The three animals that visit Dante, leopard, lion and she-wolf all represent some vice or sin, and/or symbolize the three stages of Dante's travel through Hell (concupiscence, pride and avarice). Animals as symbols, much like the deer in my story, the Sacred Hunt. She is a symbol of virginity, of innocence thereby sacrificed (or otherwise consumed) to reach Heaven.
Dante starts his journey with a darkened forest (selva oscura), a typical symbol of not only mystery and confusion, of evil and disorientation, of a darkened liminal state, 'tis also one of birth, since the forest seems so fecund, tis a mysterious place to begin, to start off the journey. He uses synesthesia, simile and vague and enigmatic prophecies to build a beginning scene of disjointed but creative confusion, one of swarming darkness...
the Greyhound...Virgil's wunderkind in his Georgics...as amplified and propagandized as Jesus' birth, wow, Virgil as prophecizer for the Christian faith, this man of heathen betrothed. Incredibly interesting (albeit rather condescending) that Dante uses his hero, Virgil, in this light, this role of guide but one who has not been severely punished for his living beliefs, one touted so high as to be given, by the Christian god, a savory and special place in the afterlife, and it does not include suffering at the hands of devils...Dante thought so much of his hero, as to give him this advantage, although, in the end, he was a filthy heathen that knew no better, yet, if he was a contemporary, wouldve definitely been Christian, right Dante?
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
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