"The Inferno"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains how in "The Inferno" by Dante Alighieri, Dante makes use of Virgil as a character and of the epic as embodied in Virgil's "Aeneid" as a model, drawing on some of the poetic elements of the Roman epic for his journey into the netherworld.

From the Paper:

"Three of the more obvious differences between the epics of Homer and the epic of Virgil are as follows: 1) Homer's works were part of an oral tradition and were not written down until long after they had been composed and passed from generation to generation, while Virgil produced a manuscript which he constantly revised (Payne 197). 2) Virgil's epic was intended to praise the rule of Augustus, supposed descendant of Aeneas, the founder of Rome, and to celebrate the peace and prosperity Augustus achieved, while Homer's poems celebrated the mythic past of Greece but did not have a particular political object in mind (Payne 196). 3) The critical respect accorded Homer has not been given to Virgil as well, and his reputation was diminished by the view that he had done little more than imitate Homer with the Aeneid."

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