How Does Dante's Character Change Through The Inferno

Dante is the protagonist and narrator of The Inferno. He presents the poem as a true, autobiographical recollection of his miraculous journey. He is a good homo who strays from the path of virtue, finding himself in the dark wood at the beginning of the poem. He is saved past his love Beatrice, who sends Virgil to guide him on his spectacular journeying through hell. Dante is often terrified in hell and is moved by pity for the suffering sinners he sees in that location. However, he gradually learns from Virgil and becomes both more confident and less sympathetic toward those who take sinned against God. He is often interested in lingering to speak with sinners from Italy, particularly his native city of Florence. As the author of his own story, he wields the power to give both himself and others the immortality of fame through his work.

Dante Quotes in Inferno

The Inferno quotes beneath are all either spoken by Dante or refer to Dante. For each quote, yous tin as well come across the other characters and themes related to information technology (each theme is indicated by its ain dot and icon, similar this one:

Midway this way of life nosotros're leap upon,
I woke to find myself in a nighttime wood,
Where the correct road was wholly lost and gone.

Related Characters: Dante (speaker)

Page Number and Citation: 1.1-3

Explanation and Analysis:

Canst m be Virgil? Thousand that fount of splendour
Whence poured so wide a stream of lordly speech?

Folio Number and Citation: 1.79-80

Explanation and Analysis:

And greater honour notwithstanding they [Homer, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan] did me—yea,
Into their fellowship they deigned invite
And brand me 6th amid such minds equally they.

Page Number and Citation: 4.100-102

Caption and Assay:

Nay, but I tell non all that I saw then;
The long theme drives me hard, and everywhere
The wondrous truth outstrips my staggering pen.

Related Characters: Dante (speaker)

Folio Number and Citation: 4.145-147

Explanation and Analysis:

So nosotros stirred
Our footsteps citywards, with hearts reposed,
Safely protected by the heavenly word.

Related Characters: Dante (speaker)

Page Number and Citation: ix.103-105

Explanation and Analysis:

Go on handy my Thesaurus, where I yet
Live on; I ask no more.

Folio Number and Citation: 15.119-120

Explanation and Analysis:

And then may thy soul these many years abide
Housed in thy body, and the after-light
Of fame shine long behind thee.

Page Number and Commendation: sixteen.64-66

Explanation and Analysis:

Put off this sloth [...]
Sitting on feather-pillows, lying reclined
Below the blanket is no mode to fame—

Fame, without which man's life wastes out of mind,
Leaving on earth no more than memorial
Than foam in water or fume upon the wind.

Folio Number and Citation: 24.46-51

Explanation and Analysis:

Florence, rejoice, considering thy soaring fame
Beats its broad wings beyond both land and sea,
And all the deep of Hell rings with thy name!

Five of thy noble townsmen did I run into
Among the thieves; which makes me chroma afresh,
And mighty little honor it does to thee.

Related Characters: Dante (speaker)

Folio Number and Citation: 26.1-6

Explanation and Assay:

Who, though with words unshackled from the rhymes,
Could yet tell total the tale of wounds and claret
Now shown me, let him try ten one thousand times?

Related Characters: Dante (speaker)

Page Number and Citation: 28.1-3

Explanation and Assay:

The self-aforementioned tongue that first had wounded me,
Bringing the scarlet claret to both my cheeks,
Thus to my sore applied the remedy.

Related Characters: Dante (speaker)

Page Number and Citation: 31.1-3

Explanation and Analysis:

As 'tis, I tremble lest the telling mar
The tale; for, truly, to describe the bully

Fundament of the earth is very far
From being a task for idle wits at play,
[...]

Merely may those heavenly ladies help my lay
That helped Amphion wall high Thebes with stone,
Lest from the truth my wandering verses stray.

Related Characters: Dante (speaker)

Folio Number and Citation: 32.5-12

Explanation and Analysis:

How cold I grew, how faint with fearfulness,
Enquire me not, Reader; I shall non waste material breath
Telling what words are powerless to express.

Related Characters: Dante (speaker)

Page Number and Commendation: 34.22-24

Caption and Analysis:

Each mouth devoured a sinner clenched within,
Frayed by the fangs like flax below a brake;
Iii at a time he tortured them for sin.

Page Number and Citation: 34.55-57

Explanation and Analysis:

Dante Character Timeline in Inferno

The timeline below shows where the character Dante appears in Inferno. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Midway through the course of his life, Dante wakes up in a nighttime wood, having lost his way from the correct road. He... (total context)

Dante sees a mountain with the sun shining above it. The sight comforts him, and he... (full context)

Dante is frightened past the animals and loses all hope of scaling the mount. He reluctantly... (full context)

Dante tells Virgil about how he was turned back from ascending the mount by wild beasts,... (total context)

Virgil says he will guide Dante on his journey. He says Dante will go through a terrible place with souls in... (full context)

It is at present evening, equally Dante begins his journey. As narrator, Dante invokes the muses and the personification of memory to... (full context)

Virgil chides Dante, telling him his anxieties arise from mere cowardice, which constantly "lays ambushes for men," (2.46).... (full context)

...that the Virgin Mary sent St. Lucy to her, to encourage her to help save Dante. (full context)

Virgil thus immediately sought out Dante afterward Beatrice visited him, and saved him from the wolf. Virgil chastises Dante for showing... (full context)

Dante takes this encouragement to heart, and his spirits are raised like a drooping flower that... (total context)

Dante and Virgil arrive at the gate of hell. Higher up the gate, at that place is an inscription... (total context)

Equally they enter hell, Dante hears shrieks, shouts, screams, and lamentations filling the air. He asks Virgil who these suffering... (full context)

Dante sees these neutral souls, who committed neither to evil nor to good, chasing after a... (full context)

...souls waiting by the river to despair and not hope for sky. When he sees Dante, he tells him to go out, refusing to ferry across a living man. He tells Dante... (full context)

Virgil tells Dante that these souls are all the people who take died under God'south wrath, and that... (full context)

Dante is reawakened past a loud peal of thunder. He looks around to try to figure... (full context)

Dante sees that Virgil is pale, and asks how he can be expected to go through... (full context)

Dante hears not loud, suffering groans, merely constant sighing. Virgil tells him that the souls in... (total context)

Virgil identifies some of the souls for Dante: Homer and the Roman poets Horace, Ovid, and Lucan. These ancient poets come up frontward and... (total context)

Dante, now accompanied by these five ancient poets, comes upon a bang-up castle, surrounded past walls.... (total context)

Dante likewise sees the great luminaries of ancient philosophy: Socrates, Plato, Democritus, Heraclitus, Cicero, Seneca, and... (total context)

Dante and Virgil descend to the second circle of hell, where at that place is more than suffering and... (full context)

Minos sees the living Dante and stops him, but Virgil tells Minos that Dante is fated and willed by God... (full context)

Dante asks Virgil to place some of the souls. Dante points out the Mistress of Babel,... (full context)

Dante is moved past pity for these souls, and asks Virgil if he tin can speak to... (full context)

One of the lustful souls tells Dante her life's story. Love was the downfall of her and the human being she loved; both... (full context)

...that day," (5.138) summarizes Francesca. Every bit Francesca tells her story, Paolo wails with grief and Dante is and then overcome with pity that he swoons and faints. (total context)

Dante comes to and finds himself in the third circle of hell, where pelting never stops... (total context)

When Cerberus sees Dante and Virgil coming, Virgil scoops upward several handfuls of dirt and throws some in each... (full context)

...turmoil for Florence between its dissimilar political factions, spurred on past Forehandedness, Green-eyed, and Pride. Dante further asks Ciacco almost various famous men of Florence who have died and Ciacco tells... (total context)

Virgil tells Dante that when the last judgment comes, these souls will exist reunited with their earthly bodies.... (full context)

At the entrance to the fourth circumvolve of hell, Dante and Virgil encounter Pluto (the underworld deity associated with wealth in Roman mythology), who is... (full context)

Dante wonders if he can exercise descriptive justice to what he beheld in this area of... (full context)

...on world, while the other half—with bald heads—were covetous popes and cardinals who hoarded coin. Dante wonders if he knows any of these souls, but Virgil says that their suffering has... (full context)

Dante asks Virgil to tell him more than about the nature of Fortune. According to Virgil, God... (full context)

Dante and Virgil walk along a night, bubbling body of water and the marsh which forms... (total context)

Dante sees two lights at the top of the belfry and sees a beacon far off... (full context)

Equally Dante and Virgil ride through the marshy Styx, a soul sits up through the crud and... (full context)

Virgil tells Dante that this spirit was arrogant on earth and that, "Many who strut like kings upwardly... (full context)

Virgil announces that they are approaching the urban center of Dis, and Dante sees a city with buildings glowing crimson. Virgil explains that they glow from the endless... (full context)

...walking through hell. Virgil tries to speak with them, but they tell him to leave Dante backside and stay with them in Dis. Dante is terrified and begs Virgil not to... (full context)

Dante, though, is so terrified that he inappreciably hears Virgil's reassurances. The fallen angels slam the... (full context)

...He voices a worry that the affections coming to aid them is taking too long. Dante asks him if anyone has fabricated this journey past the gate before and Virgil tells... (full context)

Virgil keeps talking, but Dante stops following what he is saying, as he is distracted by the tops of the... (full context)

Under the protection of the angel's words, Dante and Virgil continue into Dis. Dante looks around and sees a plain filled with sepulchers,... (full context)

Dante asks Virgil who these people are in the burning tombs, and Virgil says that they... (total context)

While still walking past the heretics' tombs, Dante asks Virgil if he can encounter the souls who are inside the tombs, since all... (full context)

Just so, a voice from one of the tombs interrupts Dante and Virgil, calling out to Dante as a living Tuscan. Virgil encourages Dante to get... (full context)

Another suffering soul interrupts Farinata and Dante, request why his son is non with Dante. Dante recognizes this soul every bit Cavalcante dei... (full context)

Dante asks Farinata how information technology is that he and other souls in hell seem to be... (full context)

Virgil urges Dante to bustle along, but before he does Dante asks Farinata to tell him quickly some... (full context)

Dante and Virgil reach the border of a cliff overlooking the descent to the lower parts... (full context)

...of even more serious fraud and expose. At the very core of Dis are traitors. Dante asks Virgil why hell is bundled in this manner, with some damned souls suffering exterior... (full context)

Virgil calls Dante foolish and reminds him that, as Aristotle teaches in his Ideals, there are three kinds... (full context)

Dante then asks Virgil why usury (money-lending with excessive interest) is then wrong. According to Virgil,... (full context)

Dante and Virgil find a way down from the precipice into the 7th circle, but their... (full context)

Virgil explains to Dante that the path downwardly through the cliffs was created by the massive earthquake when Jesus... (full context)

Dante sees centaurs (half-man, one-half-equus caballus creatures) all effectually the banks of the Phlegethon with bows and... (full context)

Chiron notices that Dante is a living soul and Virgil explains to him that he is leading Dante on... (full context)

While walking along the riverbank, Dante looks at some of the souls submerged in the river and Nessus points out where... (full context)

Virgil and Dante come upon a dark wood filled with old, gnarled trees and devoid of any greenery.... (full context)

Virgil tells Dante to pluck a small branch from a tree. When Dante does this, the tree cries... (full context)

...Pier delle Vigne. Pier says that he was never unfaithful to Frederick and asks for Dante to heal his reputation on earth. Virgil encourages Dante to ask Pier more questions. (full context)

Dante says that he cannot recollect of anything more to enquire Pier, because he is so... (full context)

...bodies will hang upon the trees, rather than existence truly reintegrated with their souls. Suddenly, Dante hears a loud noise and turns to see two naked men sprinting through the forest,... (total context)

Virgil guides Dante to the bush, which is itself trying to speak. It cries out in pain (its... (full context)

Moved past love for his native city of Florence, Dante gathers the scattered leaves and returns them to the bush, earlier continuing to follow Virgil... (full context)

...(fourteen.29) fall like snow, keeping the desert sands hot and burning the souls suffering in that location. Dante compares the falling fire to the fireballs that enemies of Alexander the Swell shot at... (full context)

Virgil explains to Dante that Capaneus was a rex who besieged Thebes and made light of God. Even in... (full context)

Virgil and then tells Dante about the source of hell's rivers. Under the island of Crete there is a giant... (full context)

Dante questions Virgil further, asking where Lethe, the other river of the classical underworld, is. Virgil... (total context)

Leaving the forest behind, Dante and Virgil walk along the narrow path made by the banks of the Phlegethon. A... (full context)

Dante explains to Brunetto how he found himself in the dark wood and is now being... (full context)

Dante asks Brunetto to name some of the more famous sinners who are in his group,... (total context)

Equally Dante and Virgil go on along the river, Dante can start to hear the waterfall where the... (full context)

Dante stops and the 3 Florentines form a circle, so that that they tin continue moving... (full context)

Jacopo wishes for Dante to accept a long life and to live on in fame later on his death. He... (total context)

Dante and Virgil get in at the waterfall where the Phlegethon falls down into the 8th circumvolve.... (full context)

...scorpion's. (Though non yet named, this is Geryon, a monster from classical mythology.) Virgil tells Dante that they must walk over to this brute. Equally they approach, Dante sees a grouping... (full context)

Dante goes alone to the souls sitting in the hot sand and does not recognize whatever... (full context)

Geryon sets off from the cliff (Dante compares him to a gunkhole leaving its dock and returning to ocean) and Dante describes... (total context)

Virgil and Dante are now in the eighth circle of hell, reserved for those who committed fraud. The... (total context)

...wall, looking downwards into the trench. They whip the souls, driving them back and forth. Dante recognizes one of these suffering souls and wonders who he is. Virgil allows him to... (total context)

Venedico says that he would rather not answer, but that Dante'southward clear words compel him to. He admits that he sold his sister to a lustful... (full context)

Dante and Virgil now come up to the border of the 2d trench. Dante can hardly run into... (full context)

Dante and Virgil get in in the third trench, which holds Simonists, those who bought or sold... (full context)

Dante asks who one of the souls is, who seems to be burned even worse than... (full context)

Pope Nicholas predicts that after Boniface in that location will be an even more than evil pope. Dante chastises Nicholas, asking him how much Jesus charged Peter for the keys to the kingdom... (full context)

In the side by side (fourth) trench, Dante sees souls weeping quietly, their heads turned completely around so that they have to walk... (full context)

Virgil tells Dante to await at one of the backwards-facing souls, Amphiaraus (a seer of Greek mythology). Virgil... (total context)

...story of the origins of Mantua, and that other versions of its foundation are false. Dante assures Virgil that he believes him entirely. Virgil points out more seers and witches in... (full context)

The 5th trench is filled with boiling pitch and Dante cannot see anything in the pitch, which is continually bubbling. All of a sudden, Virgil tells him to... (full context)

Virgil tells Dante to hibernate backside a rock while he talks with these devils. When the devils see... (total context)

Dante hurries to Virgil'southward side. A few of the devils debate poking and stabbing at Dante... (total context)

Dante is terrified and begs for Virgil to guide him alone, without the dubious company of... (total context)

Dante says that, although he has seen horsemen and soldiers and other armed forces crowds advancing and... (full context)

...hair and pulls him out of the pitch. While the devils gleefully consider flaying him, Dante asks Virgil if he can perhaps know who this is. Virgil asks the sinner where... (full context)

...while they are distracted, he escapes their find and dives into the pitch in what Dante calls "a merry prank," (22.118). The angry demons try to pursue him, but he has... (full context)

As Virgil and Dante walk on, Dante worries that the devils volition get angry and come subsequently the two... (full context)

In this sixth trench, Dante sees souls walking effectually slowly, covered in cloaks. The cloaks are brilliant and gilded on... (full context)

Virgil asks the friars how he and Dante might get out of this trench and Catalano tells him that there is a rock... (full context)

Dante is distressed to see Virgil upset, only when they get to the rocks by which... (full context)

Dante gets support, catches his breath, and tells Virgil to lead on. Every bit they cross... (full context)

Virgil assents and when they cross and go down into the trench, Dante sees a mass of strange, frightening serpents and lizards, unlike any earthly creatures. He sees... (total context)

...and where he is from. He is from Tuscany, and names himself every bit Vanni Fucci. Dante asks what law-breaking he is guilty of and Vanni looks at him with shame and... (total context)

Vanni curses God and at once a snake curls effectually his throat. Dante is disgusted with Vanni and wishes that his home metropolis of Pistoia would fire to... (full context)

3 spirits come up to Dante and Virgil and ask who the ii poets are. One of them calls for someone... (full context)

...bodies: the lizard turns into a human body while the spirit morphs into a lizard. Dante says that this incredible transformation is more than remarkable than annihilation told by the Roman poets... (full context)

Dante describes, detail-by-item, how the lizard's body transforms into a homo's, and vice versa. The spirit... (full context)

Dante ironically praises Florence, because its fame spreads throughout not simply earth, simply hell also.... (full context)

Dante and Virgil take the unsafe climb up some rocks and Dante can see the eighth... (full context)

Dante sees a flame split in two and asks who is under that flame. Virgil tells... (full context)

Dante eagerly asks Virgil if he can speak to the ii heroes. Virgil agrees that this... (full context)

Ulysses leaves and another flame draws near, making strange muffled noises that Dante likens to the noises coming from a Sicilian bull: a torture device that is a... (full context)

The spirit begs Dante and Virgil to speak with him. He asks about Romagna, a region of Italy. Virgil... (total context)

The spirit says that Dante will never carry his name to globe, since no one can escape from hell, and... (full context)

...hell, for his fraudulence and deceit. Having told his story, Guido leaves, lamenting his fate. Dante and Virgil go onward toward the ninth trench of this circle of hell. (total context)

Equally Dante looks down from the span into the ninth trench, he claims that no one could... (full context)

Mohammed tells Dante that the souls here were all sowers of scandal and discord. Since they "split" people... (full context)

Virgil explains that Dante is not expressionless and is not beingness punished here, but is journeying through hell, guided... (full context)

Mohammed then walks off, and some other spirit comes up to Dante with his ear and olfactory organ cutting off and a wound in his pharynx. He asks... (full context)

Dante asks Pier da Medicina to identify another suffering soul, and he points out one whose... (total context)

Then, Dante sees—and he cautions his reader that he would hesitate to tell this without proof, but... (full context)

Dante continues to look at the sowers of discord in amazement, and Virgil tells him that... (full context)

Virgil says that Geri looked angrily at Dante, and Dante says that this must be considering no one has avenged Geri's violent death... (full context)

The souls here endure from horrible diseases and sicknesses, worse than whatsoever on earth. Dante and Virgil walk down into the trench and Dante sees that here falsifiers are punished.... (total context)

...hell. The two souls (and others who heard Virgil) draw most in amazement. Virgil encourages Dante to inquire them whatever he wants. Dante tells the spirits to place themselves, so that... (full context)

...impossible miracles. He is punished here, though, for his pursuit of abracadabra (falsifying precious metals). Dante criticizes the people of Siena loudly and another spirit agrees with him. This spirit identifies... (full context)

Dante describes ii more shades he saw, whose suffering surpassed even that of Hecuba and Athamas,... (full context)

Dante sees another soul who is bloated and bloated grotesquely. This soul tells Dante to look... (full context)

...someone named Guido, who convinced him to exercise counterfeiting and is now somewhere in hell. Dante asks Adam to identify a pair of sinners "rolled in a heap," (30.92) and giving... (full context)

Dante is enjoying watching these sinners feud, but Virgil rebukes him, telling him that he will... (total context)

Relieved that Virgil is non seriously upset with him, Dante follows him frontward. Dante can inappreciably see anything in the darkness, but hears a loud... (full context)

Virgil tells Dante that what he sees are non towers, just actually giants stuck from their navels downwards... (full context)

Dante so sees an even taller giant, with its easily bound by a huge iron concatenation.... (total context)

Virgil addresses the fearful behemothic Antaeus and tells him to carry Dante and him safely down the well, since Dante, who is alive, can study his name... (total context)

Dante hesitates as to whether his words can even come close to conveying the hideous innermost... (full context)

Close to his anxiety Dante sees two souls whose hair is tangled together and who continually butt heads. He asks... (full context)

...no other souls deserve as much as these 2 to be frozen together and tells Dante that he is Camicion dei Pazzi (who murdered a family member). Dante sees thousands more... (full context)

Equally they walk, Dante accidentally steps on a head. The spirit cries out and Dante thinks he recognizes it.... (total context)

Dante grabs the soul's hair and threatens to rip the pilus from his caput unless he... (total context)

Bocca tells Dante to write any he wishes, but tells Dante to include mention of other souls nearby.... (total context)

The sinner merely addressed by Dante stops eating the caput for a moment (wiping his mouth grotesquely on the other spirit'southward... (full context)

Ugolino tells Dante that he is cruel if he does non weep at his story. One morning time in... (total context)

Dante cries out confronting Pisa. Although Ugolino betrayed Pisa in its disputes with other Italian cities,... (full context)

Dante feels a wind and asks Virgil what is causing information technology. Virgil tells him that he... (full context)

...himself equally Friar Alberigo, who killed his own brother afterward inviting him to a dinner. Dante asks if Alberigo is already dead and Alberigo says he isn't, merely that this region... (full context)

Branca had invited his male parent-in-police to a banquet and killed him there. Dante is incredulous that Branca's soul could come hither fifty-fifty before he dies. Alberigo answers that... (total context)

Virgil informs Dante that they are at present approaching Lucifer, once the fairest of angels before he rebelled confronting... (full context)

Lucifer's upper body sticks out of the ice and Dante says that Lucifer is even larger than the giants he saw earlier. In fact, Dante... (total context)

Match has wings larger than whatever ship's sails that Dante has ever seen. The flapping of these wings causes the gusts of air current that Dante... (full context)

Virgil tells Dante that they have at present seen all of hell. They look until an opportune time and... (full context)

Virgil tells Dante to get on his feet once more, considering they must continue their journey, even though the... (full context)