Choose one episode each from Augustine’s Confessions and Dante’s Inferno and
reread them carefully. Then write an essay in which you discuss how the first episode introduces
a concept in Medieval Christianity that is developed poetically—in terms of language, imagery,
and narrative—by the second. Such concepts might include (but are not necessarily limited to)
Original Sin, the Fall, baptism, pride, grace, the Crucifixion, the Old Testament narrative of the
Exodus from Egypt and the New Testament Parable of the Prodigal Son, as well as dualisms like
flesh and spirit, temporality and eternity, multiplicity and unity, urbanity and humility, language
and the Word, incontinence and continence, or the lower and higher forms of love.
As in your first assignment, keep in mind that you are developing an argument about these two
works. Your essay should state a thesis and present an analysis that supports your argument by
examining specific passages with the aim of explaining how a concept is present in the passage
from Augustine and then demonstrating how it becomes the basis of imaginative elaboration in
the passage from Dante.
When you quote, you should identify the source of the quotation by book, chapter, and paragraph
number (for a quotation from the Confessions) or by canto and line number (for a quotation from
the Inferno) in a parenthetical citation following the quote. When you quote from the Inferno,
remember that what you are quoting is poetry, so you need to preserve the form of the verse: line
breaks must occur where they do in the original text (or should be indicated by a slash mark if
the quotation is integrated into the text of your essay), and stanzas should be separated by a space
if you are presenting a block quotation.