Medieval View of Nature in "Dante's Inferno"

Key to an understanding of the constitution of this journey and of the generosity of Virgil in serving this purpose is the feature that salvation is denied to Virgil because he was a pagan, though he holds a special place in the after demesne because of his poetic power and the saucer of his soul. Virgil stands as an icon to Dante not only because of the power of his numbers but also because his most powerful work--The Aeneid--depicts the nameing of Dante's erotic bang Rome, an act he also wishes to celebrate. Virgil thus mixes the urban and nature, for he is encountered in a natural setting while he represents the city of Rome to Dante.

Dante has a clear need for ghostly guidance in the First Canto--he has reached the midpoint of his life and has found himself in a sullen timberland, symbolic of the mental land in which he finds himself, enclosed on all sides by darkness and uncertainty. He is questioning himself and his spirituality. He is indeed as lost in life as he is on the path where he finds himself wandering first through the wood and then into a dismal valley. The dark wood is the dark wood of Error, and on the other side of that wood Dante meets Virgil, comprehend him at first from a distance and fearing him as a stranger in an unfriendly place.

When he discovers who this man is, he expresses his admiration:

At the same(p) time, those who seek spiritual guidance and a greater density with God still repair to a more plain area, an area more in tune with nature, to escape the world of man as found in the cities. Monasteries and nunneries are spaced from the normal world of human interaction for precisely this reason. Heloise's badgering comes from the fact that she has moved to this setting not from a love of God but from a love for Abelard, and yet following(a) his dictates and taking the veil separates her from her love, separates her from the world of normal human interaction, and leaves her disappointed at being unable to achieve either the somatogenic or spiritual fulfillment she needs.

She's made many people's lives base (Dante 4-5).

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