St. Augustine and Virgil’s Influence in Dante’s Inferno

Reaching an epiphany after a lengthy, perilous journey may take c are like the content pertinent for unreal legends. However, the epic poetrys of St. Augustine, Virgil, and Dante share similar themes and subscribe an of the essence(predicate) relevance to Christianity. Virgils The Aeneid follows the story of Aeneas who encountered hardships and drop deads to the inferno to maintain his destiny of establishing Rome.Dantes Inferno follows a phantasmally indigent Dante through the nightspot sound of hell with the purpose of realizing relief and reuniting with his wife in heaven. Finally, St. Augustines Confessions are an record that expands the life of its author in search of a spiritual awakening. An exploration of Dantes Inferno comprises inspirations and square offs from the separate two pieces of belles-lettres copiously in setting and resign matter.Virgils InfluenceVirgils The Aeneid influences Dantes work through a description of a hell that is composed of quat ernary stages and punishment intensities for its unfortunate inhabitants. Dantes Inferno reveals a journey through the nine rings of hell (Hunt et al. 369). Through his journey, Dante identifies different separate in hell where people are suffering from different punishments Minervino 2 base on their sins. In this hell, he journeys to a greater extent in-depth into the rings to the pit that holds the most villainous characters in religious history such(prenominal) as Judas and Lucifer (Dante, Longfellow, and Dore 212).Comparably, Virgil had developed this story in his works, which were written before Dantes. Virgils The Aeneid shows Aeneas travel through different avenues of hell such as the Field of Mourning where cheating(a) suffered a horrid punishment (Puchner et al. 999). As they travel deeper into the underworld, Aeneas and Sybil come across a fortress where Rhadamanthus punishes the evilest people with intense excruciate (Virgil and Fagles 189). Virgils formation of the underworld has recognizable bearings on Dantes explication of hell. The structural and operational similarity is an evidence of Virgils The Aeneids influence on Dantes Inferno.Moreover, Virgils narrative necessitates the attention of a spiritual guide, a shape that Dante incorporated into the Inferno. The Aeneids protagonist, Aeneas, follows a Sybil likewise referred to as a priestess through the underworld (Virgil and Fagles 172). Similarly, Dante follows the weirdie of a deceased poet called Virgil (Dante, Longfellow and Dore 4). One substantive similarity between the guides is their wisdom and potential (Puchner et al. 1465). They are decisive and very powerful such that they can travel slightly hell with little culmination to themselves and their exceptional formulations. Dantes comparison of Virgil is an satirical guidance of Virgils illumination of the Sybil.St. Augustines InfluenceSt. Augustines Confessions also has a notable influence on the pendant matter shown in Dantes Inferno. Unlike Virgils work, these two pieces of literature detail colossal ramifications concerning religion. Dante and St. Augustines works are journeys to spiritual clarity (Enright Minervino 3 33).Dantes Inferno originates with a lost Dante wandering in a dark forest (Dante, Longfellow and Dore 1). However, he is ineffective to reach the light prompting him to acidulate back where he meets a guide, who promises to overhaul him achieve righteousness and see his wife in heaven. Similarly St. Augustine travels the world without a great deal purpose other than engaging in materialistic pleasures such as intimate exploration (Puchner et al. 1127).However, upon reaching the garden in Milan, he achieves clarity and conversion (St. Augustine and Pusey 106). Dante also achieves a similar epiphany upon exiting hell into the earth. This sympathy suggests that St. Augustines Confessions had a effectual ramification on Dantes Inferno.ConclusionSt. Augustine and Virgils works of literature had a profound influence on Dantes work. Virgils The Aeneid developed a conceptualization of hell that Dante later fit to his work. The visualization of a portioned hell that caters to sins differently based on their intensity appears prominently in either authors work. On the other hand, St. Augustines Confessions has an important influence on Dantes subject matter of a journey to redemption and eventual spiritual empowerment. Therefore, St. Augustine and Virgils works were important in developing the Epic poem Dantes Inferno.?