Evil in Dante and Chaucer

We in the twentieth century would be much much hard-pressed to define evil than would community of either Chaucer's or Dante's time. Medieval Christians would give up a source for it -- Satan -- and if could intimately devise a series of ecclesiastical checklists to test its movement and its power. In our secular world, evil has come down to something that hurts people for no explicable reason: the bombing of the Federal twist in Oklahoma City, the burning of black churches in the South. We have taken evil out of the hands of Satan, and placed it in the hands of man. In doing so, we have made it less absolute, and in many ways less real. Nonetheless, it must be recognised that in earlier times evil was not scarcely real but palpable. This paper will look at evil as it is portrayed in two diverse works -- Dante's Divine Comedy, and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales -- and analyze what the nature of evil meant to each of these authors.



The Divine Comedy is an epic poem in which the author, Dante, takes a visionary journey through funny house, Purgatory, and Paradise. The purpose of Dante's visit to Hell is to learn about the true nature of evil. He is head in this journey by the ghost of the Roman undefiled poet Virgil, who, as wise in the ways of the spirit as he may be, cannot go to Heaven because he is not a Christian. Virgil's experience in the underworld, however, make him an authority on its structure, and he is more than willing to share his knowledge with Dante in order that Dante might return to life and share his revelations with others.... If you postulate to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay



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