy
  • 3 - Characteristics of the work The Divine Comedy
  • 4 - Historical context of the work The Divine Comedy
  • 5 - Dante Alighieri

Summary about The divine Comedy

  • The Italian Dante Alighieri was born in the year 1265 and died in 1321.

  • The divine Comedy It is the author's most famous work.

  • It was written at the beginning of the fourteenth century, at the end of Middle Ages.

  • The verse narrative consists of three parts: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise.

  • Belonging to humanism, the book brings theocentric and anthropocentric elements.

  • Dante is the protagonist of this story, alongside Virgílio and the idealized Beatrice.

Analysis of the work The divine Comedy

Characters of the work The divine Comedy

  • protagonists

◦ Dante

◦ Virgil

◦ Beatriz

  • inhabitants of hell

Among them, mythological, historical characters, as well as contemporaries of Dante:

◦ Charon

◦ Homer

◦ Horatio

◦ Ovid

◦ Lucan

◦ Minos

◦ Paul

◦ Francesca

◦ Cerberus

◦ ciaco

◦ Pluto

◦ Phlegias

◦ Filippo Argenti

◦ flour

◦ Minotaur

◦ Quirion

◦ in that

◦ Pier della Vigna

◦ Capaneo

◦ Brunetto Latini

◦ gerion

◦ Venedico Caccianemico

◦ Jason

◦ Alessio Interminei

◦ Nicholas III

◦ Cloak

◦ Malacoda

◦ Catalan

◦ Loderingo

◦ Caiaphas

◦ Vanni Fucci

◦ Cyanfa

◦ Agnel

◦ Francesco Cavalcanti

◦ Buoso Donati

◦ Puccio Sciancato

◦ Ulysses

◦ Diomedes

◦ Guido da Montefeltro

◦ Muhammad

◦ Dolcino

◦ Bertran de Born

◦ Geri del Bello

◦ Capocchio

◦ Gianni Schicchi

◦ myrrh

◦ Adam

◦ synon

◦ Nemrod

◦ Efialte

◦ Antaeus

◦ Pazzi truck

◦ Bocca degli Abati

◦ Count Ugolino

◦ Friar Alberigo

◦ Lucifer

◦ Judas Iscariot

◦ gross

◦ Cassio

Do not stop now... There's more after the publicity ;)

  • Inhabitants of Purgatory

Among them, historical characters, as well as contemporaries of Dante:

◦ Card of Utica

◦ Casella

◦ Manfred

◦ Belacqua

◦ Jacopo del Cassero

◦ Buonconte de Montefeltro

◦ Pia dei Tolemei

◦ Sordello

◦ Nino Visconti

◦ Corrado Malaspina

◦ Oderisi da Gubbio

◦ Provenzan Salvani

◦ Sapia

◦ Guido del Duca

◦ Ranieri da Calboli

◦ Milestone

◦ Hadrian V

◦ Hugo Capet

◦ Estácio

◦ Forese Donati

◦ Bonagiunta

◦ Guido Guinizelli

◦ Arnaut Daniel

  • inhabitants of paradise

Among them, historical characters, as well as contemporaries of Dante:

◦ Matelda

◦ piccard

◦ Santa Clara

◦ Constance

◦ Justinian

◦ Charles Martel

◦ Clemency

◦ Cunizza of Romano

◦ Folk of Marseille

◦ Rahab

◦ Saint Thomas Aquinas

◦ Alberto Magno

◦ Francisco Graciano

◦ Pedro Lombardo

◦ King Solomon

◦ Dionysius Areopagite

◦ Paulo Orosio

◦ Boethius

◦ Saint Isidore

◦ bede

◦ Richard of San Vittore

◦ Siger of Brabant

◦ Saint Bonaventure

◦ Cacciaguida

◦ David

◦ Trajan

◦ Hezekiah

◦ Constantine

◦ William II

◦ Ripheus

◦ Pedro Damião

◦ Saint Benedict

◦ Christ

◦ Virgin Mary

◦ San Pedro

◦ Saint James

◦ Saint John

◦ Adam

◦ Eve

◦ Saint Bernard

  • Work time The divine Comedy

The time of the narrative échronologicaland refers to the beginning of the fourteenth century, in order to coincide with the time of the narration of the facts.

  • work space The divine Comedy

The action takes place in three spaces: Ihell, Purgatory and Pparadise.

  • Plot of the work The divine Comedy

Dante is the protagonist of The divine Comedy. He is 35 years old and lost in a metaphorical jungle. After defeating three allegorical beasts (jaguar, lion and wolf), he manages to leave that place. That's when the spirit of the poet Virgil appears before him, willing to accompany him on his journey to Hell and Purgatory.

Virgílio reveals that the soul of Beatriz, Dante's inspiring muse, descended from Paradise to ask that the author of the Aeneid guide him. Virgil, representative of Antique, is the symbol of reason. Like this, both poets go to Hell.From there, they find different types of sinners and their respective penalties.

On the river Acheron, Charon (the ferryman of hades) takes sinners to serve their sentence. In Limbo, poets find the unbaptized virtuous. There, in addition to Virgil, live: Homer, Horace, Ovid and Lucan. In the second circle of Hell, there are the lustful ones, like the lovers Paolo and Francesca, killed by Rimini, the betrayed husband.

In the third, Dante and Virgil come across those who committed the sin of gluttony, tortured by Cerberus. Already in the fourth circle, the avaricious and the prodigal are punished, under the command of Pluto. In the fifth, the iracunds are found. Next, in the city of Dite, in the sixth circle, this is where the heretics live.

In the seventh, guarded by Minotaur, are the violent, followed by suicides, spendthrifts, blasphemers, usurers and sodomites. Dante meets his late master Brunetto Latini there. In the eighth circle of Hell, fraudsters are punished. Among them, Pope Nicholas III, stuck upside down in a small hole, while fire burns his feet.

Finally, in the ninth circle, traitors are subjected to their due punishment. Then Dante gets to see Lucifer, before being guided by Virgil to Purgatory.. Cato of Utica, guardian of Purgatory, let the poets go. Souls are there transiently.

They must serve their sentences so that they can finally enter Paradise. The two poets are in Antepurgatory and have to climb a hill. On the way, they meet several souls. Until, finally, they enter Purgatory. On this new path, they meet the proud, who carry heavy stones, and Oderisi predicts Dante's exile.

There are also the envious, whose eyelids are sewn with wire, the irate, and the lazy. As in Hell, there are avaricious and prodigals, lying on their stomachs, with their hands and feet bound. Among them, Pope Adrian V. In Purgatory, there are also sweet tooths, like the soul of Dante's friend, a certain Forese Donati.

Finally, Dante and Virgil meet the lustful ones of Purgatory. Like this, already close to Paradise, Virgílio moves away, since he is not allowed to enter there, and Dante follows alone. Finally, Dante finds Beatriz's soul. She asks him to repent of his sins and go to confession.

Afterwards, Beatriz takes him and guides him through Paradise. From then on, she removes Dante's doubts about philosophical and religious issues, as do other characters present on the route. By meeting historical figures like Justinian, historical and political issues are discussed, and criticisms are leveled at members of the Church.

In Paraíso, Dante also meets his great-great-grandfather Cacciaguida, which makes you some predictions. Thus, the entire path taken by the poet served to purify and save his soul, which could only happen due to Beatriz's love. The book ends when Dante finally sees the vision of God.

Through this classic work, which crosses the centuries, Dante honors and confirms the Catholic faith but also criticizes the members of the Church of your time. He exposes his existential doubts, in addition to facts of his life. And it also talks about politics, philosophy, religion and history.

  • narrator of the work The divine Comedy

O storyteller of the work it's Dante Alighieri himself, who becomes the main character of his narrative. Therefore, it is a narrator-character.

Characteristics of the work The divine Comedy

The divine Comedy is narrative written in verse. Dante created, for the composition of this work in decasyllable verses, the tuesday rhyme: the first verse rhymes with the third; the second rhymes with the first and third verses of the next triplet. Let's read an excerpt as an example:

Fear is due to the thing in which the poder
to cause us harm manifests itselfit is,
the others do not, of which there is noer.

Such was I made by God, by his mercy, that it is
your fatal misery does not affect me,
nor flame of this fire molt meit is.|1|

Furthermore, the book is divided into three parts:

  • Hell (34 corners)

  • Purgatory (33 corners)

  • Paradise (33 corners)

That monumental work is part of the Hhumanism, artistic movement that emerged in Italy in the fourteenth century. The works of the period present idealized love, idealized woman, in addition to seeking a balance between reason and religiosity.

Know more:Humanism in Literature — authors and characteristics

Historical context of the work The divine Comedy

The Tuscany region was made up of the municipalities of Arezzo, Florence, Pisa and Siena. In this region lived the Ghibellines (defenders of the Holy Roman Empire) and the Guelphs (defenders of the papacy). Dante fought on the side of the Guelphs at the Battle of Campaldino in 1289, when the Florentines won Arezzo and Pisa.

In addition to this religious, territorial and political dispute, the Italy witnessed the changes that took place at the end of the Middle Ages. The Church still held strong political power, shared with the nobles. However, a new social class acquired protagonism, that is, the bourgeoisie, formed by prosperous merchants.

If before artists depended on the endorsement of the Church or the support of the nobles, now they could also count on the financial support of bourgeois patrons. Such merchants sought to compensate for their “lack of culture” by investing in education and art. Like this, intellectuals and artists were able to recover and defend the values ​​of antiquity.

Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri was a Italian writer, born in Florence in the year 1265.His great inspiring muse was Beatriz Portinari (1266-1290), whom he met when they were both still children, however, when he turned 20, he married Gemma Donati. He was active in church politics and affairs.

Portrait of the writer Dante Alighieri by Sandro Botticelli.
Portrait of the writer Dante Alighieri by Sandro Botticelli.

He was ambassador at San Gimignano and prior of the Council of Florence. Accused of corruption, he was exiled in 1302 and was never able to return to his hometown. After having great success with his work The divine Comedy, Dante died on September 14, 1321, in Ravenna.

Note

|1| ALIGHIERI, Dante. The divine Comedy. 2. ed. São Paulo: Editora 34, 2014.

By Warley Souza
Literature Teacher

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