Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Dante's Inferno is Spiritual due to being written during the Middle Ages

According to the chapters about order and the Chain of Being in the Elizabethan World Picture, the Middle Ages represented a time of great spirituality.  Knowing this makes Dante's theology and beliefs while writing his epic, The Divine Comedy make a lot more sense.  Dante clearly demonstrates his strong belief in Christianity throughout the Inferno canticle of The Divine Comedy.  He claims that the only way to make it to paradise is through God.  The Divine Comedy, more specifically, Dante's Inferno displays such spirituality because it was made during such a spiritual time, the middle ages.  We  will next be reading Hamlet, which was written during the Elizabethan Period.  The Elizabethan World Picture warns us not to assume that the Elizabethan Period is solely about humanism.  It claims that the Elizabethan Era is actually also very spiritual and picks up where the Middle Ages left off.  It will be interesting to see if Hamlet displays spirituality due to being written in the Elizabethan Period.

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