Romantic Love In Dante's Inferno and The Lais of Marie De France.
It is fascinating to take the time out to examine in similarities and differences in the way authors Dante Aligheri and Marie De France impart to their readers their views on romantic love. It can almost be said that the two perspectives are "similarly different.".
Marie De France, like Dante, has a distinctive literary form. Her narrative twists and female perspective, differentiate her vastly from Dante. She focuses on stories from women's points of view, she involves her female characters much more actively than Dante. For example, note that Francesca is the only female in hell who has a speaking part. In total, there are only sixteen women even mentioned in Dante's subterranean journey. Nine of them are in Limbo, and out of the remaining seven, five reside in Francesca's "circle in Hell." Throughout the Comedy, Dante appears to view women as the center of some sort of tragic love triangle, while throughout the Lais Marie's women are shown to have character and grace.
Canto V of Dante's Divine Comedy Inferno, takes the reader to the first compartment of true hell, residence for those whose sins have earned them eternal damnation. Dante's cranes symbolize lovers of the highest order, lovers who have died in the name of and for the very essence of love. These characters are of high social standing, as he stresses the importance of social hierarchy, and how it is affected by that which man calls "love." .
Dante uses symbolism, characters and literary illustration, to impart his central message that the ultimate form of betrayal which stems from "love" (or, to the author, misguided romantic notion) is adultery. His Francesca is married to Gianciotto Malatesta, who is portrayed to be a crude and to some, a deformed man. According to some interpretations, Francesca was really courted and wed by Gianciotto's proxy, his handsome younger brother, Paolo.