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Example research essay topic: Love For God Order To Reach - 2,318 words

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Final Writing Assignment The Inferno is part epic. The theme in Canto II is that of courtly love: much medieval literature deals with the love of a knight for an unattainable and lovely lady. In the literature of courtly love, the knights hopeless devotion spurs him on to chivalric feats, which he accomplishes in order to honor his chosen lady. In some lyrics of courtly love, the perfection of the desired lady undermines the religious morality of the poetry: a Christian should love God above all else.

However, Dante melds the two genres, by loving a lady who is dead. There is no risk of physical sexuality, and since Beatrice is a blessed soul, she can be accepted as a link between Dante and God. Written originally as a long poem separated into cantos or songs, Dante basically wrote with the personal purpose of recording where all of the people he came in contact within his life, will go when they die. This could be one of three places; Hell, Purgatory, or Heaven. He went on to design specific, fitting punishments or rewards based on the life each person led.

Dante then tied this all together and made himself a character that walks the entire length of the conceptualized universe. Due to the fact that Dante poured his heart and soul into his writing, there are many representations of his personal life and the time in which he lived, in this piece of literature. Whether they were someone that betrayed him in his political career or the girl that he fell in love with when he was 9 years old, he found a way to integrate them into the Inferno. As we noticed in this allegory, Dante considers trust and loyalty to be one of the most important human characteristics. He basically felt this way due to the point that he was betrayed and exiled away from his beloved homeland. It is because of this that he places perpetrators of breaking these at the center of hell.

Examples of this would be the political grafters who were damned to spend eternity boiling in pitch or Archbishop Ruggieri who betrayed Count Ugolino having his brain being gnawed out. To Dante, these eternal punishments fit the crime that was committed by these sinners. Not all of the references Dante used were negative though. In a later part of the Divine Comedy, he represents his platonic love, Beatrice, as an angel guide to heaven. By using these representations, Dante lets us peer into his mind and understand how he felt. In Canto V, Dante and Virgil descend into the second circle of Hell, where the demon Minos assigns each guilty soul its rightful place.

After hearing what the soul has to say, he wraps his tail around his body, and the number of times the tail wraps around is the number of the circle where the sinner must go. Minos challenged Dante and Virgil, but is silenced when Virgil claims a divine order. The first circle is characterized by a wind, which whirls the souls about endlessly, never giving them a chance to rest. These are the lustful, including those who died for love including Semiramis, Cleopatra, Helen, Paris, Tristan, and Dido. Dante was struck by pity, and asked to speak to two souls who clung together as they were blown around. The souls floated over to him, and one of them spoke, telling how she had fallen in love while reading about Lancelot with her lover.

She described the great power of love, and the deaths she and her lover suffered for it, deeply affecting Dante, who recognized her as Francesca. The other soul wept, and Dante fainted out of pity. Written in the first person, Inferno tells of the poets journey through the realm of afterlife: Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. The Roman poet Virgil (Vergilius) is the guide through the Inferno and Purgatorio. Dante greets Virgil as my master and my author. Beatrice, the personification of pure love, has sent to rescue Dante.

She finally leads Dante to Paradiso. Dante is then able to gaze upon the supreme radiance of God. He ends his pilgrimage into vision of the Love which moves the sun and the other stars. In Plato's Symposium several characters discuss what love is and no distinct answer is derived. Love and desire, while being emotions, are triggered by thoughts. The study of thought is all inclusive so love and desire fall within the studys limits.

The subjects of philosophy can range from those of materialism to those of the mind and sensationalistic needs of the race of humans. Love and desire are both emotions of extreme passion and extreme complexity. In Plato's Symposium Phaedrus is giving his speech on love when he says There is a certain guidance each person needs for his whole life, if he is to live well; and nothing imparts this guidance not high kinship, not public honor, not wealth nothing imparts this guidance as well as Love. (Symposium 178) Love makes us whole and tears us apart, it guides us and yet it gets us lost. This simultaneousness is a commonality in subjects of philosophy. When characters of Plato's Symposium speak of love they speak of it as such an awesome force. Love is a pronoun to them as well as a God they value and worship.

Personally, at this point in time, I have very little faith in love as anything other then a chemical, hormonal if you will, and physical attraction. The argument for the existence of platonic love between family and friends seems more plausible then the deep love into which we as humans supposedly fall. There are thousands of theories and opinions on this subject matter making it a perfect philosophical subject. According to Plato love is the most important action that we do in the world. Like in all our actions, performing is important in love too. A love can be good or bad depending on the performing.

The two kinds of love, heavenly and common are the same loves with different names and nothing changes in meaning. Also it does not matter whether a love is open or not. The love of some materialistic features is not bad until you exceed some limit value. And at last lovers must question themselves and their relation to make their relation steadier. The Confessions initiates the distortion of love through the pleasures of the body.

Saint Augustine and Catherine of Siena went through distinctive spiritual journeys in order to reach and experience true love. Each author discusses that people must love their neighbors before true love for God can exist. But Augustine emphasizes that the individual pleasures of the body and the soul must be overcome in order to reach divine love for God; Catherine on the other hand, presents the different spiritual stages that the soul must endure to experience love. Therefore, both Augustine and Catherine stress that the senses of the body and the emotions of the soul need to be used as a stepping-stone but can also act as a barrier for love. Saint Augustine believes that love is triggered by the desire to reach the beauty, truth, and good of God. Yet, it must be recognized that God is the Life of the life of my soul and that He created the form and spirit of the human body.

Consequently, God assigned its own place and its own function (Augustine 213) for the body and the soul, and using the senses for enjoyment rather than for the objective of further glorifying God would be considered sinful since it is a distortion of love. It is necessary to direct the senses with the purpose of serving and loving God virtuously. Hence, the body and soul must be controlled to experience love. Augustine shows the positive and negative aspects that various things can have on body and soul.

Food is essential for nourishment and life, but when one eats too much the action becomes gluttonous. Augustine reveals this as he proclaims, Good Father you have taught me that all is good that God has made, nothing is to be rejected; only we must be thankful to him when we partake of it In the midst of these temptations I struggle daily against greed for food and drink (Augustine 236 - 237). When discussing smell, Augustine concludes that he is not tempted by smell and does not long for the scents when they are missing. In other words, smell is unable to give rise to sinful pleasures capable of being produced by the other senses of the body; therefore, Augustine does not talk about this sense in depth. As Augustine discusses praise, this pleasure can grow to be negative in two ways: lack of praise causes people to become offensive and spiteful, while too much praise causes people to become conceited and arrogant. Augustine demonstrates this as he declares, I am sometimes sorry, too, to hear my own praises, either when others commend me for qualities which I am not glad to possess, or when they value in me, more highly than their due, qualities which may be good, but are of little importance (Augustine 246).

Thus, receiving praise is considered sinful, while giving praise is considered glorious. Also, people need to learn how to praise others before they can praise God since these actions show love for others before love for God. Catherine uses the same principles as the pleasures of the mind while examines pity in a discussion with God. He talks about pity by describing people who are sad and begin to weep from a pity springing from spiritual selfishness, because she has not yet completely put underfoot and drowned her self-will (Catherine 162 - 163). Self-pity must be overcome in order to feel love for others, and eventually for God.

Catherine also looks at different sorts of temptations by saying, if the soul has the least bit of knowledge and heat and hatred of sin, she resists them, binding her will steadfast with the chains of hatred for sin and love for virtue (Catherine 168). Temptations, such as lust, would be considered sinful and keep a person from reaching divine love. Both Augustine and Catherine of Siena share similar views on love, for they have concluded that the senses of the body and the emotions of the soul are a necessary springboard for love, yet they act as an obstruction as well. Despite their similar viewpoints, Augustine seems to profess his beliefs in terms of rules that should be followed, while Catherine shows the positive stages that people must go through in order to reach love. Through the pleasures of the body and the mind it is simpler to understand that the senses and emotions must be used for the sole intent of praising and glorifying God. Likewise, divine love is only attained by way of love for ones neighbors, and then, virtuous love for God.

Love is portrayed in many forms in The Letters of Abelard and Heloise. Like for example love of learning. The first thing Abelard does in his writing of Historia Calamitatum is portray himself as an individual just like Heloise. He denounced the popular and glorious life of a soldier and in order to study words and philosophy. I believe in writing this he shows his clever and different way of thinking by referring to dialectic. In the beginning Abelard's and Heloise's relationship was based heavily on passionate love.

So later after their entry into religion, Heloise accused Abelard of lust rather than love for her, which I believe, is not true. It was desire, not affection which bound you to me, the flame of lust rather than love. This is not merely my opinion, beloved, it is everyones. Abelard was mostly attracted to her because of her knowledge and because of her gift of writing letters. Also he worried about her as much as he was concerned about himself and his career. He agreed to marry Heloise even though it would put his career and reputation in danger.

Also at one time he says all our laments were for one another's troubles and our distress for each other, not for ourselves. Courtly love is defined as humility, courtesy, adultery and religion of love. This is what I believe Abelard's and Heloise's relationship was based on in Abelard's Historia Calamitatum and his letters to Heloise. Abelard was a well-known figure of the twelfth century that taught dialectic philosophy. Abelard was in his late thirties when he first met Heloise in Paris. And it was her knowledge and gift for writing letters, which was so rare in women at the times that attracted Abelard to her.

Heloise was the niece of one of the Cannons. She was about seventeen when she met Abelard; this was not considered a big deal for back then it was pretty common to have big age difference in marriages. Heloise was considered atypical because women were rarely educated at all back then. She was strong willed and she had a pretty good sense of logic and this is what brought them together. Heloise struck a deal with Heloise's uncle to educate her and gained full access to her pleasures. Their relationship encompassed the maximum in personal freedom.

Abelard and Heloise's relationship was based on courtly love of their time and also I believe that their love was the creation of modern ideal of marriage which was founded on the voluntarily shared tenderness of a couple who shelter each other from the harshly competitive world, just like todays. Sources: Barnes, J. C (1981) Inferno XIII. In Dante Soundings, 28 - 58. Davies, Judith (1981) Inferno XXVII. In Cambridge Readings in Dantes Comedy, 49 - 69.

Kirkpatrick, Robin (1980) The Principle of Courtesy in the Convivio and the Comedy. Italian Studies, XXXV, 25 - 30.


Free research essays on topics related to: dante and virgil, order to reach, body and soul, plato symposium, love for god

Research essay sample on Love For God Order To Reach

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