In Dante's "The Divine Comedy," the reported direct speeches of particular characters – namely Francesca, Ulysses, and Count Ugolino – reflect important connections between Dante's work and the characters' deeds. Francesca's romantic speech of courtly love, Ulysses' rhetorical words, and Ugolino's deceptive language reflect various aspects of Dante's work and ethics. Through these characters, Dante explores aspects of himself as the author of the Comedy but also of himself as the main character of the comedy.
             The character of Francesca appears early on in the Comedy, in Canto V. She is depicted as being a damned soul being buffeted about by the wind in the second circle of hell where spirits damned by carnal lust reside. She is confined there with her lover Paolo for the sin of adultery, of whom Paolo was the object. When Dante and Virgil approach Francesca and Paolo it is Francesca who answers, while Paolo is only able to weep. As Francesca explains to Dante the sin that led her and her lover to the confines of hell, she makes use of anaphora: "Love, quick to kindle in the gentle heart ... Love which absolves no one beloved from loving ... Love brought us to one death" (Inf. V,100-106). The repetition and her words of love seem to strike a chord with Dante, as he recognizes himself as a man in love (with Beatrice) and takes pity on Francesca's soul as he believes that she is in hell, essentially, because she was in love. Francesca's manner of expressing herself is also very similar to Dante's way of writing. The story of Lancelot that Francesca and Paolo had been reading reminded them of themselves as it also spoke of a courtly love. Francesca goes on to describe how it was that she and Paolo came to commit this sin of carnal lust, describing the account with language that evokes courtly love. This style of language corresponds to the fin'amor that Dante the poet so often wrote about.
             This Canto, and this speech by Frances...