|
|
This is only a preview of the paper
Click here to register and get the full text.
Existing members click here to login
|
|
|
... In the first stage of The Divine Comedy by Dante
Alighieri, The Inferno, it was required that Alighieri have a strategy to allow his readers
an inside view into his perception of the underworld. ... With the distinct use of epic similes, Alighieri was
successively able to give words a unique ability to explain and paint graphic portraits that
described in detail his experience and memorable journey into the depths of Hell.
While Dante traveled through each circle of the Inferno, epic similes assisted to
explain exactly what Dante was observing by comparing the fictional settings and
atmospheres to well-known objects. For example, when Dante visited the evil counselors
in the Eighth Bolgia, the sinners, who were engulfed in flames, shook with eagerness to
hear news from their homelands, and Dante described the flames’ wailing,
attention-seeking cries by using an epic simile to compare :
As the Sicilian bull--that brazen spit
which bellowed first (and properly enough)
with the lament of him whose file had tuned it--
was made to bellow by its victim’s cries
in such a way, that though it was of brass,
it seemed itself to howl and agonize:
so lacking way through or around
the fire that sealed them in, the mournful words
were changed into its language. ... The epic simile describes exactly how Dante’s sight was
affected by the dark; to his startling surprise, giants’ figures actually made the gigantic
shapes he noticed, engulfed in the black blanket. Because the atmosphere in Hell, in
Alighieri’s perspective, was so outrageously unheard of, it was necessary that he relate
them to modern day settings to permit readers to acquire a complete picture of the
Inferno.
Approximate Word count = 1261
Approximate Pages = 5
(250 words per page double spaced)
|
|
|
|
|
|