Dante’s depiction of hell in his Inferno is arguably what makes Inferno the most famous of his Divine Comedy trilogy. It is a fascinating piece for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it is an epic poem written in the vernacular-- the language of the common people. Along with the other two parts of the trilogy, Inferno tells part of the story of the Christian mythos. It continues to draw readers because of the sensationalist nature of the poem. However, despite being about Hell, Dante’s Inferno is not only an allegorical poem about Hell, but also a reflection of the societal ills and unrest in Florence during Dante’s time.
Before discussing the portrayal of Hell in Dante’s Inferno, it is important to first understand a historical background on Dante himself, for contextual information regarding the creation of his work. Dante was born in Florence in the late 1200s, in the years leading up to the beginnings of the Renaissance. During this time, Florence was in turmoil; there was constant struggle between the Church and the patrician society of Florence (Lonergan and Fowle 369). Dante himself was born into an upper-middle class lifestyle, and became invested in Florence’s politics as a young man (Lonergan and Fowle 369). As often happened in Florence during this time, the balance of power shifted in both the Catholic Church and the city of Florence; Dante, however, had become too active with the wrong group and was exiled from the city. All of Dante’s writing on The Divine Comedy was done during his time in exile, and much of the strife and conflict in his Inferno is a reflection of the societal ills that he perceived at the time (Lonergan and Fowlie 369).
Lonergan and Fowlie (369) suggest that one of the major themes that overlaps with Dante’s everyday the constant conflict between God’s divine, perfect will and justice and evil as the contradiction between that will. Perhaps one of the reasons that Dante;s Inferno became so popular was the conflagration of one’s sin on Earth with one’s punishment in Hell. There is something divinely comedic about this, indeed, as the Sullen wallow in and choke on the mud and the Wrathful fight over and over again (Dante). There is an element of perfect balance to this; one’s punishment in Hell, Dante suggests, fits one’s crime on Earth. Each of the Seven Deadly Sins have their own punishment in Dante’s Inferno. When Dante first comes upon the Gates of Hell, he reads the inscription: through me you enter into the city of woes/through me you enter into eternal pain,/through me you enter the population of loss./[. . .]/abandon all hope, you who enter here” (Dante). As Dante gazes out across Hell for the first time, he sees Hell as a city, not unlike the city of Florence from which he had been exiled.
The “abandon hope” lines are some of the most famous lines in literature, and for good reason. The souls in Dante’s Hell are punished for all eternity with no chance for reprieve. There is no hope in Dante’s Hell because it is removed from God’s perfect judgment and justice, much like Dante perceives Florence to be. While God cannot be present in Hell, the absence of God’s presence is what makes Hell the terrible place it is.
Dante goes on to further elaborate on the contrast between God’s perfect divinity and the wretchedness of Hell. Dante writes:
“And I — my head oppressed by horror — said:
"Master, what is it that I hear? Who are
those people so defeated by their pain?"
And he to me: "This miserable way
is taken by the sorry souls of those
who lived without disgrace and without praise.
They now commingle with the coward angels,
the company of those who were not rebels
nor faithful to their God, but stood apart.
The heavens, that their beauty not be lessened,
have cast them out, nor will deep Hell receive them —
even the wicked cannot glory in them.” (Dante)
Here, Dante introduces the Christian concept that Hell is a place without God’s perfect divinity. In Hell, all the souls that sinned in life are now removed from God in death. However, these scenes also paint a picture of God’s divine justice as Dante perceives it: everything is in balance. The way people lived their lives on Earth is then reflected back to them in their afterlife; those who lived good lives were gifted an eternity with God, while those who lived sinful lives-- including the Pope at the time, who makes an appearance in one of Dante’s cantos-- are sent to the depths of Hell to suffer. Indeed, parts of the Inferno read somewhat like a revenge fantasy for Dante, who spends most of his life as a nomad as the result of his exile from his home city of Florence. It seems as though Dante is painting this picture as a way to warn those he perceives as sinners that if they continue their sinful ways, they will spend an eternity as “sorry souls [of those] who lived without disgrace and without praise” (Dante).
After sentencing all his detractors and enemies to a lifetime suffering at the hand of God’s perfect judgment, Dante then becomes obsessed with breaking down exactly how each sinner will be punished for all eternity. Dante has a strict view on Catholic morality, and the way he structures the different circles of hell reflect his strict Catholic upbringing. Pike suggests that Dante’s strict interpretation of the Catholic faith and moral system is indicative of Dante prioritizing “not human happiness or harmony on Earth but rather God’s will in Heaven” (Pike). Thus, sins are punished not based on their effect on Earth, but on their level of opposition to God’s will. This is why certain acts that are non-violent are considered to be worse sins by Dante than some violent acts (Pike). Pike goes on to suggest that violence is an act against God’s will, whereas lying is a twisting of God’s will, and the latter is arguably a more significant sin in the eyes of God.
The circles of Hell are another way for Dante to engage in his revenge fantasies against his political opponents and those who exiled him from Florence. While no one was ever violent towards him, they did cheat him, and by assigning a higher value to that sin than the sin of violence, Dante was able to pre-emptively punish the people who exiled him from Florence. In the Inferno, corruption and the taking of bribes are considered to be two of the more significant sins-- sins even more significant than murder-- and this was a way for Dante to self-insert into the poem and experience a sense of vindication against those who caused him harm in Florence and in the past.
Although Dante is ostensibly the speaker of the poem, the reader never gets a good sense of Dante as a character. He is flawed-- he has committed some political sin in his home city of Florence-- but that sin is never specified (Dante). Dante the speaker’s trip into the inferno is allegorical for man’s descent into sin, particularly in the political world. Although Dante as a character is appalled by the punishment of the sinners at first, he becomes accustomed to their suffering, even beginning to hate their sin as he passes through the many circles of Hell.
References
Dante Alighieri, Robert M Durling, and Ronald L Martinez. The Divine Comedy Of Dante Alighieri. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Web.
Gilbert, Allan H. 'Can Dante's Inferno Be Exactly Charted?'. PMLA 60.2 (1945): 287. Web.
Lonergan, Corinna Salvadori, and Wallace Fowlie. 'A Reading Of Dante's 'Inferno''. Italica 60.4 (1983): 369. Web.
Pike, David L. Passage Through Hell. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997. Web.
Poggioli, Renato. 'Tragedy Or Romance? A Reading Of The Paolo And Francesca Episode In Dante's Inferno'. PMLA 72.3 (1957): 313. Web.
