Compare the hero of a Greek tragedy with the hero of Dantes Divine Comedy, especially in terms of how they acquire self-knowledge
The hero in a Greek tragedy I want to compare with the hero Dante in the Divine Comedy is Oedipus in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King. Concerning their respective process of self-knowledge acquisition, we find some differences: their original recognition of “self” is dissimilar, and so are their method and result of self-pursuit.
First, Oedipus and Dante have different perceptions of “self.” In Oedipus the King, Oedipus confidently knows who he is and where he comes from－a exiled wanderer saving the Thebans from the Sphinx. On the contrary, in Canto 1 of the Inferno in the Divine Comedy, the author/the protagonist Dante gets lost in the forest of darkness, a symbol of human vice. He is in the dark and perplexed at who he is. Comparing with Oedipus the Greek hero who daringly does his will (he believes human intelligence can compete with God), Dante the Christian hero rather hesitates about himself and thus follows the guide Virgil.
