The Inferno
Dante Alighieri
The Inferno
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Author: Dante Alighieri
Culture: Italian
Genre: commedia (a poetic
form with both high and
low registers)
‘supreme representation of
the medieval mind in
European imaginative or
visionary lit.’
Historical Context
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The city-state of Florence, Italy, had 2 political
groups, the Blacks and the Whites (Dante’s group).
1302: The Blacks seized power, exiling the Whites.
Dante was banished from Florence on pain of death.
Convicted in absentia on the trumped up
charge that he had misused funds when
he held office (the sin of graft, see Circle
8, Bolga 5).
Reaction to Changed Circumstances
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Dante wrote his Divine Comedy in exile,
finishing it shortly before his death in 1321.
His first love (courtly), Beatrice Portinari
(1266-1290), appears in the DC as a heavenly
guide whose name signifies blessedness or
salvation. She stands for Divine Love.
Structure
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Highly wrought. Three main divisions,
corresponding to the Trinity (3 is a sacred
number):
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Hell (shows us those who put something before God)
Purgatory (shows us those seeking to be good)
Paradise (shows us those enjoying the good)
All these are identical in length.
Opening canto (prologue to entire
work), then 33 cantos for each
division, totaling 100, the square
of 10, a perfect number.
Another Structural Pattern
Each division (Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise) ends with
the same word, stelle (stars) - which are the visible
signs of God’s oversight.
Inferno: 9 circles contain 3 types of sinners.
Purgatory: Ante-Purgatory, 7 terraces, then Earthly
Paradise (9 total).
Paradise: 9 embedded spheres beyond which lies the
Trinity.
The Inferno (Hell)
Lost souls are in 3 main
groups and occupy 9
circles (see p.1076).
The idea of eternal
punishment follows
Christian doctrine of the
time.
Dante’s journey takes him
down the 9 concentric
circles, from the least
sins to the greatest types
of evil.
Ante-Hell
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The abode of those who refused to choose
between right and wrong; moral neutrals.
For this relatively small sin, they are punished
by small annoyances (insects and such).
Inferno Organization
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Boundary river between the Ante-Hell and
Limbo (circle of virtuous pagans who did not
know Christ) is Acheron (a classical
reference; a river in Hades, the Greek
underworld).
The Three Great Sins
Circles of those guilty of Self-Indulgence (illicit
lovers, gluttons, hoarders and spendthrifts,
those of violent or sullen dispositions)
Circles of those guilty of Violence
Circles of those guilty of Fraud (treachery,
treason)
Bottom: Lucifer/Satan.
Punishment
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The punishment fits the crime - in fact, it IS
the crime.
Sinners are doomed to the endless act of
sinning.
Roman History and Literature
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To Dante, a Medieval Italian, the Roman empire had
been divinely ordained: Christ first came in the reign
of Augustus.
He wants to recreate the empire (a united Italy) for
the second coming.
Caesar’s assassins disobeyed divine will, and so
earned their place in Satan’s mouths.
Dante works with both the classical and Christian
traditions.
Canto 1
Unlike epic poetry, the Commedia begins with
action, not a proem. Explanations occur as
we go along.
Main character and narrator: Dante, a
wandering hero and a pilgrim. A hero going
to the underworld is a staple of GrecoRoman epic (Odysseus, Aeneas) as well as
of Christian theology (Christ harrowing
Hell).
The Inferno is an account of the effect of a
journey on the man who takes it - a record
of moral and spiritual experience of
illumination, regeneration, beatitude (in
this, it is a bit like Augustine’s works).
The narrative is both literal
and allegorical (full of
symbols).
The Dark Wood of Error
Canto 1: the narrator tells
us that he was 35 years
old, he became ‘lost in
a wood,’ ‘threatened by
three beasts’ - the SheWolf (self-indulgence),
the Lion (violence),
and the Leopard
(Fraud).