Dante’s Divine Comedy “Inferno”

“Midway along the journey of our life
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
for I had wandered off from the straight path.”

Canto I, 1-3

About the author

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence, Italy, in 1265. He is considered to be the father of the Italian language. With his works, he established the use of the Italian language which slowly replaced Latin, and made literature accessible to larger audiences. He was involved in the political scene of Florence and had major political influence.

In the 13nth century, Florence was divided into two major political groups:
the Black Guelphs, who were in favor of the Pope’s political influence, and the White Guelphs, who sought to expand Florence’s autonomy and political independence. After the political rise of the Black Guelphs in power, in 1301, Dante was exiled from Florence. He spent the final 20 years of his life roaming Italian cities, in grief of his homeland. During those years he composed most of his greatest literary works, including the Divine Comedy. Finally, he died in 1321, in the city of Ravenna.

Dante’s Main Thematic Axes in his works

The main themes Dante deals with in his works are:

Philosophy and Ethics: Even though his philosophical work “De Monarchia” (1313) is considered to be
obsolete, Dante is considered to be one of the greatest literary thinkers regarding philosophy and ethics. Having studied ancient Greek philosophy and especially Aristotle, he was able to interlace Aristotle’s system of Ethics with his time’s most rife philosophy, Christianity, and use such knowledge in order to construct his system of Divine Justice: Inferno.

Christian religion: Dante was a deeply religious spirit, something which all of his works and the basis of his philosophical thinking confirms. Despite his deeply religious roots, he was often opposed to many of the practices of the Catholic church during the Middle Ages, such as nepotism and simony. Dante was able to segregate his spiritual religious relationship with God, from the earthly, corruption of the Roman Catholic Church, and thus cultivated his spirit in such depth. In the circle of Fraud, Dante converses with a mysterious sinner burning in the circle’s hottest flames. We learn that this is Pope Nicholas III who tells Dante that his two successors will take his place when they die. All guilty of Simony and Corruption.
Mythology: All Italian mythology in Dante’s time derived from the Ancient Romans, who during their time took Greek mythology and enriched it with their own cultural tradition. Thus, for a Greek reader it is quite interesting to notice the correspondence between the mythological characters in Dante’s Inferno and figures of Greek Mythology.

Love: The theme of Love is vividly apparent in ‘La Vita Nuova’, Dante’s second most important work, a collection of love poems dedicated to Beatrice Portinari, Dante’s lifelong Muse and love, who served as an inspiration and subject for many of his works (despite only having met her just twice in his life). The Divine Comedy is by many considered to be the greatest love story ever told. The theme of love is much more vivid in parts two and three, Purgatorio and Paradiso, rather than Inferno.

The Divine Comedy

The Divine Comedy is a narrative, epic poem written by Dante Alighieri in the 14th century. It is considered to be the greatest work of Italian literature and one of the greatest works of Art ever made. It is divided into 3 main parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso and composed of 14,233 lines, 100 cantos.

The term ‘Comedy’, during the Middle Ages was used to characterize a story which had a sorrowful begging and a joyful ending. The original title of the poem given by Dante was simply ‘Comedia’. A few years after his death, Giovanni Boccaccio added the adjective ‘Divine’ to the title in order to give emphasis to its greatness and its insurmountable value.

The Divine Comedy’s spiritual world

In the right, we see a depiction of Dante’s Divine Comedy. According to Dante’s myth… Through the Holy City, Jerusalem, one descents into Hell, a pit in the ground, which was created after Lucifer and other angels rebelled God’s will in Heaven and were banished from there. Falling from Paradise, they hit earth’s surface and their force created Hell. All the mass and the matter which was dug up by their fall fell into the sea and created Mount Purgatory, which is a system of Divine Catharsis from earthly sins. After having climbed Purgatorio one can ascend the nine celestial spheres of Heaven and live infinitely with absolute purity, under God’s will.

Inferno

After Dante is denied access to the mountain of Virtue, on which the sun of Truth shines light, by three wild beasts, he is forced to enter the dark and dense woods of sin and fallacy. There he meets his wise and beloved guide, the poet Virgil, who is the one assigned by Virgin Mary, and Beatrice to be his guide.
While reading the Divine Comedy, it is extremely important for us to keep in mind that that it is a literary work written in the Middle Ages, with mystical and poetic descriptions, rather than realistic.
Every meaning is presented through an allegorical image. Here Virtue is a mountain and Truth is the light of the sun.

Inscribed above the Gate of Hell, these ominous words worn dark tidings for Dante, as he begins his descent into Inferno. Despite the grim tone, this prophecy sets into motion what is perhaps the greatest love story ever told. An epic journey that encopasses both the human and the Divine. An allegorical imagining of the soul’s journey towards God. But for Dante to reach benevolent salvation, he must first find his way through Hell.

Casting himself as the protagonist, Dante travels deeper and deeper, with Virgil as his wise guide, into Hell’s abyss, witnessing obscene punishments, distinct to each of its 9 realms.

The 9 realms of Inferno

The Hierarchy of Sins
As mentioned earlier, Dante uses both Aristotle’s philosophy and the foundational
Christian values in order to construct Inferno, and put humanly sins in order of punishment, from less important to worse.

Limbo
Lust
Gluttony
Greed
Wrath
Heresy
Violence
Fraud
Treachery

Analysis and Deeper Meaning

The Divine Comedy as a whole, and especially Inferno, not only has religion at its core, but is also a critique of the Italian society as well. Even though Dante was deeply religious, he was opposed to the corrupt techniques of the Catholic Church. He expresses his opposition through the violent imagery of Inferno and the harsh punishments political and religious figures of his time face in Hell.

The message in Dante’s Inferno is that human beings are subject to temptation and commit sins, leaving no escape from the eternal punishments of Hell. However, human beings have free will, and they can make choices to avoid temptation and sin, ultimately earning the eternal rewards of Heaven.

The abiding moral lesson of Inferno is that evil is always punished. Throughout his journey into Hell, Dante, the pilgrim comes across numerous people who, when they were alive, were rich and powerful. Many of them probably thought that they could act as they pleased without fear of any consequences.

We should see Dante’s Hell not so much as an eternal punishment system, but as a Divine Justice System. Each punishment in Hell creates a balance with the sin committed by the person who is punished.
Inferno’s ultimate purpose is to create Divine balance through Justice in the universe. These concepts taken out their religious context can be well applied into our lives, and are relative to ideas such as choice, crime, punishment and justice.

700 years of Dante Alighieri

Dante dies in 1321 in Ravenna. He is buried with honours and centuries proclaim him as one of the greatest poets of all time. He received his own, belated, earthly redemption in 2008, when the city of Florence finally revoked Dante’s antiquated exile. This year, 2021, Florence, Italy and the whole world celebrate the anniversary from the 700 years of Dante’s death, with celebrations taking place in many Italian cities. May this memorial year remind us to…not forget this phenomenal thinker, who through his Art not only captured with such virtuosity the historical period of the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, but also, the substance of the human condition, and inspired thinkers and artists for hundreds of years, up until now, and during our time in quarantine, (re)visit the epic synthesis which is the Divine Comedy.

Βασίλειος Διαμαντόπουλος (Β1), Πρότυπο ΓΕΛ Ευαγγελικής Σχολής Σμύρνης