Dante’s Inferno
Dante Alighieri:1265-1321
 Born in Florence; died exiled in Bologna
 Involved in politics in People’s Council of the Commune
 Resisted Pope Boniface’s attempt to secure control over
Florence
 Ends up exiled in March, 1302; never returns to Florence
 Writes The Divine Comedy while exiled in his early 40s (in a
metaphorical dark wood)
The Divine Comedy (1308-21)
 Dante began writing while exiled
 Reflects Dante’s readings of Virgil’s Aeneid and the Bible
 Dante also read Ovid
 Virgil leads Dante the Pilgrim through Hell and Purgatory
 Virgil is a pagan poet – able to lead Dante out of the
darkness; Virgil is good and honorable, but is denied
salvation as born before the coming of Christ
 Beatrice, the love of Dante’s life who died at 25, picks up
the journey in Heaven
 Beatrice, to Dante, is the embodiment of his understanding
love and the love of God
Sin in the world of Dante
 Sin = what it means to fail totally as a person
 Dante believed people have free agency in committing sin
 Sins of incontinence vs. sins of malice
 Sins of human nature vs. sins of the failure of human intellect
 Contrapasso
 Suffering either a continuation or a consequence of sin in
life
 Way people suffer in Hell, reflects Florentine legal system as
well as their actual actions
 Sin does not just affect the immortal soul, also social
problem
Structure of the poem
 Three (the Holy Trinity, Confession/Contrition/Satisfaction
 Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), Paradiso (Heaven)
 Thirty-three cantos per book; each canto written in tercets
(three lines)
 Nine circles of Hell (3x3)
 Lucifer has three heads, three sets of wings
 Seven (seven days of creation/seven deadly sins)
 Seven marks on Dante’s forehead in Purgatory
 Seven terraces in Purgatory
 Ten (10 Commandments)
 100 cantos – perfect number and 10x10
 10 parts to Heaven
Inferno : Part one
 Begins the night before Good Friday
 Dante prevented from leaving wood by three creatures:
lion, leopard, and she-wolf
 Three parts of hell: sins of excessive love, deficient love,
and malicious love
 Paired with the transcendent love of God in Heaven
 Virgil guides Dante through the woods into the circles of
Hell