Virgil who was his guide in Hell, is an ancient Roman poet who wrote “The Aeneid”. Having Virgil in the first part of The Divine Comedy: Inferno may mean that Dante had great respect for Virgil and his works and he may consider him in high regards. Also, Dante was a very knowledgeable man, he studied many things from Latin to philosophy and more. There’s also Beatrice
Dante’s usage of mythological creatures in the Inferno was well thought out, with every creature having its own role and place. An educated man, Dante Alighieri knew,not only, how to write worlds into his paper but also, how to write them into the minds of his readers. He uses character placement to make his stories more realistic. His characters are people, or things, that the people in his time would be familiar with. They connect his writings to the real world, creating a sense of reality.
Dante’s quest involved journeying through Hell. He traveled farther and farther down in Hell until he got to the very last circle. He had to face many challenges on his way down. One barrier he faces is Charon and the river, Acheron. Another rough patch was Minos because he won’t let Dante through because he was not dead.
Dante’s Inferno is an epic poem by Durante “Dante” degli Alighieri, written in the 1300s. He wrote a trilogy, known as the Divine Comedy, consisting of Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. Dante was inspired by many events and issues happening at that time, such as the war between Guelphs and Ghibellines, the Battle of Montaperti, and Christian religious beliefs. In this paper, I will explore the first book, Inferno, on the topic of Hell and how the sinners had a significant impact on Dante’s journey through Hell. In Circle 5: Styx, Canto VIII, Filippo Argenti, a sinner of Wrathful, helped Dante to symbolize to readers his anger towards Black Guelphs, political enemies of the White Guelphs.
In Dante’s Inferno, the 9 levels of hell are separated depending on the 7 deadly sins that people have committed. The crime always fits the punishment the sinners receive. For example, when dante walks through the second circle where the lustfuls are being tormented by powerful winds. As found in Canto 5, the sinners who are punished by black howling tempest wind because in their lives they sinned of lust (Lines 88-90). They are punished by this because they can’t control nothing.
The more profound that the sin that they committed was, the deeper they are frozen in the ice. All of the souls had a betrayal of trust, one being Cain who killed his brother Abel. While being in circle nine and traveling through the different pouches of circle nine, Dante and Virgil made it to Caina, named after Cain for killing his brother and losing the trust that they had as he went against his kin. After moving through the different levels of the ice, Dante and Virgil see several people that they recognize, and then Dante begins to say, “I saw a thousand faces after that, / All purple as a dog’s lips from the frost: / I still shiver, and always will, at the sight / Of a frozen pond” (XXXII. 67-70).
Similarly, in Dante’s Inferno, the Master remarks that “the undiscerning life that made them filthy now renders them unrecognizable.” (VII. 53-54) Similarly, the moral degradation that Conrad writes about is also inside Dante’s Inferno.
Dante put them in the Inferno rather than in Purgatorio, he pities the souls that commited suicide, and he gives the souls what they wanted in life and through death. He also is intelligent and thinks a lot about things that are beyond human comprehension which can make a human feel small, helpless, insignificant, and suicidal. All three of these points help to support the idea that Dante had suicidal tendencies and thoughts. Dante had to make a decision or opinion on what happens to those who kill themselves. He decided that they would go to hell.
In Dante’s The Inferno, each part of his journey through Hell is broken up into different cantos, often according to which circle or sin he is choosing to focus on. The Dante that is being written about needs Virgil, Dante’s beloved hero of a poet stuck in Limbo, to guide him. Ultimately, Virgil also guides us by teaching a lesson both Dante and the reader in every canto. One of Virgil’s biggest explanations to Dante takes place in Canto II when he tells Dante why he’s so special to be able to journey through Hell alive. What makes Canto II so intriguing is not only the abundance of backstory and context given for the purpose of Dante going through Hell, but the eloquent and poetic language used to tell the story and give us our first impression of Dante’s old love, Beatrice.
In Dante’s Purgatorio, the second installment of the Divine Comedy, Dante continues his journey as the Pilgrim, though this time in the realm of Purgatory. Unlike his time in Hell, however, Dante actually participates in the purgation along with the other souls in Purgatory. Upon his entrance to Purgatory proper, Dante is marked with seven P’s on his forehead, and is instructed to “cleanse away these wounds” during his time in Purgatory (IX.114). The P’s stand for peccatum, the Latin word for sin, and represent the seven deadly sins that the Penitents must rid themselves of before they are ready to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Notes 106). As Dante ascends the terraces of the prideful, wrathful, and avaricious, he is equipped with many valuable