Religion In Dante's Inferno

Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy is an influential text, forever changing how Christianity’s afterlife is viewed. Throughout the Divine Comedy, Dante the character travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven after he wanders astray from the way of God. Through this journey he sees people from his real life as well as historical figures. Dante wrote these people into the Divine Comedy to satisfy his own personal agenda while also obeying how the Catholic faith differentiates people who deserve to go to Hell and those who don’t.

Dante puts people in Hell according to the severity of their punishments. Virgil and his fellow poets of the ancient world are placed in Limbo, the part of Hell that offers no punishment, for their only sin was being

He also places Brunetto Latino, an author he admires in Hell, due to the fact he is gay. The character Dante is incredulous exclaiming “Ser Brunetto, are you here?” (120). Latino is one of two characters throughout Inferno whom Dante refers to as “voi” in Italian, showing his respect for the author (Ciardi, 124). Dante’s placement of Latino shows that even though Dante admires him, he still recognizes that in the eyes of the Catholic church, Latino belongs in Hell. Further in Hell, Dante places Friar Alberigo, a man known for killing his brother and his son for striking him in a fight (263). Dante places him in Hell before his death, saying that instead of a soul inhabiting his body after his sin, “a demon takes its place” (Alighieri, 261). Dante sees Alberigo’s crime as so heinous, especially in the eyes of the Catholic Church, that his

He is seen using characters to glorify himself and those he knew and to send messages. Dante’s use of Virgil to travel with him through Hell is his way of saying that he is comparable to the most famous poet of Dante’s time, the “fountain of purest speech” (19), Virgil. By making Virgil his guide, he subtly also is saying that he regards Virgil as his inspiration, “the sole maker from which [he] drew his breath of that sweet style whose measures have brought [him] glory” (19). By learning from the best, Dante is putting himself in the place of the next great poet to be known across the globe. Dante changes his guide in the thirtieth canto of Purgatorio to Beatrice, the love of his life whom he met as a boy. By making her his heavenly guide, he is placing her in a light of divinity, showing that he views her as angelic. He places her higher than any other person from his life due to his love for her. One of the other people Dante placed close to Heaven from his personal life was Conrad Malaspina. Dante praises Masplina’s family as a way of “paying a debt of gratitude” (Ciardi, 356) for helping him after he is exiled from Florence. He uses them as characters to show them that he is grateful for their help. Dante also alludes to the fact that Pope Boniface, the Pope who exiled Dante, is going to Hell. While talking to Pope