Comparing Dante s Inferno And Shakespeare s Play King Lear

Dante’s Inferno and Shakespeare’s play King Lear have many similar motifs within them that allude to human suffering. One such motif is as long as you can find the words to describe how bad a situation is, things can get worse. We see this concept in Dante’s Inferno when Dante the Pilgrim is traveling deeper into the depths of hell and he exclaims, â€Å"If I had words grating and crude enough that really could describe this horrid hole†¦I could squeeze out the juice of my memories to the last drop. But I don’t have these words, and so I am reluctant to begin.† While travelling through hell, Dante has seen the worst humanity has to offer, and the farther he goes, the less he can describe exactly what he is seeing, much like how in our lives, the deeper we travel within ourselves, the less we are able to describe what we are feeling. In King Lear, we see the same problem outlined through the fool when he warns Lear, â€Å"And worse I may be yet . The worse is not so long as we can say, ‘This is the worst.’† Both the Inferno and King Lear, explore the deepest parts of humanity in order to demonstrate that we may not always be able to explain what is within us because what is within us, is oftentimes unrecognizable to ourselves, so much so that even our language cannot put forth the words. Another motif found in both works is the matter of blindness, and when we are blind to the consequences of sin, it is much easier to jump into the unknown. In King Lear, Gloucester accepts death as a