Analysis on the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (Inferno or Hell)

I. Introduction
- Author’s Background

Dante was born in Florence in May 1265. His family was of an old lineage, of noble birth but no longer wealthy.
His education was undoubtedly typical of all the youth of that time and station in life.

Early Years

Dante Alighieri was born in 1265 to a family with a history of involvement in the complex Florentine political
scene, and this setting would become a feature in his Inferno years later. Dante’s mother died only a few years
after his birth, and when Dante was around 12 years old, it was arranged that he would marry Gemma Donati,
the daughter of a family friend. Around 1285, the pair married, but Dante was in love with another woman—
Beatrice Portinari, who would be a huge influence on Dante and whose character would form the backbone of
Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Dante met Beatrice when she was but nine years old, and he had apparently experienced love at first sight.
The pair were acquainted for years, but Dante’s love for Beatrice was “courtly” (which could be called an
expression of love and admiration, usually from afar) and unrequited. Beatrice died unexpectedly in 1290, and
five years later Dante published Vita Nuova (The New Life), which details his tragic love for Beatrice. (Beyond
being Dante’s first book of verse, The New Life is notable in that it was written in Italian, whereas most other
works of the time appeared in Latin.)

Around the time of Beatrice’s death, Dante began to immerse himself in the study of philosophy and the
machinations of the Florentine political scene. Florence was then was a tumultuous city, with factions
representing the papacy and the empire continually at odds, and Dante held a number of important public
posts. In 1302, however, he fell out of favor and was exiled for life by the leaders of the Black Guelphs (among
them, Corso Donati, a distant relative of Dante’s wife), the political faction in power at the time and who were in
league with Pope Boniface VIII. (The pope, as well as countless other figures from Florentine politics, finds a
place in the hell that Dante creates in Inferno—and an extremely unpleasant one.) Dante may have been
driven out of Florence, but this would be the beginning of his most productive artistic period.

Exile

While on a mission to Rome to arrange a truce between the two parties, trumped-up charges were made
against Dante: He was charged with graft, intrigue against the peace of the city, and hostility against the pope.
He was fined heavily and ordered to report to the Council to defend himself.
Rightly so, he was fearful for his life, and he did not appear to answer the charges. A heavier penalty was
imposed. All of his property was confiscated, he was sentenced to be burned at the stake if caught, and his two
sons were banished with him. In 1302, he was exiled from his native city, never to return.

In his exile, Dante traveled and wrote, conceiving The Divine Comedy, and he withdrew from all political
activities. In 1304, he seems to have gone to Bologna, where he began his Latin treatise "De Vulgari
Eloquentia" (“The Eloquent Vernacular”), in which he urged that courtly Italian, used for amatory writing, be
enriched with aspects of every spoken dialect in order to establish Italian as a serious literary language. The
created language would thus be one way to attempt to unify the divided Italian territories. The work was left
unfinished, but it has been influential nonetheless.

In March 1306, Florentine exiles were expelled from Bologna, and by August, Dante ended up in Padua, but
from this point Dante’s whereabouts are not known for sure for a few years. Reports place him in Paris at times
between 1307 and 1309, but his visit to the city can’t be verified.

In 1308, Henry of Luxembourg was elected emperor as Henry VII. Full of optimism about the changes this
election could bring to Italy (in effect, Henry VII could at last restore peace from his imperial throne while at the
same time subordinate his spirituality to religious authority), Dante wrote his famous work on the monarchy,
"De Monarchia,” in three books, in which he claims that the authority of the emperor is not dependent on the
pope but descends upon him directly from God. However, Henry’s popularity faded quickly, and his enemies
had gathered strength, threatening his ascension to the throne. These enemies, as Dante saw it, were
members of the Florentine government, so Dante wrote a diatribe against them and was promptly included on
a list of those permanently banned from the city. Around this time, he began writing his most famous work, The
Divine Comedy.

He died in Ravenna on September 13, 1321, and he was buried with honors due him. Several times during the
intervening years, the city of Florence has tried to get his remains returned to his native city, but not even the
intercession of several popes could bring this about. His opinion of the citizens of his city was clearly stated in
the full title of his greatest work, The Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Florentine by Citizenship, Not by Morals.
Dante still lies in the monastery of the Franciscan friars in Ravenna.

- Dante’s reason for writing the Divine Comedy

The Divine Comedy

In the spring of 1312, Dante seems to have gone with the other exiles to meet up with the new emperor at Pisa
(Henry’s rise was sustained, and he was named Holy Roman Emperor in 1312), but again, his exact
whereabouts during this period are uncertain. By 1314, however, Dante had completed the Inferno, the
segment of The Divine Comedy set in hell, and in 1317 he settled at Ravenna and there completed The Divine
Comedy (soon before his death in 1321).

The aim of Dante in the Divine Comedy was to set forth truths in such wise as to affect the imaginations and
touch the hearts of men, so that they should turn to righteousness. His conviction of these truths was no mere
matter of belief; it had the ardor and certainty of faith. They had appeared to him in all their fulness as a
revelation of the Divine wisdom. It was his work as poet, as poet with a divine commission, to make this
revelation known. His work was a work of faith; it was sacred; to it both Heaven and Earth had set their hands.
In the Divine Comedy the personages are all from real life, they are men and women with their natural
passions and emotions, and they are undergoing an actual experience. The allegory consists in making their
characters and their fates, what all human characters and fates really are, the types and images of spiritual
law.

The Divine Comedy is an allegory of human life presented as a visionary trip through the Christian afterlife,
written as a warning to a corrupt society to steer itself to the path of righteousness: "to remove those living in
this life from the state of misery, and lead them to the state of felicity." The poem is written in the first person
(from the poet’s perspective) and follows Dante's journey through the three Christian realms of the dead: hell,
purgatory, and finally heaven. The Roman poet Virgil guides Dante through hell (Inferno) and purgatory
(Purgatorio), while Beatrice guides him through heaven (Paradiso). The journey lasts from the night before
Good Friday to the Wednesday after Easter in the spring of 1300 (placing it before Dante’s factual exile from
Florence, which looms throughout the Inferno and serves as an undercurrent to the poet’s journey).

The structure of the three realms of the afterlife follows a common pattern of nine stages plus an additional,
and paramount, tenth: nine circles of hell, followed by Lucifer’s level at the bottom; nine rings of purgatory, with
the Garden of Eden at its peak; and the nine celestial bodies of heaven, followed by the empyrean (the highest
stage of heaven, where God resides).

The poem is composed of 100 cantos, written in the measure known as terza rima (thus the divine number 3
appears in each part of the poem), which Dante modified from its popular form so that it might be regarded as
his own invention.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

1. How is Dante’s Divine can relate to our modern generation?

2.
INTRODUCTION OF HEAVEN, PURGATORY, AND HELL (PRESENT EACH)

Introduction of Hell

Canto II

On the evening of Good Friday, Dante is following Virgil but hesitates; Virgil explains how he has been sent by
Beatrice, the symbol of Divine Love. Beatrice has been sent with prayers from the Virgin Mary (symbolic of
compassion) and of Saint Lucia (symbolic of illuminating Grace). Rachel, symbolic of the contemplative life,
also appears in the heavenly scene recounted by Virgil. The two of them then begin their journey to the
underworld.

Vestibule of Hell

Canto III

Dante passes through the gate of Hell, which bears an inscription ending with the famous phrase "Lasciate
ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate",most frequently translated as "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Dante and
his guide hear the anguished screams of the Uncommitted. These are the souls of people who in life took no
sides; the opportunists who were for neither good nor evil, but instead were merely concerned with
themselves. Among these Dante recognizes a figure implied to be Pope Celestine V, whose "cowardice (in
selfish terror for his own welfare) served as the door through which so much evil entered the Church".[18]
Mixed with them are outcasts who took no side in the Rebellion of Angels. These souls are forever
unclassified; they are neither in Hell nor out of it, but reside on the shores of the Acheron. Naked and futile,
they race around through the mist in eternal pursuit of an elusive, wavering banner (symbolic of their pursuit of
ever-shifting self-interest) while relentlessly chased by swarms of wasps and hornets, who continually sting
them.[19] Loathsome maggots and worms at the sinners' feet drink the putrid mixture of blood, pus, and tears
that flows down their bodies. This symbolizes the sting of their guilty conscience and the repugnance of
sin.[citation needed] This may also be seen as a reflection of the spiritual stagnation in which they lived.

Gustave Doré's illustration of Canto III: Arrival of Charon.

After passing through the vestibule, Dante and Virgil reach the ferry that will take them across the river
Acheron and to Hell proper. The ferry is piloted by Charon, who does not want to let Dante enter, for he is a
living being. Virgil forces Charon to take him by declaring, Vuolsi così colà dove si puote / ciò che si vuole ("It
is so willed there where is power to do / That which is willed"),[20] referring to the fact that Dante is on his
journey on divine grounds. The wailing and blasphemy of the damned souls entering Charon's boat contrast
with the joyful singing of the blessed souls arriving by ferry in the Purgatorio. The passage across the Acheron,
however, is undescribed, since Dante faints and does not awaken until he is on the other side
Introduction of Purgatory

In Purg. I.4-9, with the sun rising on Easter Sunday, Dante announces his intention to describe Purgatory by invoking the
mythical Muses, as he did in Canto II of the Inferno:

Now I shall sing the second kingdom

there where the soul of man is cleansed,

made worthy to ascend to Heaven.

Here from the dead let poetry rise up,

O sacred Muses, since I am yours.

Here let Calliope arise...[4]

At the shores of Purgatory, Dante and Virgil meet Cato, a pagan who has been placed by God as the general guardian of
the approach to the mountain (his symbolic significance has been much debated). The Purgatorio demonstrates the
medieval knowledge of a spherical Earth,[5][6] with Dante referencing the different stars visible in the Southern
Hemisphere, the altered position of the sun, and the various timezones of the Earth. For instance, at the start of Canto II,
the reader learns that it is dawn in Purgatory; Dante conveys this concept by explaining that it is sunset at Jerusalem
(antipodal to the Mount of Purgatory), midnight (six hours later) over India on the River Ganges (with the constellation
Libra overhead there), and noon (six hours earlier) over Spain. The journey is conceived as taking place during the vernal
equinox, when the days and nights are of the same length.

"By now the sun was crossing the horizon

of the meridian whose highest point

covers Jerusalem; and from the Ganges,

night, circling opposite the sun, was moving

together with the Scales that, when the length

of dark defeats the day, desert night's hands;

so that, above the shore that I had reached,

the fair Aurora's white and scarlet cheeks

were, as Aurora aged, becoming orange."[7]

Purgatorio, Canto II: Christian souls arrive singing, escorted by an angel

In a contrast to Charon's ferry across the Acheron in the Inferno, Christian souls are escorted by an Angel Boatman from
their gathering place somewhere near Ostia, the seaport of Rome at the mouth of the Tiber, through the Pillars of
Hercules across the seas to the Mountain of Purgatory. The souls arrive singing In exitu Israel de Aegypto[8] (Canto II). In
his Letter to Cangrande, Dante explains that this reference to Israel leaving Egypt refers both to the redemption of Christ
and to "the conversion of the soul from the sorrow and misery of sin to the state of grace".[9
Introduction of Paradise

The Paradiso begins at the top of Mount Purgatory, called the Earthly Paradise (i.e. the Garden of Eden), at noon on
Wednesday, March 30 (or April 13), 1300, following Easter Sunday. Dante's journey through Paradise takes
approximately twenty-four hours, which indicates that the entire journey of the Divine Comedy has taken one week,
Thursday evening (Inferno I and II) to Thursday evening.

After ascending through the sphere of fire believed to exist in the earth's upper atmosphere (Canto I), Beatrice guides
Dante through the nine celestial spheres of Heaven, to the Empyrean, which is the abode of God. The nine spheres are
concentric, as in the standard medieval geocentric model of cosmology,[1] which was derived from Ptolemy. The
Empyrean is non-material. As with his Purgatory, the structure of Dante's Heaven is therefore of the form 9+1=10, with
one of the ten regions different in nature from the other nine.

During the course of his journey, Dante meets and converses with several blessed souls. He is careful to say that these
all actually live in bliss with God in the Empyrean:

But all those souls grace the Empyrean;

and each of them has gentle life though some

sense the Eternal Spirit more, some less.[2]

However, for Dante's benefit (and the benefit of his readers), he is "as a sign"[3] shown various souls in planetary and
stellar spheres that have some appropriate connotation.

While the structures of the Inferno and Purgatorio were based around different classifications of sin, the structure of the
Paradiso is based on the four cardinal virtues (Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude) and the three theological
virtues (Faith, Hope, and Charity)

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

For the Future Researchers

This research paper might help them with their English Literature, as it talks about the past and can be relevant
to our generation now.

SCOPE AND DELIMITATION OF THE ANALYSIS

This research paper will focus on Dante’s Inferno, this analysis will not include

II. BODY

IN DEPTH STUDY AND DISCUSSION OF INFERNO OR HELL

PRESENT THE FELL AND VIVID DESCRIPTION/ CHARACTERISTICS AND SINS OF INFERNO
OR HELL AND OTHER PLACEMENT IN HELL
 PRESENT THE ANALYSIS AND ITS RELEVANCE IN THE PRESENT-DAY ISSUES
CONFRONTING OURSOCIETY

III. CONCLUSION

WRITE A COMPREHENSIVE CONCLUSION OF YOUR ANALYSIS