The Relationship Between Humanity and the Divine in Odyssey and the Inferno

The Relationship Between Humanity and the Divine in Odyssey and the Inferno

Both Odyssey and Inferno poems share the same theme of humanity and the divine. Odysseus is the main character struggling to return home in the Odyssey, and Dante struggles with good and evil as the main character in Inferno. On the one hand, Dante in the Inferno profoundly explores Christian heaven and hell, and the experiences pushed him to cast his loyalty to God and good. On the other hand, Odysseus’s journey has several defining examples of the relationship between humanity and the divine. The gods majorly interact with humans by being against or siding with them. Mostly, the gods would always side with humans because they desired to help them, such as the goddess of wisdom, Athens, Odysseus’s son, and Telemachus. However, other gods, like Poseidon, seek revenge on Odysseus for killing his son. Polyphemus turns against Odysseus. Whereas the real interaction between the divine and humanity is a humorous notion, the gods offered much direction and guidance throughout the story of the Odyssey.

Naturally, in Greece, humans always clashed with the gods when they attempted to secure their fate. Humans believed they possessed free will, yet the gods knew they had complete power and authority over the people. Such a confrontation on who is powerful is evident throughout the Odyssey story because the divine regularly alters situations humans are in to transform their outcomes, whereas the people struggle to deal with the new circumstances and take back authority over their lives. For example, in the Odyssey story, after the end of the Trojan War, Odysseus desired to return home, but the path he chose led him to the Cyclops land, and he killed Poseidon’s son to continue with his journey as he loves he had to kill everyone, as they were just barriers he had to overcome to reach home. Odysseus believes his destiny is to arrive home, but Poseidon changes his fate as he is swept by Kalypso’s island and gets stranded there, but Odysseus is doing his bests to get home. Odysseus and other men ship back to Ithaca; the god Zeus sends a storm to wreck the ship. He describes this by saying, “Zeus, with thunder and lightning, crashed the vessel,” Men were thrown into the water, and God took away their homecoming. Such a scene is vital because Zeus completely shifts the companion’s fate (Puchner et al., 2018). Rather than allowing him to sail back home, Zeus destroys the ship and lets them drown.

Nonetheless, the scene is vital because Odysseus uses his god-like strength to change the destiny the gods planned, meaning he could beat the gods in this specific struggle over his fate (Puchner et al., 2018). Therefore, in the Odyssey, the relationship between humanity and the divine is two-way. Humans can determine their fates by defeating the gods and changing the fate planned by the gods.

In contrast, in Inferno, God’s apparent weaknesses diminish the supreme divinity for which he is worshiped, reducing him to imperfect humanity. Therefore, in the Inferno comedy, Dante accidentally challenges God’s omnipotence. His description of hell conflicts with God’s own morals (Hammad, 2016). The God depicted by Dante is guilty of several human mistakes, such as hypocrisy, injustice, and egotism, which show that Cod is more human than divine (Dante, 2015). Therefore, in Inferno, humanity and divine relationship are unfriendly because God is depicted as more human than divine because of the many flaws. However, the divine is accepted because it is more powerful, and people should seek well and God as well as Dante did.

Therefore, the similarity between the two poems is that humans have the power to change the destiny planned by God or the divine because the divine is more human than the divine. Humans and the divine have the same power: if one uses their God-like powers, as in the case of Odysseus, they can challenge the gods and finally win the battle. Both texts also show that God or the divine has flaws, just like humans, so they have the power to determine their destinies. Generally, the relationship between humanity and the divine is two-way; it supports humanity or works against humanity to challenge its destinies. In some cases, humans can change the destiny God has planned for them.

References

Dante, A. (2015). Dante’s Inferno. Рипол Классик.

Hammad, I. M. (2016). The Journey from The Inferno to The Purgatory: Eliot’s Religious Odyssey. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 6(6), 1149.

Puchner, M., Akbari, S. C., Denecke, W., Fuchs, B., Levine, C., Lewis, P., & Wilson, E. R. (Eds.). (2018). The Norton anthology of world literature. London and New York: WW Norton.

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Literary Analysis Draft
The major assignment for this week is to compose an essay comparing The Odyssey with Dante’s Inferno. In this paper, you will write an in-depth analysis using your own ideas and excerpts from epic poems in the form of quotes, paraphrases, or summaries.

Although nearly tw

The Relationship Between Humanity and the Divine in Odyssey and the Inferno

o thousand years separate The Odyssey and Dante’s Inferno, both works are epic poems that:

Explore the relationship between humanity and the divine.
Employ journey as a metaphor for maturation.

Reveal and teach cultural values about leadership.
Caution audiences about the appeal of temptation.
Contemplate the nature of immortality.

Compare and contrast how one of these topics is developed in The Odyssey and Dante’s Inferno.