Cantaberry Tales Compare To Inferno Essay

Canterbury Tales Comp bed to Dantes Inferno This piece of work will explore the themes of honour and guiltiness in the snake pit section from Dantes Divine Comedy and Chaucers Canterbury Tales. The study will focus on the intakes each author pull outs of urban and more natural scenes to convey messages about innocence and guilt. While both Dante and Chaucer make use of this motif in making their thematic points, a keen difference exists between them. Chaucers primary objective is to present a humorous and compassionate portrayal of forgiving existence including innocence and guilt, or virtue and evil while Dantes essential purpose is honourable and instructional.Chaucer uses urban and country references in his portrayal of the hu human being condition as a room of drawing a contrast between the rectitude and evil of humankind. Again, we must keep in mind that Chaucer uses setting to put out integritys about munificence from an empathic military position. He does non want to judge, precisely to entertain and perhaps inspire compassion for self and others as blemished beings. Therefore, when he uses natural or urban settings, he is not utter that human beings are good when they are in Canterbury, and evil when they are out in the countryside.At the very(prenominal) time, that is precisely the apparent truth of the matter. As Chaucer paints the picture of human desire and passion, there is an intimate union between that passion (which can lead to a loss of innocence) and a natural setting When April with his interpreters sweet with fruit The drought of March has penetrate unto the root And bathed each vein with liquor that has power To generate in this and sire the flower When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath, Quickened again, in both holt and heath, The tender shoots and buds . . .And many forgetful birds make melody . . .(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage) Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage . . .To Canterbury, boun teous of devout homage (Chaucer 159).The clear suggestion by Chaucer here is that there is something in truth sweet but potentially very corrupting about spirit, while the urban center ofCanterbury offers relief from the guilt and sinfulness which temperament engenders in the weakness of human flesh. At the same time, Chaucer knows that the apparent differences in the behavior of human beings in the urban center, or in a sacred environment, and in the natural setting where passions are openhanded to work their wiles, as they will, are indeed only apparent differences. The nature of sympathy, as perceived and portrayed by Chaucer, is a thoroughly debased one. However, unlike Dante, Chaucer does not fall in much to say in thought of humanity for that corruption. Chaucer accepts the sinfulness, selfishness and loss of innocence of humanity as an integral crack of the history and development of the race. In other words, people may jeer to behave righteously when they are in th e holy city, but at one time they are free again to behave as they will, they will apace be consumed by their personal passions.Nature is also shown in Dante to be full of powerful and dark forces, which can tempt a human being off the path of righteousness. Dante writes that Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself in a dark woodwind instrument, where the right way was lost. Ah How labored a thing it is to tell what this wild and rough and difficult wood was, which in thought renews my fear So bitter is it that death is little more (Dante 1).The city or the path of the true way is symbolized by the high hill, in contrast to the dark wood of the life of the passions and senses further after I had reached the foot of a hill, where that valley ended which had perforate my heart with fear, I looked upward, and saw its shoulders clothed already with the rays of the sun, which leads man justly along each path (Dante 1).Here we see the light of goodness contrasted with th e phantom of sin or temptation away from the state of innocence. It is no coincidence that the phrases city of lights or city upon a hill are meant to stand in contrast to the darkness of the natural environment, a darkness which can bewilder human beings and lead them to take part in behavior which Dante clearly believes is both self-destructive and destructive to others. Dantes portrait of Hell is not meant to entertain but to change the behavior ofhis readers so that they will choose behavior which will lead them to the city of Heaven, sooner than behavior which will lead to the dark wood and, eventually, damnation A repoint is there below, stretching as far from Beelzebub as his tomb extends. . . . My Leader and I entered by that hidden road, to return into the lucent world and . . . we mounted up . . . so far that a violate opening I saw some of the beautiful things which Heaven bears, and thusly we issued for again to see the stars (Dante 52).In Dante, we read of the wic ked city which represents colliery (22), but it would be fair to say that human beings in Dantes conception are subject to temptation, sin, guilt and the loss of innocence wherever they are on earthin the city or in the country. Heaven is the only locale which offers human beings respite from such corruption.In Chaucer, we find little of the kind of solemn judgment offered by Dante at every turn. For example, Chaucer writes of a friara religious manwho was a wanton and a merry, A limiter, a very festive man (Chaucer 162). His ribaldry is not affected by whether he is in a town or in the countrysidehe is always willing to have a good time In towns he knew the taverns, every one,/ And every good host and each barmaid too (Chaucer 163).Despite the fact that Canterbury is seen as the goal of the pilgrimage and can therefore be said to be a city symbolizing goodness and innocence, or restoration of innocence through religious activity, this in no way suggests that Chaucer sees the city as the repository of goodness and nature as the repository of evil. Instead, Chaucer sees human nature as the abiding force at work in cause the behavior of human beings. A human being can be good or evil in the city, just as he can be good or evil in a natural environment. The Clerk, for example, is shown to be a miserable creature, although he is full of the commandment and philosophy and sophistication, which the city of Oxford offers (Chaucer 164).Again, the basic difference between Dante and Chaucer cannot be decipher merely by focusing on the uses of urban and country settings in their works.The differences in the authors uses of settings do not shed essential light on the two texts without our awareness first that Dante content to judge and warn and Chaucer means to celebrate and understand.To Dante, all settingsurban or countrystand full of temptations which can deliver human beings into the pits of Hell. The fact that Hell is portrayed in urban terms merely means that there is much organisation in Hell, rather than perhaps the chaos we might presume. Dante by use of the city as the setting for Hell means also to place it in stark contrast to the glorious city of Heaven.Dante wants to show that Hell is an essential part of the intricately organized and ordered machinery of the universe, and his use of the urban environment gives this sense of order and organization far more quickly that would a natural setting. We must keep in mind the purpose behind this manipulation of settingDante wants to affect the behavior of his readers and he means to do so by warning them that a very conservatively designed Hellas carefully designed as a cityawaits them if they stray from the path of goodness.Chaucer, on the other hand, aims to portray humanity in all its passion and waywardness, with a sense of acceptance and rejoicing rather than condemnation or warning. Chaucer gives the reader the clear sense thatwhether in the country or in the city, whether in t he midst of sin or the middle of innocencethe author is one with the reader. It does not matter whether the movement is taking place in the city or the country in Chaucers talesthere is a sense of empathy bonding the author, the characters and the reader. Even when Chaucer enters into a lengthy treatise on the different sins and their remedies, the reader has the feeling that he is not the kind of strict judge of humanity which Dante is or would like to be.The uses of setting in the two works is not particularly crucial to an appreciation of the books overall, but such a focus can help us understand certain elements of the works, such as the organization of the city whichallows Dante to show that hell is an integral part of the universe created by God and not merely an imaginary place of punishment. In addition, such a perspective is useful in showing the apparent contrast in Chaucer between the city of Canterbury and its promise of absolution from sin, and the natural environment which leads to the free side of the passions of human beings which in turn lead to the commission of those very sins.The city or country cannot be seen as symbolic of guilt or innocence in Chaucer, simply because Chaucer believes human nature to be allergic to corruption in any environment. At the same time, whereas Dante judges humanity for its corruption, Chaucer tends to forgive and seeks ways to ease the suffering of guilt and sin.Works CitedChaucer, Geoffrey. Troilus and Cressida and The Canterbury Tales. cabbage Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1987.Dante. Divine Comedy. Chicago Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1987.