Question

Dante both uses and departs from the epic tradition. In a paragraph, give at least one example of each kind and explain why he uses or modifies each part of the tradition. Your answer should be at least one hundred words.

Answer 1

Answer: Hope This Helps

Explanation:

While Dante portrays Virgil as having learned truths from future generations, he presents himself as having gained knowledge from Virgil, commenting that the ancient poet taught him “the graceful style” that has brought him fame (I.67). The “graceful style” denotes the tragic style of the ancients, the style of epic poems—the Odyssey, the Iliad, the Aeneid. And Dante was indeed capable of commanding this high style; at the beginning of Canto II, his invocation of the Muses—the traditional way to begin a classical epic—echoes Virgil’s call for the Muses’ inspiration in the opening of the Aeneid. However, one may question the statement that it is this particular style that brought Dante fame: the poet elsewhere employs many other styles with equal skill. Dante clearly respects tradition but is not beholden to it, as is made clear by the way that he follows but also breaks from traditional uses of allegory, the trope of the Everyman, and intertemporality. As the remainder of the poem will make clear, his goal is not simply to mimic Virgil.

Answer 2

Hm, this is a tough one. If you use this make sure to rearrange some of the sections and add in some of your own words, ok?

   Dante Alighieri was a very untraditional writer, for unlike most other writers he sometimes followed the traditions yet he wasn't afraid to deviate and modify the old epic traditions. Most epics tell the adventures of a hero of old who vanquished evil, and to be honest Dante does recount a hero's journey. There is a major difference though between his and traditions though, because he varies this tradition by making himself the theme/hero/subject/ect of the epic called the Divine Comedy.

    Epic poets were traditionally pagan and so they would often call on the Muses, known as patron goddesses of the arts, for their inspirations and to help guide their poems. Unlike them Dante was a Christian, and he refused to use the pagan gods "gods" in this epic. Instead he utilizes the Latin poet Virgil whom he calls "my mentor" and Dante's childhood hero Bice Portinari, whom he gave the name Beatrice as guides for the main character throughout the story.

    Epics traditionally begin in "media res" which is Latin for "in the middle." Dante follows this tradition, although it's in his own unique way, by beginning the Divine Comedy "halfway through the journey we are living," or in other words "in the middle of his life".

    Many of the epic poems of this time period state the theme of the poem at the very beginning. Likewise, Dante begins to describes in the first stanzas of his poem his fear and disquiet but then he offers a vision of hope to the readers. He says that "to describe the good discovered there / I here will tell the other things I saw".

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