ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -The lion symbolizes pride. Dante exaggerates the lion so that it is ‘’great” and its head is ‘’enormous. ‘’ The lion seems to arrogantly lift its head, as if daring others to challenge its authority. The she-wolf stands for avarice (extreme greed).

Detailed explanation-2: -The lion symbolism in Dante’s Inferno could also match up with violence because they are considered violent creatures. They tend to be assertive and get the satisfaction of their own needs met by whatever violence is necessary. They fear no other creature and ravage the savanna. They are King.

Detailed explanation-3: -The three beasts are allegories of three different sins: the leopard represents lust, the lion pride, and the wolf represents avarice. While Dante goes backward to the forest, he sees a human figure and turns to it for help.

Detailed explanation-4: -The sins of violence are organised into a hierarchy: sins of violence against others are held to be less grave than sins of violence against oneself; violence against God is the most serious of all the sins of violence.

Detailed explanation-5: -a) There are three poems or visions, based around a tripartite afterlife: The Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise; the Inferno itself has three divisions, representing three types of sin (incontinence/immoderation/lust, violence, fraud/untruth), represented in the opening by the she-wolf, lion and leopard etc.