Comparing Beowulf And Dante's Inferno

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The time of the Medieval Ages was a time of great influence from the Catholic Church. In the church’s views, mortal men should not enjoy human pleasures, or celebrate the arts, unless it was directly associated with God. Any pieces of literature, art, or music that was not created in the service of God was reprimanded by the church (CITATION NEEDED: CLASS BOOK PAGE 1137). To the church, anything that was not created in the service of God was deemed sacrilegious. With the church’s dominance over the arts, many pieces that did not involve the Christian point of view, or were not widely known, could easily go unnoticed until discovered and translated in later years. Beowulf, an epic tale about a hero who slays monsters, was originally filled…show more content…
Through Virgil, Dante is given guidance, but he is allowed to place human reason with the seen before his eyes. By giving Dante the chance to understand what is happening, what the sinners did, and allowing him to begin judging their sins, to which he slowly becomes apathetic, Alighieri’s literary piece takes a humanistic turn compared to the other literary pieces of his time. Through his use of humanism, Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy became a predecessor to the Renaissance ideals of humanism in…show more content…
Unlike Medieval literature, the literature of the Renaissance was secular, and did not focus entirely on religion. It was a time of rebirth, or knowledge, and for many authors, a chance to explore the humanism, and things the church considered to be secular in nature. Humanism in the Renaissance took into consideration human nature, the unity between philosophical and theological teachings, and the dignity of man. Humanism also dwelled into the understanding of man’s creation, no longer blindly following what the church said without reason, as well as encouraging the rebirth of the human spirit, so that the people would be able to remove themselves from the strict guidelines the church had set for mortal men(CITATION NEEDED:LIBRARY: RENNISANCE). While the church’s influence was not as dominate, artists, and writers, still used the church, and the stories from the bible as references for their
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