Relationship between Classical and Christian Culture in the Divine Comedy

Introduction

Divine Comedy is one of the greatest literary works in the world where the human scientific knowledge, legal, philosophical, theological, political, moral and poetic of Christian culture, together with the rich heritage of classical culture, are enclosed in a casket of favorite verses. The demonology in Dante has various sources, mainly from classical mythology and the Bible but also from outmoded traditions. Classical origin is clearly monstrous figures as Charon, Minos, Cerberus, Pluto, the Minotaur, Phlegyas, the Furies, the Centaurs, the Harpies, etc... They are reinterpreted and placed in a Christian poem, so much so that Christian theologians do not deny the existence but the divinity (Michael , 288).

Discussion

If we want to understand a culture's vision of experience, one very useful place to start is with that culture's maps. Classical culture did not use the fear of eternal pain and torture after death whereas Dante wrote the book for the church to make everyone fearful, but with the possibility of paradise. Dante was a talented commercial poet who wrote propaganda for the church. According to Dante's conception of geographical, based on various sources of Euro-Mediterranean (originally Christian, Jewish and Islamic), world is divided into two distinct hemispheres: a fully formed from the land and the other are entirely covered with water. According to the Ptolemaic system, the Earth is the center of the universe, and the Sun and other planets revolve around it.

Hell is, therefore, a deep funnel-shaped structure that reaches the Earth's core. It consists of nine circles. Dante and Virgil in fact, pursue their journey along the wheels turning, slowly go down dark spiral (Dante, 45). As you descend, the circles shrink, because the lower the number of sinners punished in circles that gradually are more distant from the surface. The largest circles are higher, because more popular there is the sin that is punished, the greater the number of condemned sinners. The more you go, the more you are away from God and the greater the severity of sin.

In The Devine Comedy, the one Dante chose to guide him through hell and purgatory was Virgil and his guide through paradise was Beatrice who was Dante's muse. The book is broken into three sections:

Inferno

Purgatory

Paradise

Dante explains what one must do to achieve eternal life and that, it is based on their chosen life in other words how one lives their ...