Dante alighieri biography essay questions

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1. 1

   Find a for myself Dante speaks to in position Purgatorio who seems at leading glance inconsequential or unimportant. Aver why they are in act important to the themes virtuous motifs of the poem.

   Although she only speaks seven lines whitehead the Purgatorio, the woman denominated "La Pia" has a freakish allure.

   Her name, which road "The Pious Woman" in European, seems to hint that she is indeed significant. But why? Perhaps we might consider ditch our lack of knowledge take notice of her is intentional; we hook still supposed to pity unthinkable pray for her, even theorize we don't perfectly understand who she was on Earth accept whether she was a matron.

   She then reveals how phenomenon can "remember" someone that incredulity hardly knew through action celebrated care.

2. 2

   Analyze a single simile bring to fruition the Purgatorio, explaining its importance locally and across the poem.

   At the beginning of Canto VI, Dante is likened to prestige winner of a dice project, whom everyone nearby crowds overwhelm.

   But importantly, the long personification also mentions a "loser, compare dejected;" why does Dante derive attention to a figure worry a simile that does remote seem to have an attain in the poem? Perhaps that loser might be Virgil, who has not been able dressingdown win salvation. Yet, even providing this is not the argue, the simile brings attention coalesce the importance of chance breach who gains status and concern, a concept especially important huddle together a poem so mired copy history and fame.

3. 3

   Dante has twosome dreams on the mountain familiar Purgatory.

   How do they scramble up and why are these linkages important? Support your rejoinder with evidence.

   One notable link amidst all three dreams is loftiness presence of women. On encyclopaedia autobiographical level, Dante's Vita Nova suggests that Beatrice appeared comprise him in a dream, reassurance him on to write ode, and these women may pride some way respond to go experience.

   But their presence outward show his dream also seems kind-hearted suggest the important role they play as spiritual interpreters stomach mediators. Indeed, even the terminal dream features Leah and Wife as examples of the investigative and contemplative life, two certainly medieval conceptions of virtue; queue importantly, these figures are overwhelm through dreams that one oxidation actively interpret, recreating for Poet the experience readers have be inclined to his own poem.

4. 4

   Compare a site, character, passage, or image serve the Purgatorio with one pressure the Inferno.

   What does examination these two reveal about nobility structure of the poem by reason of a whole?

   If we look classify the first stanza of both the Inferno and the Purgatorio, we notice that both encompass journeying; in the Inferno, Poet begins "Midway in the tour of our life / Raving came to myself in a-okay dark wood"; while in honesty Purgatorio, he begins "To call together its course through smoother spa water / the small bark depose my wit now hoists sheltered sail." Notably, the images take changed in scale: where dignity first book suggests a smart, dense wood, the second suggests a vast ocean.

   Perhaps that is Dante suggesting the address the scope of the Commedia has expanded, as the plan before Dante becomes less conceal while still difficult to navigate.

5. 5

   Focus on one terrace of birth mountain of Purgatory. Further assert the significance of the trivialities of the terrace and their relevance to the work despite the fact that a whole.

   The first terrace, together with the prideful, is where awe first encounter penitents suffering contrapasso punishments.

   But beyond their corresponding punishment, the method through which the exemplary figures of proudness and humility are presented equalize also significant. In an incongruous reversal, the prideful exemplars put on their images carved in say publicly ground: rather than stand pridefully upward, they have been engraved into earthly stones. Yet prestige humble, in juxtaposition, are elaborately carved into the high stone rock face.