Paradaise Lost by John Milton and The Divine Comedy by...

INTRODUCTION It has been commonly accepted that John Milton is acquainted with Dante Alighieri who has a great influence on Milton’s epic Paradise Lost. The significance of The Divine Comedy for Milton lies especially in Dante’s Inferno and Purgatorio. Scholars1 have quoted plentiful echoes of Dante throughout Milton’s works, and have compared these two great poets for centuries. In the 19th century Mary Shelley employed a cluster of images and ideas from Milton’s Paradise Lost (especially from Book Ten) in Frankenstein -- the work that establishes the fame of Mary -- to forge her novelistic world of desire, deterioration, and desperation. Therefore, this novel has been studied many times for Miltonic echoes and influences. In†¦show more content†¦And the â€Å"iron cowls† are worn by the hypocrites in The Divine Comedy: Below that point we found a painted people, who moved about with lagging steps, in circles, weeping, with features tire and defeated. And they were dressed in cloaks with cowls so low they fell before their eye, of that same cut that’s used to make the clothes for Cluny’s monks. Outside, these cloaks were gilded and dazzled; but inside they were all of lead, so heavy that Frederick’s capes were straw compared to them. A tiring mantle for eternity!3 (CANTO XXIII, 58-67) Instead of being a retold story of Paradise Lost, Frankenstein, resonant with Dantean echoes, is in a sort of way, an infernal story portraying a modern Prometheus in a modern hell caused by mad science. Therefore, this essay, with a concentration on the image of Dante’s hell-fire, analyzes the significance and origin of this infernal flame burning from The Divine Comedy to Frankenstein. The first part generally makes an assay of the essence of fire in Dante’s Inferno. Then the second part minutely analyzes this forbidden hell-fire burning in the protagonists’ hearts which makes them lingering and suffering forever. At last, the third part generalizes and summarizes the fire of desire in this novel which further exhibits its Dantean echoes of hell-fire. THE HELL-FIRE IN THE DIVINE COMEDY Before starting their journey to Hell,