Need help to find topic!

[TheNorthFace]

I read Dantes Inferno and need to write about a similarity or difference within the society of Dante's time and our world today. had to do the same thing with the Arabian nights so i wrote about capital punishment and forced marriage now and then.

"How does our primary text (in my case Inferno) illuminate the present day society that surrounds us"?

Any Idea what I could focus on? cuz I don't.
And besides that I have to compare The Odyssey, Inferno and Arabian Nights, answering the same question regarding all three texts, so I'll need to find a topic that will illuminate the present day society in each book...having the same topic. thats confusing.
can you people help?:bawling:

[Etienne]

Quick tip: Learn about Italy's political situation during Dante's time.

[PeterL]

Consider fundamentalist Christianity in the periods and today. Renaissance Italy is one of my favorite historical periods, because there was so much variation.

[TheNorthFace]

so how about writing about dante and the view on islam? he mentioned mohammed in hell...and compare it to the christian view of islam today?

[hellsapoppin]

It is very difficult to formulate an answer to your question. The key terms in your initial post appear to be '' how does ... illuminate ''.

As I recall, Inferno was hermeneutic in that a reader is compelled to understand or interpret life + death from the writer's point of view within his historical context. Clearly, he was bigoted against Judaism and Islam. But this is understandable considering the strong hold Catholicism had over its adherents at that time (this does not mean I am attempting to excuse bigotry, only that I am explaining why he harbored such thoughts).

The unhappy inhabitants of hell were getting their just desserts according to Dante. Perhaps he is also suggesting that any temporal actions taken by Catholic authorities at that time were justified in doing so as such actions were supposedly ordained by God. Perhaps he was suggesting as Shakespeare wrote, ''leave her/them to heaven'' as any punishment will come from Above, not from temporal authorities. (I do not recall which interpretation is more proper as I read the book many moons ago.)

This reminds me of Bush's claims that he was ordered by God to invade Iraq and that such a sanction justifies his war. With all the bad news we have gotten from that troubled land it is only too painfully clear that no such sanction was divinely granted.

The one thing that is clear is that Christians or Christian professing people do have a tendency to judge others even though the New Testament teaches to do otherwise. This happened in Dante's time and it happens today. We are told in that NT that there are no degrees of sin and that eternal punishment will be imposed for any violation of Messianic law. Come the Judgment Day, I suppose, we will all learn whether that is true or not.

[AuntShecky]

How about the Paulo and Francesca episode? You could compare and contrast it with either contemporary sexual mores or since it all started by the "reading of a book" about censorship, then and now.