... ). The Roman poet Virgil, who guides Dante through hell, acts as the symbol of reason and studies the varieties of human sin (Sayre 441). As a matter of fact, the Inferno serves as criticism of his Italian contemporaries, some from history and legend from his era, marred by the severity of their sin (Sayre 441). Alighieri opted to write Inferno as vernacular literature in order to ... Florence and now, are not so different in the past centuries. It is still regarded as an imbalance on the nature of holy creation as in Dante's time, yet there is a radical change to be made until the world...

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• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... the beginning of The Inferno of Dante, by Robert Pinsky, Dante builds a great deal of tension between the objective of God's justice, and Dante's human sympathy for the souls that he sees around him. As the story progresses, however, the character becomes less and less inclined toward pity, and repeated comments by Virgil encourage this ... husbands brother Paolo da Rimini, in turn both wound up in The Second Circle of Hell. Both are condemned to a spinning torment. On his way, Dante reaches the Third Circle of Hell, only to see that these souls must lie in the mud. Torrential rains of f...

• Word Count: 1583
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School