Monday, February 8, 2010
Epic poem
Recently, as I was browsing through To Kill A Mockingbird on SparkNotes, I came across this sublime yet interesting poem called Dante's Inferno, in a genre 'epic poems'. This long narrative poem is about a poet Dante, describing the nine circles of hell, as follows:
Limbo - Here resides the unbaptized and virtuous pagans, who though are not sinful, did not accept Christ.
Lust - Lustful souls are blown about to and fro by the terrible winds of a violent storm, without hope of rest. This symbolizes the power of lust to blow one about needlessly and aimlessly.
Gluttony - Gluttons were forced to lie in a vile slush representing the trash they made of their lives.
Greed - Those whose attitude toward material goods deviated from the desired mean are punished in this circle, including the avaricious and prodigal.
Anger - In the swamp-like water of the river Styx, the wrathful fight each other on the surface, and the sullen lie gurgling beneath the water.
Heresy - Here, heretics are punished in flaming tombs.
Violence - Three rings where sinners where punished for violence against self, others and god.
Fraud - The fraudulent—those guilty of deliberate, knowing evil—are located in a circle named Malebolge, divided into ten bolgie, or ditches of stone, with bridges spanning the ditches.
Treachery - Sinners here are immersed in ice up to their faces. Condemned in the center is the one who committed the ultimate sin, personal treachery against god, Lucifer(Satan)
After reading short excerpts on this, I find that this divine comedy is entertaining as it takes us into hell from the experience of a poet.
Posted by 2i202 at 1:26 AM