The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri

Inferno: A Journey through Hell

Inferno is a narrative poem that was written by Dante Alighieri describing his imagery journey. Dante realized that he had taken the long direction in his life. This hence caused his fellow Roman poet who was referred to as Virgil to go searching for his lost colleague as was requested by Beatrice. After a period of searching, Virgil found Dante in the woods. He found him on the evening of Good Friday at around the year 1300 and this helped Dante to begin his journey in search of God (Dante N.p). The journey in search of God, however, was not easy. Dante had to literally pass through hell, purgatory before finally getting to paradise. According to Dante, this whole experience was a divine comedy which he simply referred to commedia. He used the word since according to him comedy was meant to refer to a story that begun with difficulties but finally ended happily. This word according to him did not refer to a funny story as it is today. Dante’s Inferno was and still is significant and plays a huge role in educating the people in the society and especially the Christians and hence it is important that everybody should read the poem.

The Three Main Parts of Dante’s Divine Comedy

Dante’s divine comedy consisted of three main parts which represent his three main journeys. These include the inferno which is also referred to as hell, the purgatory and finally paradise. Each of the three parts of the journey consisted of both a prologue and about 33 cantos. This narrative can be referred to as an epic poem since it is in an exalted form and has a hero as the main subject. After Dante and Virgil enter the very wide gates of hell, they descend through what Dante refers to as the nine ells of hell (Dante N.p). He states that in each of the circles they saw sinners who were being pushed for the sins they had committed while on earth. They witness the suffering and torture that these people are going through while in hell as divine justice.

The Circles of Hell

The sinners in hell were in circles which includes the first circle for those in Limbo. The gate to this circle had been written, “Abandon all hope, you who enter here” an indication that once one entered there it was the beginning of all kinds of trouble. Before entering that gate, one could find people who were neutral, meaning that they were never committed to God fully and still they did not qualify to be thrown into the circle. Limbo was full of the people who were never baptized. The second circle consisted of the lustful. Here they met Francesca who narrated to them on how she and her lover Paolo were thrown there after reading a romance book that provoked them into lustful and adulterous behavior (Dante N.p). The third circle consisted of the gluttonous, the fourth circle consisted of the hoarders, the fifth circle consisted of the heretics and the seventh circle consisted of the violent. Some of the circles were also subdivided into rings and regions. It was later on the Easter Sunday that Dante emerged from hell. He is so happy after emerging from hell since this indicates that he now has found his way to God. This is a clear happy ending for Dante’s since according to his experience in hell, it is clearly a very bad place to be.

Dante as the Poet and the Character

In the characterization, the author chooses to use himself as the main character and the protagonist. He is my favorite character. He chooses to use his own life to write this poem. The most amazing thing about the fact that he is both the poet and the character is that there is a wide gulf between the character and the poet. This is amazing knowing that most of the authors cannot be able t write about themselves or make themselves characters. In this book, the poet portrays Dante the character as a very compassionate and he is sympathetic when he sees the sinners who are suffering. In this sense, it is expected that the Dante the poet will save them from this suffering, but he does contrary to that he places them in hell. This is a great level of creativity. The author uses it to portray the great yearning to do good to others even though they are in the wrong or actually to do what is good and right.

The Choice of Characters and the Use of Comedy

The choice of characters in this book is quite great. Asides from the poet being a character too, he chooses to use another poet, Virgil who is used as Dante’s guide through hell. In real life, this character lived in the first century (Pinsky et al. N.p.) The writer uses people who exist and lived their lives on this earth and have passed on to pass down his message. By the simple fact that Virgil lived earlier than Dante and had passed on, this meant that he knew hell automatically from the way the writer has set it. This is both funny and creative.

The Fusion of Comedy and Divinity

The book uses both joy and sadness side by side. If something is a divine starting with the title itself. Then that means that it should not be found in hell. But in this case, the writer uses the topic Divine comedy as his title to show that though this thing is talking about the divinity of God, it has Comedy in it. The setting of this book is in Hell where the angels are sent to even give Virgil the task to take the author through a journey in hell. The author says that writing this play it was a comedy since he was picturing himself in hell and also in paradise. The horrifying fact that he can be in hell and the pleasing fact of being in heaven.

The Purpose and Plot of the Book

Reading Cantos 1 up to three, you will find that Dante was spiritually lost, in the cantos one we see him getting up in the dark woods. He has guilt because of the seven deadly sins (Rovang et al. N.p). After his awakening, he is threatened by three beasts, this beast we can say that they are the three major sins he had committed. The purpose that can be seen in the writing is the fact that the writer tries to show the way things go after one is dead. His purpose is to try and connect what happens to a person’s soul once they are dead. The nine circles of hell are used to show the test for faith and good characters that are needed to get to paradise. This book is more of a Christian setting. Even in the choosing of characters, it shows that it is a Christian purpose. The other purpose is to instill good morals into the society through his poetry. By showing the people the things that happen after death, he believed that people would change and live a morally upright life.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Book

The plot of this book is great and is well laid out. The beginning of the book starts with some the woods. And the journey through the nine hells. The challenges that the character faces and how the story develops is quite amazing. The writer does not leave anyone hanging, it is a narrative which explains everything. The way he passes through the inferno which is hell then into the purgatory and lastly into paradise.

The Choice of Characters and Use of Historical References

The strengths of this book include the choice of characters. Characters like Virgil are perfect characters who carry the message home. The writer had a rich knowledge of what he was writing about, he fuses present things, imagination, and history together in the making of his poetry. For instance, he uses things such as the Psalter.

The greatest weakness is that there has been no one who has ever been through the journey of death and back to tell the stories of how it is out there. It might be created, but still, it is based on no facts. This makes the poem a subject to criticism and hence not justified at all.

Why You Should Read This Book

There are many reasons why I would tell someone to read this book. First being that it is written as a narrative which is fused with poetry. It has a lot of creativity in it. For the fact that this is two genres of literature which are fused in one literary piece (Shoemaker N.p.). It makes this book quite amazing to read. The characterization in this book is quite creative, the characters are purposefully chosen, and each character has a role they play in the book and the roles they played when they were alive on this earth. The fusion of the belief which is there among most of the people in the world and the thought of how the hell is. The book touches on every aspect of life, it is ever fresh I the things that it talks about. The monsters, politics, sex and everything else. The book can be appreciated in many levels, and it has a lot of information about history, narratives, religion and even comedy.

In Conclusion

In conclusion, Inferno does not speak about the nine hells and the things that people think will happen come that time. It condemns the evils that take place in the society we are living in. This paper is meant to give the simple insights about what the book is all about. The writer and the main character Dante Is a great writer who uses different, and the choice of word is professional. Inferno is a piece that builds both on the morals of the society as it builds on the literature. It develops the creativity of both the readers and those who will review it. Like any literature piece, it has some weakness like how realistic it is and strengths such as the fact that it is based on historical facts that can be traced. Asides from that Dante uses characters who have lived, and they are well known for their characters in real life. Inferno is one of the greatest books and poems which were written by Dante, and it has all the aspects of a good poem.

Works Cited

Dante, Alighieri. The divine comedy. Aegitas, 2017.

Francom, Katie. ”Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Pastoral Subversion.“Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism 10.1 (2017): 7.

Pinsky, Robert, Nicole Pinsky, and John Freccero. The inferno of Dante. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996.

Rovang, Paul R. ”Reflecting the Eternal: Dante’s Divine Comedy in the Novels of CS Lewis.“Mythlore 35.1 (2016): 160-166.

Shoemaker, Karl. ”Book Review: Dante and the Limits of Law.“(2016): 157-159.