1. The allegorical description of the Divine Comedy is the journey of a soul into inner darkness and then rising through knowledge, repentance and a beauty filled vision.
2. The Divine Comedy consists of the Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. Inferno is God, judgment, Purgatory is the Son, salvation and Paradise is the Holy Spirit, sustaining grace.
3. The Decameron means "Work of ten days". The Decameron features ten storytellers, ten stories told for each storyteller and the stories are told on a ten day journey.
4. In the "Wife of Bath's Tale" the knight must find out what women most desire. He finds out that they want to rule their husbands and have their way in love.
5. The guides in the Divine Comedy are Virgil and Beatrice. Virgil is the guide of reason, which represents inferno and purgatorio and Beatrice is the guide of divine love, which represents paradisio.
6. The number three is used symbolically in the Divine Comedy as a parody of the Holy Trinity. Three examples of this are the three heads of the devil, the three books, and the three circles in Hell.
7. The purpose of "The General Prologue" is to offer portraits of the characters vices, virtues, and 14th century England's morals and their social and spiritual concerns. The frame narrative in Chaucer’s work shows individual stories within one main story.
8. The Great Chain of Being is a ladder with God on the top, humanity in the middle and animal on the bottom. Humanity consists of the physical limitations of the animal kingdom but the intellect and spirit of the God. Prospero is the God figure in the way that he controls the moves of every person that is on the island. The people that come off of the ship (Antonio, Gonzalo, the King etc) are the humanity is the middle, because they have a mind of their own, but are still subjected to being controlled by Prospero. Caliban plays the beast and is below both the God and humanity.
9. The Globe Theatre was a microcosm of the ordered universe by having above stage representing heaven, the stage where the actors were representing earth and below the stage (trapdoor) representing hell.
10. The four important questions in the Stephan and Trinculo subplot concern the responsibilities of princes, the governance of state, building of empires and the treatment of the subjects.
Henderson 1
Connor Henderson
World Lit
Professor Schmitt
4/19/2013
Prospero
What does whatever means necessary truly mean? What does it look like? To some, it is brutal and cold, to others it's the only way to survive. A ruler, in itself, seems to be against human nature. In daily life, humans are told where to go, what time to be there and what to do when they get there, so why should a ruler follow the same instinctual rules? Machiavelli makes it clear that rulers are a different breed, and that requires a different mindset. A ruler becomes a ruler not by being humble, but by demonstrating they are the strongest and taking the power they desire. Prospero is no different. Throughout The Tempest, Prospero follows this code. He takes what he wants, and will manipulate anyone that stands in his way. He has compassion in his heart for his daughter and others, this quote expresses who Prospero could be, Prospero is a man from whom much is demanded, who must give up all he holds close to his heart" (Strauss). Although, compassion is just a part of him, power is what he desires and he truly will do whatever is necessary to gain and maintain it.
Henderson 2 Prospero's thirst for power was expressed openly in his manipulation of the shipwreck and everything that happened on the island. It was a mix of desire to be in leadership of Milan again and wanting revenge on those that wronged him. The reader will begin thinking that it is rightful revenge until they see his darker side when his servants and daughter disobey
