COLAND SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY COLLEGE, INC.

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Cotabato City

Course Code: LIT 111

Course Title: World Literature
Course Units: 3
School Year: 2020-2021 (First Semester)

MIDTERM MODULE

LITERARY TERMS & DEVICES

1. ALLEGORY: A figurative work in which characters, events, objects, and ideas have
secondary or symbolic meanings.
2. ALLITERATION: A string of words with the same initial consonant sound, repetition
of the same sounds. Example: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
3. ALLUSION: A reference in a literary work to a person, place, or thing in history or
another work of literature. Allusions are often indirect or brief references to well-known
characters or events. Example: "Christy didn't like to spend money. She was no Scrooge,
but she seldom purchased anything except the bare necessities".
4. ANECDOTE: A mini-story inserted into a piece of writing to reinforce the thesis.
5. ANNOTATE: Taking notes (on paper or using post-its) while reading to ensure
comprehension.
6. ASSONANCE: A repetition of vowel sounds within a short passage or verse or prose.
Example: Hayden plays a lot. They broke the chalice from the palace?
7. AUTHOR’S PURPOSE: The reason an author decides to write about a specific topic.
Once a topic is selected, the author must decide whether his/her purpose for writing is to
entertain, explain, inform, or persuade.
8. CHARACTERS: The people, and sometimes animals, involved in the action of the
story. A writer reveals a character’s personality through a variety of techniques, including
direct statements about the character, the character’s actions and comments, and what the
other characters say about the character.
a. PROTAGONIST: The main character in a literary work.
b. ANTAGONIST: The character, or force, in conflict with the main character. Four types
of character:
c. FLAT: One sided, often a stereotype.
d. ROUND: Fully developed, usually has both good & bad characteristics.
 e. STATIC: A character that does not change throughout the literary work.
f. DYNAMIC: A character that changes and grows throughout the work.
9. CHARACTERIZATION: The methods a writer uses to communicate information about
the characters from the story to the readers.
a. DIRECT: Narrator explicitly (clearly) describes a character.
b. INDIRECT: Character traits revealed through actions. Indirect characterizations are
implicit (not clearly stated, but implied)
10. CLICHÉ: An overused expression. Example: Snug as a bug in a rug. Chills running up
and down my spine.
11. CLIMAX: The highest dramatic moment of the story, the turning point in the story at
which the conflict comes to a head. The Climax can be either mentally or in action.

12. COMING OF AGE: A young person's transition from childhood to adulthood. This can be
seen in literature where a protagonist is initiated into adulthood through knowledge, experience,
or both.

● Examples include:

● Ignorance to knowledge

● Innocence to experience

● False view of world to correct view

● Idealism to realism

● Immature responses to mature responses

13. COMPLICATION: any obstacle that increases the tension of the story conflict

14. CONFLICT: A struggle between opposing people or forces. The six major types of conflict
are:

a. EXTERNAL CONFLICT: the character struggles against an outside force

● character vs. character

● character vs. supernatural

● character vs. society

● character vs. fate

● character vs. nature

b. INTERNAL CONFLICT: takes place in the mind of the character

● character vs. self

15. CONNOTATION: Is the associative or emotional meaning of a word.

16. CONSONANCE: The repetition of consonant sounds in stressed syllables in the middle or
end of words. Example: Pitter Patter. They broke the chalice from the palace.

17. DENOTATION: The dictionary meaning of a word.

18. DIALOGUE: The actual words that characters speak. Authors use dialogue skillfully in the
story to portray/build character and to dramatize conflict.

19. DRAMA: a story written to be performed; has characters, a setting and a plot. However,
drama has two specific characteristics that set it apart from prose (the ordinary form of writing
that is neither poetry nor drama).

a. Presentation of Dialogue: conversations between characters. Characters’ names are written

before the words they speak.

b. Stage Directions: Words not spoken by the characters. Stage directions describe the set, the
special effects, and the why characters look and move.

20. DYSTOPIA: An anti-utopian novel where, instead of a paradise, everything has gone wrong
in the attempt to create a perfect society.

21. EUPHEMISM: Word or phrase that softens the hard reality of the truth. Example: Vintage
or antique for something very old

22. EXPOSITION: The start of the story, introduces the characters, setting and the basic
situation.

23. FALLING ACTION: All of the action that follows the climax.

24. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: Writing or speech that is not meant to be taken literally.

25. FLASHBACK: In a flashback an author recreates a scene that took place at an earlier time
and tells it as if it is happening at the present moment. Example: In A Christmas Carol by
Charles Dickens, the Ghost of Christmas Past takes readers on a journey into various scenes in
Ebenezer Scrooge’s past.

26. FORESHADOWING: A technique authors use to drop hints or clues about what will
happen later, thereby helping to build suspense and prepare readers for the outcome. Example: In
The Devil’s Arithmetic, Rachel’s breathiness when she is speaking to the girls in the village.
GENRE: A type, or category of literature.
27. (FICTION / NON-FICTION / DRAMA / POETRY) HYPERBOLE: extravagant
exaggeration. An exaggerated statement used to heighten effect. It is not used to mislead the
reader, but to emphasize a point. Example: I heard that a million times. / I’m so hungry, I could
eat a horse.

28. INFERENCE: A conclusion or opinion that is formed because of known facts or evidence.

29. IDIOM: An expression that has a meaning particular to a language or region. Example: She
has a bee in her bonnet. /Pull your own weight.

30. IMAGERY: Words and phrases that vividly describe sight, sound, smell, taste and touch.
Poets often paint images, or word pictures, that appeal to your senses. Example: huckleberry
ropes lay prickly on her neck. Around her machinery growls, snarls and plows great patches of
her skin.

31. IRONY: Irony results when the outcome of a situation is opposite to what the reader might
have expected; irony often creates a surprise ending. Example: In The Gift of the Magi by O.
Henry, Della & Jim are quite poor. For Christmas, Della sells her long hair to buy Jim a watch
for his chain; Jim sells his chain to buy combs for Della’s hair.

32. METAPHOR: A figure of speech in which something is described as though it were

something else. It is a comparison that does not use the words like or as. Example: her angelic
smile/an icy stare/marshmallow clouds/he weaseled out.

33. MOOD: The feeling created in a literary work. Writers use many devices to create mood,
such as: imagery, dialogue, setting, and plot. Some examples of mood are: mysterious, gloomy,
serious, humorous, lonely, triumphant, and anxious.

34. NARRATOR: Tells the story to the reader. May or may not be a character in the story.

35. ONOMATOPOEIA: A literary device that results when a word mimics, or imitates, a
sound. Example: splash/plop/buzz/crunch/bang/clickety-clack

36. OXYMORON: Combining contradictory words to reveal a truth. Example: Jumbo shrimp /
pretty ugly

37. PERSONIFICATION: A literary technique of assigning human qualities to inanimate

objects. Example: The moon peeked shyly through the clouds.

38. PLOT: Series of related events that include the conflict, climax, and the resolution.

39. POINT OF VIEW: The vantage point from which a story is told.

a. FIRST PERSON: Told by a character who uses the first person pronoun “I.”
b. SECOND PERSON: Told by a narrator who uses the pronoun “YOU.”

c. THIRD PERSON OBJECTIVE: Uses third person pronouns; the facts are reported by a
seemingly neutral, impersonal observer or recorder.

d. THIRD PERSON LIMITED: Uses third person pronouns (he, she, they, etc.) to refer to
characters. The narrator does not know the other character’s thoughts and feelings, only his/her
own actions. Limited to ONE character.

e. THIRD PERSON OMNISCIENT: Uses third person pronouns (he, she, they, etc.) to refer to
characters. The narrator knows and tells about what each character knows and thinks.

40. PUN: Play on words; using a word that sounds like another word but has another meaning.
Example: I work as a baker because I knead the dough.

41. RESOLUTION: How the conflict turns out. It is the conclusion of the story; the tying
together of all the threads.

42. RISING ACTION: The series of conflicts and crisis in the story that lead to the climax.

43. RHYME: repetition of similar sounds (usually, exactly the same sound) in the final stressed
syllables and any following syllables of two or more words.

a. ALLITERATION: (or head rhyme): matching initial consonants. (ship, short)

b. ASSONANCE: matching vowels. (shake, hate) sometimes referred to as slant rhymes, along
with consonance.

c. CONSONANCE: matching consonants. (rabies, robbers)

d. INTERNAL RHYME: occurs when a word or phrase in the interior of a line rhymes with a
word or phrase at the end of a line, or within a different line. (As she spoke the child began to
choke)

44. SLANT RHYME: matching final consonants. (bent, ant) END RHYME: rhyme at the ends
of lines of poetry (Time frozen on a face / Dreams drift to a place)

45. SARCASM: A quick and witty comeback used verbally or in written form.

46. SATIRE: a literary device used to ridicule or make fun of human vice (fault) or weakness,
often with the intent of correcting, or changing, the subject of the satiric attack.

47. SENSORY DETAIL: Words and phrases that vividly describe sight, sound, smell, taste and
touch. Example: Every inch of my body ached after the grueling race through the scorching, arid
desert.
48. SETTING: The time and place of the story. Setting can affect the story’s mood, or feeling
you get as you read.

49. SIMILE: A comparison between two unlike things; usually using like or as. Example: The
manuscript is like a diamond in the rough.

50. STANZA: Lines that form a division or unit of a poem. Similar the “paragraph” within
writing and typically consists of four or more lines of verse.

51. SUBPLOT: Secondary or minor plot in a story that relates to the main plot.

52. SUSPENSE: Techniques used by the author to keep readers interested in the story and
wondering what will happen next.

53. SYMBOL: Anything that stands for or represents something else. For example: a dove with
an olive branch symbolized peace, a crown symbolizes authority.

54. THEME: The general idea about life that the author wants to communicate. Sometimes the
theme is stated directly. More often, the theme is revealed indirectly through the characters and
events in the story.

55. THESIS STATEMENT: A short statement, usually one sentence, that summarizes the main
point or claim of an essay, research paper, etc.

56. TONE: The writer’s attitude toward his or her audience and subject. The tone can often be
described by a single adjective, such as formal or informal, serious, playful, bitter, or ironic.
Factors that contribute to the tone are: word choice, sentence structure, rhythm, and repetition.

57. TOPIC SENTENCE: A sentence that identifies the main idea of a paragraph.

58. UTOPIA: an imaginary place n which the government, laws, and social conditions are
perfect

59. VERSE: A sequence of words arranged metrically according to some system of design; a
single line of poetry.

Seven Keys to Reading Comprehension: Visualizing, Background Knowledge, Questioning,

Inference, Determining Importance (Theme, Big Idea), Synthesize (summarizing), Fix-it
Strategies
 A SHORT PLOT SYNOPSIS OF BEOWULF – AND A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

What happens in Beowulf, the jewel in the crown of AngloSaxon poetry? The title of the
poem is probably the most famous thing about it – that, and the fact that a monster named
Grendel features at some point. But because the specific details of the story are not widely
known, numerous misconceptions about the poem abound. When was Beowulf written? This is a
matter of some conjecture, with guesses ranging anywhere between the eighth century and the
first half of the eleventh century. Critics can’t even agree on what the first line of the poem
means. In the following post, we offer a short summary of Beowulf, and an introduction to its
main themes.

The poem continues to enjoy popularity, thanks to a bestselling translation by Seamus

Heaney and a translation by J. R. R. Tolkien, which was only published in 2014. (If you’re
looking for the Heaney translation, it can be found here: Beowulf: A New Translation; the
Tolkien translation is Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell.)
We’re here to offer a brief overview of the plot of Beowulf, along with some interpretations of
the poem. So, to begin, a brief synopsis.

Plot Summary

We’ll start with a brief summary of Beowulf before proceeding to some textual analysis
and critical reading. Beowulf is a classic ‘overcoming the monster’ story. Most people know that
the poem documents the struggle of the title character in vanquishing a monster named Grendel.
But what is less well known is that Beowulf has to slay not one big monster, but three: after he
has taken care of Grendel, the dead monster’s mother shows up, and she proves even more of a
challenge for our hero (though ultimately Beowulf triumphs and wins the day). The poem then
ends with Beowulf, now in his twilight years, slaying a third monster (this time, a dragon),
although this encounter proves his undoing, as he is fatally wounded in the battle. The poem ends
with his subsequent death and ‘burial’ at sea.

But the poem doesn’t begin with Beowulf. It opens with an account of a Danish king
named Hrothgar, who was the one responsible for building a great hall (named Heorot), a hall
which is now being terrorised by the monstrous Grendel. Beowulf hears that Grendel is killing
Hrothgar’s men at Heorot and so our hero departs from home to go and help rid Heorot of this
monster. Beowulf is from a different kingdom – the nearby Geatland, in modern-day Sweden –
so we have one of the classic tropes of adventure narratives, that of the hero leaving home to go
and vanquish some foe in a foreign land. Think of Bilbo Baggins leaving the Shire, or Frodo for
that matter, in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (and, indeed, we’ll return to Tolkien
shortly).

Beowulf and his men spend the night at Heorot and wait for Grendel to turn up. When the
monster appears, Beowulf and his men attack the troll-like monster with their swords. But the
monster – which is described as resembling a troll – cannot be killed with a blade, as Beowulf
soon realizes. So he does what lesser men would fear to do: he wrestles the monster with his bare
hands, eventually tearing off one of its arms. Grendel flees, eventually dying of his wound.

The next night, Grendel’s mother – angered by the attack on her son – turns up to wreak
vengeance, and once again Beowulf finds himself having to roll up his sleeves and engage in
fierce combat, which this time takes place in the underwater lair of the monster deep beneath the
surface of a lake. Although he has been given a strong sword (named Hrunting) by Unferth (a
man who had previously doubted Beowulf – the sword is given as a token of friendship),
Beowulf finds this sword useless against Grendel’s mother. (Immunity to swords evidently runs
in the family.) But this time, hand-to-hand fighting, which had proved handy against Grendel, is
equally useless. Beowulf only succeeds in vanquishing the monster when he grabs a magic
sword from the pile of treasure lying in the monster’s lair, and is able to behead the monster with
the weapon. Traveling deeper into the monster’s lair, Beowulf comes across the dying Grendel,
and – armed with his new magic sword – decides to lop off the son’s head as well, for good
measure. Both monsters have now been slain, and Beowulf is a hero.

Following his victory over the two monsters, Beowulf then returns to the water’s surface
(at ‘noon’ – which, interestingly, when the poem was written, was actually three o’clock in the
afternoon, or the ninth hour after dawn) before re-joining his men and journeying back to the hall
for mead and rejoicing.

The poem then moves forward fifty years to Beowulf’s last fight, his run-in with the
dragon (which has been angered by the theft of some of its treasure – shades of The Hobbit once
more?). This fight results in one last victory for our great hero, followed by his own death from
the mortal would inflicted by the poisoned horn of the beast (though presumably Beowulf was
rather advanced in years by this point anyway). The poem ends with Beowulf’s burial at sea,
which is described in much detail – why this might be is discussed below. But this much
constitutes a reasonably complete summary of the plot of Beowulf. So, what about the context
for the poem?

Facts about Beowulf

Although it is celebrated nowadays as an important work of Anglo-Saxon – indeed,

‘English’ – literature, Beowulf was virtually unknown and forgotten about, amazingly, for nearly
a thousand years. It was only rescued from obscurity in 1815, when an Icelandic-Danish scholar
named Thorkelin printed an edition of the poem. And although it is seen as the starting-point of
great English literature – at many universities, it is still the earliest literary text studied as part of
the literary canon – it is very different from other medieval poetry, such as that by Chaucer or
Langland, who were writing many centuries later. It is set in Denmark, has a Swedish hero, and –
when read in the original Anglo-Saxon – seems almost more German than ‘English’. This is, of
course, because Anglo-Saxon (i.e. the language of the Angles and Saxons from north Germany)
was Old English (the two terms are used synonymously), and at the very latest the poem was
written down some time in the early eleventh century, before 1066 and the Norman invasion,
which would bring many French words into English and would pave the way for Middle English
(or the English of the Middle Ages).

In ending with the tale of a dragon attempting to defend a mound of treasure, the poem
prefigures not only the works of J. R. R. Tolkien (who, as well as being the author of The Hobbit
and The Lord of the Rings, was also an influential Anglo-Saxon scholar who translated Beowulf
and wrote an important article on it – of which more below) but also, more surprisingly, other
poems like Lewis Carroll’s nonsense masterpiece, ‘Jabberwocky’. It also looks back to Greek
and Roman epics like Homer’s Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid. Indeed, during the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries many scholars endeavored to show that the author of Beowulf had been
influenced by these classical works, but, in summary, the truth appears to be far more interesting.

Rather than directly drawing on the work of Homer and Virgil, the Beowulf poet simply
seems to have hit upon the idea of using similar plot devices and character types. This suggests
that different cultures, in these old days of oral storytelling, utilized the same methods in very
different works of literature, without having direct knowledge of each other. We can compare
Beowulf, too, with the legend of King Arthur (which began to appear in written sources around
the same time), specifically in terms of the magic sword which the hero of both stories uses in
order to fulfill his quest. These aspects seem to be hard-wired within us and to be integral parts
of human nature: for instance, ideas of bravery and of triumphing over an evil, superhuman
force.
 This plot, as our brief summary of Beowulf above suggests, shares many of the typical
elements of heroic narratives. Although the analogy might seem a little crude, the mechanics of
the plot are not so far removed from, say, a James Bond or Indiana Jones film, or a fast-paced
fantasy novel or superhero comic strip. The hero takes it upon himself to save the kingdom at
immense personal risk to himself. The foe he faces is no ordinary foe, and conventional weapons
are powerless against it. Despite the odds being stacked against him, he manages to ‘overcome
the monster’, to borrow Christopher Booker’s phrase for this type of narrative. But this action
has consequences, and is in fact merely the prologue to a bigger conflict that must take place:
that between Beowulf and Grendel’s mother. This is why it is odd that the story of the poem is
generally thought of as ‘Beowulf versus Grendel’. But this next conflict will prove even more
difficult: as well as swords being useless, the strong sword (Hrunting) given to Beowulf by
Unferth will also be powerless against Grendel’s mother. But hand-to-hand combat – which was
deployed successfully in the vanquishing of Grendel – is also of no use now. The odds continue
to be stacked against our hero, the difficulties multiplying, the tension raised to an almost
unbearable pitch. Can he still save the day, when everything he tries seems to be of no avail?
Well, yes – though for a while the chances of Beowulf triumphing are looking less and less
likely. The final encounter, with the dragon years later, will prove the most difficult of all – and
although he is successful and overcomes the monster, he will pay the ultimate price: victory will
come at the cost of his own life. This patterning of three – three monsters, each of which proves
successively more of a challenge to the hero – is found in numerous adventure plots. To a greater
or lesser extent, it can be seen in much modern fantasy fiction – such as that by Tolkien. One
thing that the basic overarching story or plot summary of Beowulf makes clear is just how
formative and archetypal it is, not just in heroic ‘English’ literature, but in fantasy literature, too.

Interpretations of Beowulf

Talking of Tolkien, it was his influential 1936 essay, ‘Beowulf: The Monsters and the
Critics’, which was really responsible for a shift in the way that people read Beowulf. Rather
than viewing it as a historical document, Tolkien urged, we should be reading and appreciating it
as a work of poetry. Tolkien also argued that the poem is not an ‘epic’ but an elegy, ending as it
does with the moving account of its hero’s funeral. Tolkien also argues that Beowulf’s death
following his combat with the dragon represents a fitting and more ‘elemental’ end for the hero,
who had successfully vanquished the monster Grendel and Grendel’s mother (who, although not
human, were nevertheless closer to man than a dragon). The story is about overcoming an evil
foe, only to have to give way to death at the end: even heroes must accept that they will not live
forever, even if their names will. ‘Men must endure their going hence’, as Shakespeare has it in
King Lear (a line borrowed for C. S. Lewis’s tombstone). But Beowulf’s life has been a life well-
lived because he stood up to evil and was victorious. And Grendel and his mother are ‘evil’ in
the Christian sense of the word: the author of Beowulf tells us that they were spawned from Cain
(the first murderer in the Bible) when he was cast out of Eden. Grendel and his mother, then, are
similarly outcasts, something that has been rejected by mainstream society and whose violence
must be overcome. (For more on Tolkien, have a read of our five fascinating facts about him.)

Beowulf’s name, by the way, was long thought to mean ‘beewolf, as in the two animals.
The ‘bee’ theory appears unlikely, however – as does the idea that it is from the same root as our
word ‘bear’, suggesting bearlike strength. No, it turns out that the first part of Beowulf’s name is
more probably related to a pre-Christian god named ‘Beow’. Beowulf has an almost divine
strength, but also something primal and temporal, but just as valuable: the courage of a wolf.

THE DIVINE COMEDY

Background of the Author:

Dante, in full Dante Alighieri, (born c. May 21–June 20, 1265, Florence, Italy—died
September 13/14, 1321, Ravenna), Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher,
and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named
La divina commedia (The Divine Comedy).

Dante’s Divine Comedy, a landmark in Italian literature and among the greatest works of
all medieval European literature, is a profound Christian vision of humankind’s temporal and
eternal destiny. On its most personal level, it draws on Dante’s own experience of exile from his
native city of Florence. On its most comprehensive level, it may be read as an allegory, taking
the form of a journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise. The poem amazes by its array of
learning, its penetrating and comprehensive analysis of contemporary problems, and its
inventiveness of language and imagery. By choosing to write his poem in the Italian vernacular
rather than in Latin, Dante decisively influenced the course of literary development. (He
primarily used the Tuscan dialect, which would become standard literary Italian, but his vivid
vocabulary ranged widely over many dialects and languages.) Not only did he lend a voice to the
emerging lay culture of his own country, but Italian became the literary language in Western
Europe for several centuries

Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy is a famous Medieval Italian epic poem depicting
the realms of the afterlife. Dante (who was born in 1265) wrote The Divine Comedy somewhere
between 1308 and his death in 1321, while he was in exile from his hometown of Florence, Italy,
which had been enduring civil war.

The Divine Comedy is divided into three separate volumes, each containing 33 cantos (or
chapters). These volumes are Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
 Dante is both the author and the central character of this trilogy. He travels through all of
Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven to make his way back to God, meeting several characters from
history and literature on his way.

INFERNO (HELL)

The Inferno is the first part of Dante Alighieri's poem, the Divine Comedy, which
chronicles Dante's journey to God, and is made up of the Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory),
and Paradiso (Paradise). The poems are quite short: it would take about as long to read the whole
Inferno as it would to read the detailed canto summaries and analyses, although they might be
helpful for understanding Dante's difficult language. In the Inferno, Dante starts on ground level
and works his way downward; he goes all the way through the earth and Hell and ends up at the
base of the mountain of Purgatory on the other side. On the top of Purgatory there is the
terrestrial paradise (the garden of Eden), and after that he works his way through the celestial
spheres. The plot of the Divine Comedy is thus very simple: it is the narrative of Dante's journey
towards redemption. The Inferno is generally thought to be the best and most interesting part,
which may be a result of its inverse structure: the moral plot is less visible because Dante
descends into Hell. God is almost totally absent, and Dante, not excessively constrained by piety,
feels free to make Hell colorful and lively, which is not necessarily the case in the Paradiso.

The Inferno begins when Dante, in the middle of his life, is lost in a metaphorical dark
wood that is, sin. He sees a sunlit hill but it unable to climb it because three wild beasts frighten
him back (these symbolize different sins). Fortunately he then meets the spirit of the Roman epic
poet Virgil, who says that he has been sent by Beatrice to lead him to salvation. (Beatrice was the
spirit of a woman Dante loved very much, who had died years before.) However, Virgil says,
they must go through Hell to get there. Dante is a little frightened, but is encouraged by the
thought that Beatrice is looking over him.

First Dante and Virgil go through the space outside Hell in the underworld, where the
neutral spirits, which were neither good nor bad, are left to bewail their fate neither Heaven nor
Hell will accept them. Then they come to the Acheron, an infernal river, where the boatman
Charon ferries the damned souls into Hell. An earthquake leaves Dante unconscious, and when
he wakes up they are in the first circle of Hell, Limbo.

In Limbo there are the virtuous non-Christians: ancient Greek and Roman heroes,
philosophers, and so forth. There are also some worthy Arabs, and the virtuous Jews of the Old
Testament were there until Christ took them to Heaven. Dante is pleased to find himself accepted
as an equal by the great classical poets. The spirits in Limbo are not tormented: they live in green
meadows with a gentle sadness. Virgil was one of them.
 They passed to the second circle, where the demon Minos judged the sinners and
assigned them their place in Hell. In the second circle the lustful were punished by having their
spirits blown about by an unceasing wind. Dante spoke with the spirit of Francesca da' Rimini,
who had fallen unhappily in love with her husband's younger brother. He felt so sorry for her that
he fainted from grief.

When Dante awoke they were in the third circle, where the gluttons were punished. After
Virgil pacified the doglike demon Cerberus, they saw where the gluttons lay in the mud,
tormented by a heavy, cold rain. One of them, Ciacco, predicted the political future of Florence
for Dante.

In the fourth circle they had to pass the demon Plutus, who praised Satan. There the avaricious
and the prodigal rolled weights around in opposite directions, berating each other for their sins.
They came to the Styx, where the wrathful and the sullen were tormented. The wrathful fought in
the muddy water and the sullen sank beneath it and lamented in gurgling voices. The boatman
Phleygas resentfully ferried them across, passing the wrathful shade of Filippo Argenti, who
tried to attack Dante.

They then came to the walls of the city of Dis, but the fallen angels inside barred their
way. Fortunately a messenger from heaven came to their aid and opened the gates, then left.

The sixth circle held heretics, who were imprisoned in red-hot sepulchers. Dante spoke
with Farinata, a great-hearted Epicurean who predicted Dante's exile from Florence. He also met
Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti, the father of his friend Guido. They passed the tomb of a heretical
pope.

They came to a stinking valley. Taking a moment to get used to the stench, Virgil
explained to Dante the structure of Hell. It was cone shaped and was made up of increasingly
tight circles. In Dis they would see the punishments of the violent, the fraudulent, and traitors.
These were more serious sins than those of the earlier circles, which resulted from human
weakness and overindulgence.

In the first ring of the seventh circle they passed the Minotaur and met a group of
centaurs, who shot the sinners who tried to escape with their arrows. The first ring was made up
of the violent against others: tyrants and murderers. These were tormented in a river of boiling
blood: the Phlegethon.

In the second ring they found a black forest full of twisted trees. These were suicides:
Dante spoke to one after seeing a broken twig bleed. The suicide was Pier della Vigna, who had
committed suicide while wrongfully imprisoned by his patron. They were interrupted by two
souls dashing through the forest, chased by black hounds. These were those who had been
violent to their own possessions: those who had squandered their goods.
 In the third ring there were the violent against God: blasphemers, sodomites, and usurers.
These were punished by having to sit or walk around on flaming sand under a rain of fire. Dante
spoke affectionately with one sodomite, Ser Brunetto, who had been something of a mentor for
him when he was alive. Thre other Florentines, also people Dante respected, asked him news
about the city, and he said that it was doing badly.

Virgil called up the monster Geryon, who symbolized fraud, from the eighth circle, while
Dante spoke with some usurers. Geryon took Dante and Virgil down to the eigth circle on a
terrifying ride. The eigth circle was Malebolge, and was formed of ten different enclosures in
which different kinds of fraud were punished.

In the first, Dante saw naked sinners being whipped by demons. He recognized one of
them as Venedico Caccianemico, who had sold his sister to a lustful Marquis. He also saw Jason.
These were panders and seducers: people who used fraud in matters of love.

In the second, flatterers were mired in a stew of human excrement.

In the third, the simonists were punished by being stuck upside down in rock with their
feet on fire. Notably, Dante spoke with Pope Nicholas III there, who predicted that the current
pope would also be damned for that sin. Dante was very unsympathetic.

In the fourth enclosure, diviners, astrologers, and magicians were punished by having
their heads on backwards. Dante was sad to see such a distortion of humanity, but Virgil
hardened his heart.

In the fifth, barrators were flung into a lake of hot pitch, and were guarded by devils, the
Malebranche. Dante was frightened to see a devil come with an official from Lucca and throw
him in. Virgil convinced the Malebranche that they should be allowed to pass unharmed, and
they were given an escort of demons. As they were passing along, one sinner did not dive into
the pitch fast enough and was caught by a devil. Through trickery he managed to get away
unharmed, however, and two devils fell into the pitch, while Dante and Virgil discreetly left.

Eventually pursued by irate devils, Dante and Virgil quickly went to safety in the sixth
pouch of Malebolge, where hypocrites were made to wear heavy lead robes. They included two
Jovial Friars, dishonest leaders of Florence.

They had a hard time reaching the seventh enclosure, where thieves were bitten by
serpents, and then transformed into serpents themselves. Dante saw some famous thieves change
shapes in this way. One of them predicted political misfortune for Dante.

In the eighth pouch, fraudulent counselors were aflame. Dante learned the story of
Ulysses' death, and heard the bitter tale of Guido da Montefeltro, who had been tricked into
advising the pope to massacre some people, thinking that his soul was protected by a papal
absolution.

Dante was horrified by the gore in the ninth pouch, where sowers of scandal and schism
were maimed by a devil with a sword. Among them he saw the founder of Islam and his nephew,
and also the leader of a contemporary heretical order.

In the tenth pouch there were three groups of falsifiers. The falsifiers of metals (alchemists) were
plagued by a disease like leprosy. Dante spoke with two of them, who energetically scratched
their scabs off. The second group was made up of those who impersonated other people, like
Gianni Schicci and Myrrha. These were insane. There were also counterfeiters and liars.

Moving on to the ninth circle, Dante was frightened by a loud bugle blast. What he
thought was a city with towers turned out to be a number of giants, including Nimrod and those
who had rebelled against the Olympians. A comparatively blameless giant helped Dante and
Virgil into the pit of the ninth circle.

In the first ring of the ninth circle, Dante saw sinners frozen into ice (the circle was a
frozen lake). These were traitors against their kin, including two brothers who had murdered
each other. The second ring, where sinners were deeper in the ice, held those who betrayed their
parties and their homelands. Dante tormented one of these, Bocca, to make him confess his
name.

Two sinners were frozen close together, with one eating the other's head. Dante learned
that the cannibal was Count Ugolino, who had been starved to death with his innocent children
by the Archbishop Ruggieri.

Dante spoke with some other sinners in the third ring, who had assassinated their guests.
He learnt to his surprise that it was possible for a soul to be in Hell when its body was still living.

In the fourth ring, traitors against their benefactors were totally covered in ice. Finally, at
the bottom of Hell, Dante saw the gigantic figure of Lucifer, who ground up Judas, Brutus, and
Cassius in his three mouths. Virgil and Dante climbed on Lucifer all the way through the center
of the earth and to the other side, where they finally emerged in the southern hemisphere.

PURGATORIO (PURGATORY)

The narrator reveals of his further journey that he continues his travels with Virgil. When
they get to Purgatorio, its guard Cato greeted them coldly. Virgil explained who they were and,
wishing to propitiate Cato, spoke warmly about his wife Marcia, so cold and taciturn Cato let
them pass. They walked to the beach, it was necessary to wash and to get rid of soot of the
abandoned Hell.
 A canoe controlled by an angel floats from sea. It contains the souls of the dead, who
were lucky enough not to get into Hell. They went ashore, and the angel flew away. The shadows
of the arrivals crowded around them, and among them the narrator recognized his friend, a singer
Kozell. He wanted to hug him, but in fact a shadow is disembodied. Kozell sang about love,
everyone listened, but then Cato came and shouted at everyone they all hurried to the mountain
of Purgatory.

Now they need to scout the upcoming road. The shadows have just noticed that the
narrator is not a shadow: he does not let the light pass through. Virgil explained everything, and
the shadows invited them to follow. So they hurry to the foot of the purgatorial mountain. Here
at the great stone is a group of not hurrying to climb upstairs, saying that they have plenty of
time. Among these sloths the narrator recognized his friend Belakva. It's nice to see that, as at
lifetime, he is an enemy of haste, true to himself.

In the foothills of Purgatory the narrator has an opportunity to communicate with the
shadows of victims of violent death. Many of them were pretty wicked, but parting with life, had
sincerely repented and therefore did not get into Hell. That's a shame for the devil, which had
lost so many souls! He, however, found revenge: without gaining power over the soul of the
repentant sinner who was killed, he abused his murdered body.

Not far they saw the majestic shadow of Sordello. He and Virgil recognizing in each
other fellow-poet, embraced like brothers. The narrator shout that it is an example to Italy, dirty
brothel, where the bonds of brotherhood severed completely!

Sordello agreed to be their guide to Purgatory. It is a great honor for him to help
Honourable Virgil. Sedately talking, they came to the blossoms of fragrant valley, where, in
preparation for the night, the shadows of European sovereigns settled. They watched them from
afar, listening to their singing. Then the evening came and a treacherous serpent of temptation
crept into the valley, but angels expelled it.

The narrator lie down on the grass and fell asleep and in a dream was carried to the gates
of Purgatory. The angel who was protecting it, inscribed seven times on his forehead the same
letter - the first in the word "sin" (the seven deadly sins, the letters will be erased one by one
from the narrator’s forehead as he ascent the purgatorial mountain). They entered the second
realm, the gates closed behind them.

The climbing started. They are in the first round of Purgatory, where the proud atone for
their sins. In the shame of pride here are erected the statues embodying the idea of a high feat -
humility. And here are the shadows of the purifying proud: here, as a punishment for their sins,
they bend under the weight of piled boulders.
 "Our Father ..." - this prayer sung the bent proud. Among them is miniaturist Oderiz, who
when alive was very proud of his loud glory. Now he realized that there is nothing to boast
about: everyone is equal in the face of death. The sooner one understands and finds the strength
to curb their pride, the better.

Under their feet the travellers see reliefs with imprinted scenes of punished pride: the
overthrow of Lucifer from heaven, King Saul, Holofernes, and others. Their stay in the first
round ends. The appeared angel wipe from the narrator’s forehead one of the seven letters as a
sign that the sin of pride is overcome.

They climbed to the second round. Here are envious, they are temporarily blinded, their
former "envious” eyes do not see anything. Here is a woman, who out of jealousy wished harm
to her fellow countrymen and was pleased with their failures. In this round the narrator after his
death will be cleaned not for long, because rarely envied anybody. In the silence thunderously
sounded Cain, the first envious. In fear, the narrator clung to Virgil, and the wise leader told that
the bitter words, that the supreme eternal light is beyond envious, thrilled by earthly baits.

They passed the second round. Again, an angel appeared, and only five letters were left
on the forehead, which the narrator will get rid of in future. They are in the third round before
their eyes flashed cruel vision of human rage (mob hammered with stones some gentle young
man). In this circle obsessed with anger are being cleared.

Even in the darkness of Hell was no such a black haze as in this circle, where the fury of
anger is being humbled. One of them, Mark Lombard, talked with the narrator and suggested that
they cannot all understand what is happening in the world as a consequence of the activities of
the higher celestial powers: this would mean denial of the freedom of the human will and take
away the responsibility for their actions.

The narrator felt the touch of the angel wings - another letter was erased. They went up
into the fourth round illuminated by the last ray of sunset. Here lazy are being cleared, whose
love for the good has been slow.

The lazy are here to run fast, not allowing any indulgence of their lifetime sin. Let them
be inspired by the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who has to rush. They ran past the
travellers and disappeared. The narrator wants to sleep. He is sleeping and dreaming. He
dreamed some disgusting woman, who in front of his eyes turned into a beautiful woman, who
was immediately confounded and turned into even uglier creature (here it is, the imaginary
attractiveness of vice).

Another letter disappeared from his forehead: it means he conquered laziness. They rise
into the fifth round - to misers and spenders. Greed for gold is a disgusting vice. Molten gold has
been once poured into the throat of one possessed by greed: drink to your health! The narrator
was uncomfortable in the environment of misers, and here the earthquake happened. It turned
out, shaking the mountain caused rejoicing over the fact that one of the souls has purified and
was ready for the ascent: it is the Roman poet Statius, Virgil’s fan, glad that from now on he will
accompany the travelers on the road to the top of the purgatorial mountain.

Another letter designating the sin of avarice was wiped off the forehead. By the way, was
Statius, suffering in the fifth round, stingy? On the contrary, wasteful, but these two things are
punished the same. Now they are in the sixth round, where the gluttons are being cleared. There
must be remembered that Christian ascetics were not peculiar to gluttony.

Former gluttons are destined to endure hunger pangs: they are emaciated, skin and bones.
Among them the narrator found his late friend and countryman Foretz. He told him of Virgil and
of the hopes to see in the next world his beloved Beatrice.

With one of the gluttons, the former poet of the old school, the narrator had a
conversation about literature. He admitted that his supporters, supporters of the "sweet new
style," reached in the love poetry much more than he himself and those close to him masters.
Meanwhile penultimate letter from his forehead is erased, and he opened the way to the top, into
the seventh circle of Purgatory.

And the narrator still remembers the lean, hungry gluttons: how did they emaciate so
much? After all, they are shadows, not the bodied. Virgil said: shadows, though incorporeal,
imply repeated outlines of bodies (which would have emaciated without food). Here, in the
seventh round, the sensualists are being cleared in the burning fire. They burn, sing and glorify
examples of abstinence and chastity.

Covered with flames sensualists are divided into two groups: homosexuals and not
knowing measures bisexuals. Among the latter are the poets Guido Guinizelli and Provencal
Arnald, who elegantly greeted the travellers in his dialect.

And now they have to pass through a wall of fire. The narrator is scared, but his mentor
said that it was the path to Beatrice (to the earthly paradise, located on the top of the purgatorial
mountain). And so the three of them are walking burning by flames. Passing it they go further. It
is evening, they stopped to rest, and when the narrator woke up, Virgil came to with the last
word of farewell and approval.

They are in an earthly paradise, in blossom, in the filled with the twittering of birds
grove. The narrator saw a beautiful Donna, singing and collecting flowers. She said that there
was a golden age, but then, among the flowers and fruits, was ruined in the sin the happiness of
the first people. Hearing this, the narrator looked at Virgil and Statius: both were smiling
blissfully.
 Past them sail the living lights, beneath them march righteous old men in white robes,
crowned with roses and lilies, wonderful beauties are dancing. The narrator could not look
enough at this marvelous picture. And suddenly he saw her - the one he loves. Shaken, the
narrator made an involuntary movement, as if trying to pull over to Virgil. But he was gone and
the narrator began to sob. "Dante, Virgil will not return. But you have not cry for him. Look at
me, I'm Beatrice! How did you get here?" She asked angrily. Then a voice asked her why she
was so hard with the narrator. She answered that he was unfaithful to her after her death. The
narrator fainted and woke up immersed in Lethe – a river giving oblivion to the committed sins.
After ten years of separation, the narrator looked into her eyes, and his vision faded from their
glare. Receive the sight, he saw a lot of beauty in an earthly paradise, but then the sight was
replaced by cruel visions of monsters, profane holy things, debauchery.

Beatrice mourned knowing how many bad was in these visions revealed to them, but
expressed confidence that the forces of good would ultimately triumph over evil. They have
come to Evnoe river, sipping from which one strengthens the memory of the committed good.
Statius and the narrator bathed in the river. A swallow of its sweetest water poured into him new
strength. Now he was clean and worthy to rise to the stars.

PARAISO (PARADISE)

From the Earthly Paradise the narrator, together with Beatrice, flies to heaven, in the
inaccessible height of mortal might. He did not notice how they flew up, and found them over
the sun. The narrator is surprised that still alive he is capable of this; however, this did not
surprise Beatrice: a spirit cleared spiritually, not burdened with sins is lighter than ether.

They are in the first Paradise - the Moon in the sky, which Beatrice called the first star,
and they plunged into its depths. In its depths they have met the soul of nuns stolen from
monasteries and forced to get marry. No fault of heir own, but still they did not keep the vow of
virginity, and so they are not allowed to the higher heaven. The narrator is puzzled: what are they
to blame for? It is not necessary to blame the victim but the perpetrator! But Beatrice explained
that the victim bears a certain responsibility for done over her violence if resisting, did not show
heroic endurance. The failure to fulfill a vow, Beatrice says, is almost irreparable by good deeds.

They flew on the second heaven of Paradise - Mercury. It is home to the souls of the
righteous ambitious. These are not shadows, unlike the previous inhabitants of the underworld,
but lights: shining and radiant. One of them broke out particularly brightly; glad to communicate
with the narrator. It turned out to be the Roman Emperor Justinian, the legislator. He realizes that
staying in Mercury (not above) is the limit for him, for the ambitious, doing good deeds for the
sake of their own glory ( loving themselves first and foremost), have missed the true love for
god.
 Justinian’s light merged into the dance of lights with other righteous souls. The narrator
starts pondering over why God the Father had to sacrifice his son? Was it not possible just like
that, with the supreme will, to forgive the sin of Adam! Beatrice explained: higher justice
demanded that humankind atoned itself. But humanity failed to do it, and it was necessary to
fertilize the earth woman with a son (Jesus), to combine the human with the divine, so he could
do it.

They flew to the third heaven - to Venus, where the souls of loving are in bliss, shining in
the fiery bowels of this star. One of these spirits lights is Hungarian king Charles Martel, who
spoke to the narrator, suggesting that people can realize their potential, only acting in the field
that meets the needs of their nature. It is not good if a born warrior becomes a priest. One of the
lights also talked with the narrator, troubadour Folco. He condemned the ecclesiastical
authorities, self-serving popes and cardinals. Florence is the city of the devil.

The fourth star is the Sun, the abode of the wise men. The spirit of the great theologian
Thomas Aquinas is shining here. He greeted the narrator and showed him other wise men. Their
singing reminds the church bells. Thomas told about Francis of Assisi - the second (after Christ)
spouse of poverty. Upon his example monks, including his closest pupils, began to walk
barefoot. He lived a holy life and died - a naked man on the bare ground - in the bosom of
poverty. The other spirits of wise men listened to Thomas, stopping to sing and to dance. Then
the floor was taken by the Franciscan Bonaventure. In response to the praise of his teacher he
praised the teacher of Thomas - Dominic, the farmer and the servant of Christ. And again the
word was taken by Thomas. He talks about the great merits of King Solomon: he asked God for
wisdom not to solve the theological questions, but for royal wisdom, so he could intelligently
govern the people. What will happen to the inhabitants of the sun in the Day of Judgment, when
the spirits gain flesh? They are so bright and spiritually, it's hard to imagine them materialized.

Their stay here ended, so they came to the fifth heaven - to Mars, where sparkling spirits
of the warriors for the faith are settled in the form of a cross and where a sweet anthem sounds.
One of the lights moved closer to the narrator, this is the spirit of his great grandfather, warrior
Caccuiguida. He welcomed the narrator and praised the glorious time in which he lived on earth,
and which had passed away, being replaced by the worst of times. He is proud of his ancestor,
his origin. Caccuiguida told about himself and about their ancestors who were born in Florence,
and whose coat of arms - a white lily – is now painted with blood.

The narrator wanted to learn from him about his future fate. Cacciaguida replied that he
would be expelled from Florence, and in the bleakest wanderings would perceive the bitterness
of someone else's bread and toughness of foreign stairs. At the end his enemies would be
ashamed, and he would triumph.
 Caccuiguida and Beatrice encouraged the narrator. Their stay on Mars ended. Now they
started from the fifth to the sixth of the sky, from red Mars to white Jupiter, where the souls of
the just are gathered. Their lights are combined into the letters of the call to justice, and then in
the shape of an eagle, the symbol of the imperial power. This majestic eagle came with the
narrator in a conversation. The eagle represents the idea of justice, and not his claws and beak
are important but all-seeing eye, made up of the most worthy of lights. The pupil is the soul of
the king, and psalmist David, eyelashes are the souls of the righteous pre-Christians.

They ascended to the seventh heaven - to Saturn. It is the abode of spectators. Beatrice
has become more beautiful and brighter. Blessed spirits of the spectators were silent, did not sing
- otherwise they would have deafened the narrator.

The spirit of Benedict, after whom one of the monastic orders is named, angrily
condemned the modern self-seeking monks. After listening to him, they rushed to the eighth sky,
the constellation of Gemini, under which the narrator has been born. In the eighth sky thousands
of lights were glowing - great triumphant spirits of the righteous. Intoxicated by them the
narrator’s vision has increased. Beatrice smiled, and luminous spirits started singing the anthem
of queen of heaven - Holy Virgin Mary.

Beatrice asked the apostles to speak with the narrator. The apostle Peter asked him about
the nature of faith. His answer was following: the belief is an argument in favor of the unseen;
mortals cannot see with their own eyes what is opened here in Paradise - but they may believe in
miracles without visual evidence of its truth. Peter was pleased with such an answer. The Apostle
James asked a question about the essence of hope. The narrator’s answer was: hope is a waiting
for the future well-deserved and God-given glory. Delighted Jacob illumined. The next question
was about love, the apostle John asked it. In response, the narrator did not forget to mention the
fact that love draws us to God, to the word of truth. The exam was successfully completed.

Four lights are burning in front of the narrator: the three apostles and Adam. Suddenly,
Peter became flushed and exclaimed: "My earthy throne is captured, my throne, my throne!"
Peter hated his successor - the Pope. And it was high time for the travellers to leave the eighth
heaven and ascend into the ninth, the supreme and crystal. With an unearthly joy, laughing,
Beatrice threw the narrator in a rapidly rotating sphere.

The first thing he saw in the ninth heaven was a dazzling point, the symbol of the deity.
Around it lights are revolving - angelic nine concentric circles. Those nearest to the deity and
therefore the smallest are seraphim and cherubim, the most remote and vast are archangels and
simply angels. On the ground it is used to think that greater is bigger, but here, it is the other way
around.
 Beatrice told that the angels are the same age of the universe. Their rapid rotation is the
source of all movements, which take place in the universe. Ascension in Emporium - into the
highest part of the universe – is the last one. They are surrounded here by pure light. Sparks and
colors are around them; these are the angels and the blessed souls. They merge into a shining
river, and then take shape of an enormous heaven rose.

Contemplating rose and comprehending the general plan of Eden, the narrator wanted to
ask Beatrice something, but he saw not her, but an old man in white. The narrator looked upward
and saw there her, in the unattainable heights. She looked at him with a smile and turned to the
eternal sanctuary.

The elder in white is Saint Bernard. From now on, he's the narrator’s mentor. They
continue contemplating the rose. It shines with the souls of chaste babies. Bernard began to pray
to the Virgin Mary, so she would help me. Then he gave a sign to look up. The narrator saw the
supreme and clearest light - the deity in its radiant trinity.