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Name: _________________________ | Period: ___________________ |
This test consists of 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Write an essay about the significance of Dante's relationship with Virgil in The Inferno. How does using the classic poet as a guide create a link between Alighieri and Italy's past? What significance does Virgil have to Renaissance-era Florence? In terms of narrative, how is Virgil integral both to exposition and to the character of Dante's development as a protagonist? What does he explain to the reader? How is he a catalyst for growth in Dante?
Essay Topic 2
Dante, at the beginning of the poem, is a soul lost in a dark wood having lost the straight path. Write an essay discussing the plot of the poem as an allegory for the poet's search for grace while lost in darkness. How is a journey through the degradation necessary for this salvation? What textual precedent, in literature and in myth, is there for a hero's journey through darkness into rebirth? What is waiting for Dante on the other side of the darkness?
Essay Topic 3
Dante's Inferno has a sly humor in the way punishments hold a poetic appropriateness to the sin they punish. In an essay, choose three circles of Hell from the text and discuss this poetic justice. What sin is punished in this circle, and how is it punished? Does this punishment involve a hyperbolic extremity of the sin, an intense converse state to the sin, or some poetic metaphor for it? How do the damned exist in this state of perpetual punishment?
This section contains 248 words (approx. 1 page at 300 words per page) |
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