The Allegory of the Cave and Dante Essay -- Plato Allegory Cave Dante

The Allegory of the Cave and DanteIf you would not be forgotten as soon as you are absolutely and rotten, either write things cost reading or do things worth writing. This maxim applies to the poet Dante Alighieri, writer of The Inferno in the 1300s, because it asserts the need to establish oneself as a contributor to society. Indeed, Dantes work contributes much to Renaissance Italy as his work is the first of its scope and size to be written in the vernacular. Due to its readability and availability, The Inferno is a nationalistic symbol. With this widespread availability also comes a certain social responsibility even though Dantes audience would have been familiar with the religious dogma, he assumes the informative role of illustrating his own version of Christian justice and emphasizes the need for a personal understanding of divine wisdom and contrapasso, the idea of the perfect penalization for the crime. Dante acts as both author and narrator, completing a physical and apparitional journey into the underworld with Virgil as his guide and mentor. The journey from darkness into informal is an allegory full of symbolism, much like that of Platos Allegory of the Cave, which shows a philosophers journey towards the true. Therefore, Dante would also agree with the maxim, Wise men aim by others harms fools scarcely by their own, because on the road to gaining knowledge and uncanny enlightenment, characters who learn valuable lessons from the misfortunes of others strengthen their own paradigms. Nonetheless, the only true path to gain knowledge is to experience it first hand. Dantes character finds truth by way of his own personal quest. Dantes poetry is naughty in symbolism of light and darkness. At the beginn... ...ards monstrous figures and sympathy towards those who calculate to be tortured unjustly. In his perverse education, with instruction from Virgil and the shades, Dante learns to replace blessing with brutality, becau se sympathy in Hell condones sin and denies divine justice. The ancient philosopher Plato, act in the first level of Hell, argues in The Allegory of the Cave that truth is possible via knowledge of the Form of the Good. Similarly, Dante acquires truth through a piecemeal understanding of contrapasso and the recognition of divine justice in the afterlife. Ultimately, Dante recognizes that the actions of the earthly pert are important because the soul lives on afterwards to face the ramifications. By expressing his ideas on morality and righteousness, Dante writes a work worth reading, immortalizes his name, and exalts the beliefs of his Christian audience.