The idea of salvation in The Divine Comedy - Research Paper Example

?The Divine Comedy The essence of human life is the unending search for the ultimate truth/reality and the tiresome effort to attain salvation. Some people try to attain salvation within the limits of religious rituals and customs. But some other people consider salvation as self-purification and as the essence of life. Dante’s work named as The Divine Comedy guides the readers towards the scope of salvation in human life as a cyclic process, beginning from the underworld that ends in the heaven. Thesis statement: The most important theme in the work The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri is salvation because the author leads the readers towards three different worlds (the underworld, the purgatory, and the heaven) to remind the importance of salvation and the ultimate purpose of life. Analysis: the idea of salvation in The Divine Comedy This section is broadly divided as: Salvation and the significance of the underworld, Salvation and the significance of the purgatory, and Salvation and the significance of the heaven. Salvation and the significance of the underworld One can see that the urge to attain salvation motivates the narrator (say, the poet) to follow Virgil to the underworld. Dante portrays the underworld as a supernatural world within the limits of the mother earth. To be specific, the underworld is portrayed as the first step towards salvation. As pointed out, the urge to attain salvation motivates the narrator and he feels that he is lost in a strange land. Besides, he was forced to undergo an attack from wild beasts. These wild beasts are symbolic of the narrator’s disbelief in the existence of the underworld because one who is alive cannot visit the underworld. The narrator is in search of a straight way to attain salvation, but he was not able to do so. Instead, he came to realize the fact that the underworld has absorbed him. In the work Divine Comedy: the Inferno, by Dante Alighieri, the narrator states that, “Afterwards, the Chosen Vessel went thither, to bring confirmation of that Faith which is the entrance to the way of salvation” (16). But Virgil saves the narrator and leads him to the core of the underworld. Within this context, Virgil’s role in the poem is noteworthy because he acts the role of a moral guide who helps the narrator to realize the significance of redemption in human life. Anita Price Davis states that, “The journey to Hell is a conscious choice on the part of those who make the trip” (20). The different layers of the underworld portrayed in the poem are symbolic of the punishments according to the seriousness of crimes committed by human beings. So, the portrayal of the underworld in Dante’s work represents the religious attitude towards sin and the significance of salvation in life. Dante’s role as an onlooker helps the readers to realize that redemption can help human beings to keep away from sin and related punishment in the underworld. Salvation and the significance of the purgatory In Dante’s work, Purgatory is portrayed as a hilly area surrounded by water. This mountain is symbolic of the classification of sins committed by human beings. Janet P. Foggie makes clear that, “The most famous picture of purgatory, as a steep mountain up which the penitent painfully climbed, was drawn by Dante in his Divine Comedy” (175). Dante amalgamated Christian theology to the context of purgatory as a temporary spot before entering the heaven. In the work, the narrator and Virgil quit the underworld and decide to visit the purgatory to have deeper understanding on the difference between sin and desirable quality. Dante portrays love as divine energy, originating from the God. When godly love is superimposed into the context of human life, the same undergoes rapid transformation. To be specific, the unconditional love from the god gets contaminated by human minds with full of envy and greed. When one happens to realize that sinning leads to severe punishment in afterlife, redemption and salvation happens. The souls that committed less serious crimes are forced to undergo the temporary life in the purgatory. To be specific, the purgatory acts the role of a preparatory stage to the souls that are getting ready to enter the heaven. In the work, Dante tries to prove that detachment from criminality and sin cannot save an individual from the wrath of hell. Instead, self-purification is important to attain salvation. Guy P. Raffa opines that, “Of particular conceptual originality of Dante’s Ante-Purgatory, the zone between the island’s shoreline and the gate of purgatory proper, at the limit of the earth’s atmosphere” (123). Within this context, human souls in the purgatory undergo transformation because salvation is the most important aim. So, the purgatory that is portrayed in the work is symbolic of the human effort to attain salvation. Salvation and the significance of the heaven In the work, heaven is portrayed as the ultimate aim of the journey. Besides, the detailed description of heaven is related to the virtues of the human beings. Robert E. Proctor opines that, “Dante, through his art, journeyed to heaven: the Divine Comedy ends with a description of Dante’s momentary experience of the beatific vision” (38). On the other side, the underworld and the purgatory are symbolic of the sins committed by human beings. So, the journey through the heaven represents the human endeavor to attain salvation or self-realization. Dante’s portrayal of the heaven is interconnected with astrological findings during his age. For instance, planets play an important role in the division of the hell as portrayed by the narrator. Within this context, the sun plays a major role in the work because most virtuous souls are allowed to dwell in this layer of the heaven. The uppermost layer of the heaven is portrayed as most important because this layer is symbolic of the god’s presence or salvation. The human beings aim to reach the uppermost layer, but only a few can attain the same. The narrator’s theological conversation with Saint Peter and others is helpful to have deeper understanding of the importance given to the Church in daily life. Still, the narrator is aware of the fact that one never realizes the importance of heaven in its right sense because one cannot decide one’s destiny. Hitesh Parmar states that, “Dante makes us feel the pleasures of Heaven and pains of Hell” (46). The narrator realizes that god’s love is the end of the tiresome journey from the earth to the lap of the almighty. This realization is symbolic of salvation and the significance of the human effort to withstand worldly pleasures. In short, the human desire to feel the god’s divinity is portrayed as salvation. Summing up, work The Divine Comedy helps the readers to know more about the possibility of salvation in life. The different worlds that are portrayed in the work are symbolic of the human understanding on life after death during Dante’s age. In the work, human souls that did commit serious sins are trapped in the underworld, some other souls are able to reach the purgatory, and a few are able to feel the presence of the god. Within this scenario, redemption plays an important role in freeing human souls from the influence of material pleasures. The narrator acts the role of a moral guide who provides an amazing experience to the readers because salvation is portrayed as the ultimate aim. To be specific, salvation is the most important theme in the work because the same is projected as the sum total of human life. So, The Divine Comedy is beyond a traditional allegorical work because it deals with life and acts the role of a moral guide that helps the readers to understand the scope of redemption and salvation in life. Works Cited Alighieri, Dante. Divine Comedy: the Inferno. London: Harvard University. 1867. Print. Davis, Anita Price. Dante's Divine Comedy I: Inferno. New Jersey: Research & Education Assoc., 1995. Print. Foggie, Janet P. Renaissance Religion in Urban Scotland: The Dominican Order, 1450-1560. Danvers: BRILL, 2003. Print. Parmar, Hitesh. Paradise Lost And The Divine Comedy. New Delhi: Sarup & Sons, 2002. Print. Proctor, Robert E. Defining the Humanities: How Rediscovering a Tradition Can Improve Our Schools: With a Curriculum for Today's Students. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1998. Print. Raffa, Guy P. The Complete Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the Divine Comedy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. Print. Read More