Language in Dante’s Inferno Essay -- Divine Comedy Inferno Essays

Language in Dantes Inferno What happens to language in hell? In Dantes Inferno, the journeying pilgrim explores languages variations and nuances as he attempts to communicate with hells pitiable and ailing inhabitants, despite multiple language barriers and relentless cacophonies. Dante thematically unifies languages inconsistencies in hell that is, he associates the pilgrims abortive attempts to communicate with point shades, and the incomprehensible languages and sounds that beleaguer him, with a symbol from Christian mythology the Tower of Babel. Dante juxtaposes this Christian myth with Virgils symbolic association with wondrous speech in the Inferno. Virgil functions as the pilgrims guide and poetic inspiration, and despite his position in hell as a pagan, Virgil still transmits divinely-inspired language to his pupil. Thus, notwithstanding his shapeless physicality as a shade in hell, Virgil represents lucidity and focussed thought, which comforts the pilgrim and provides a reprieve from hells dissonant sounds. Ultimately, the pilgrims relationship to language is multifarious it enables the pilgrim to connect with Virgil and discover his place in the customs of famous poets through divinely-inspired and intimate speech yet, it isolates and horrifies him when it is incomprehensible, amplifying his individual scathe thus, ultimately drawing him closer to his understanding of the shades knowledge torture. Virgils enlightened language spawns partially from Beatrice, a divine inhabitant of heaven, who worries roughly the well-being of the pilgrim, and partially from his status in a long tradition of famous poets, beginning with Homer. Yet, despite Virgils association with enlightened and elevated ... ... His relationship to Virgil is enriched by their similar relationship to language as poets, and by the challenge of creating a poetic bequest on earth that counters the legacy of the tower of Babel in hell. Ultimately, the pilgrims desire reflects the reality of Dantes own legacy, one that is immeasurably influential. Works CitedAlighieri, Dante. The Inferno. Vol 1. Trans. Robert M. Durling. New York Oxford UP, 1996.Barolini, Teodolinda. Dantes Poets Textuality and Truth in the Comedy. Princeton Princeton UP, 1984.Dronke, Peter. Dante and Medieval Latin Traditions. Cambridge Cambridge UP, 1986.Durling, Robert M., Ronald L. Martinez. Notes. The Inferno. Vol 1. By Dante Alighieri. Trans. Robert M. Durling. New York Oxford UP, 1996.Eco, Umberto. Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages. Trans. Hugh Bredin. New Haven, CT. Yale UP, 1986.