13
votes
Accepted
Why is Dante’s Odysseus different from Homer’s?
For one thing, Dante never read Homer.
Like most medieval Christians, Dante did not have direct access to the original Greek texts. Instead, they would've learnt of ancient Greek mythology through the ...
- 7,877
10
votes
Accepted
Why is Lucifer three-faced?
Why is the Devil also known as Lucifer (and other names) three-faced?
To understand this symbolic meaning of Dante in his Canto XXXIV, we have to have a basic understanding of the beliefs of the ...
- 2,863
8
votes
Why is Lucifer three-faced?
It's worth looking further down Canto XXXIV (I'm using a slightly different translation) to see just who is stuffed into Lucifer's mouths:
"That upper spirit,
Who hath worst punishment," so spake ...
- 7,133
6
votes
Accepted
Why are Dido and Cleopatra in the second circle of Hell?
Dante conceived of the architecture of Hell as an inverted church. The higher circles are lesser sins, and each descending circle represents what he saw as greater sins.
The sin of Lust was, to Dante,...
6
votes
What is the inspiration behind the dark forest in Dante?
The metaphor was (probably) inspired partly by Medieval literature (courtly or theological) and partly by Virgil's works, for example the "Georgics" that, in part, discusses the myth of Orpheus, who ...
- 161
5
votes
Accepted
Why is Dante using Geryon as a symbol of fraud?
Translator-poet John Ciardi (Dante, The Inferno, Signet Classics, 2001, p. 139) offers the following annotation:
GERYON. A mythical king of Spain represented as a giant with three heads and three ...
- 1,391
3
votes
Why is Dante using Geryon as a symbol of fraud?
Symbolically, Dante's rendering is a metaphor for fraud: a human face (honest and just) atop a monstrous personage
Multiple heads or bodies in the Classical depiction can indicate deception ...
- 14.2k
2
votes
Why is Dante’s Odysseus different from Homer’s?
Dante is using Odysseus freely as a metaphor for the Greek Tradition in Canto 26. It is meant to illustrate the intellectual/rational hubris, when detached from a larger spiritual and embedding frame ...
- 21
2
votes
Why is Lucifer three-faced?
Perhaps to emulate the old statue of the Goddess Hekate. The youth, the priestess, the wise crone. Before Virgin Mary with Vesica Pisces was placed on the crossroads all across Europe, Hekate was the ...
1
vote
Why is Dante’s Odysseus different from Homer’s?
Yes, the Divine Comedy and Dante's Odysseus is an original fictional allegory, a fantasy, an epic and technically an Aristotelian comedy because it has a happy ending. The Inferno, Purgatorio and ...
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