Christianity In Dante's Inferno

In my level of Hell, “Andy’s Inferno” sinners are punished for unforgivably being Duke fans in their first lives which is very similar to that of the first circle of hell, Limbo, punishing the virtuous pagans in The Inferno by Dante Alighieri,. First, Limbo relates to my personal vision of Hell by both containing souls of sinners that were unenlightened to a more powerful source in their first lives when in The Inferno the Poet says, “…for they lacked Baptism’s grace, which is the door of the true faith you were born to. Their birth fell before the age of the Christian mysteries, and so they did not worship God’s Trinity in the fullest duty. I am not one of these” (Alighieri 4. 34-39).

Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy begins with Dante’s journey into Hell. Dante has strayed from the true path and must therefore take this journey into the supernatural realms in order to correct himself. In the Inferno, Dante dramatically changes his perception of sin from a response of empathy to a response of disgust and hatred. The turning point of his perception is when he encounters the sinner Filippo Argenti in the Fifth Circle of Hell.

The only difference is that Hamlet is the sin happening right now while Inferno is what happens to those sinners after death-almost as if Inferno is a sequel to Hamlet. To display this, we created a drawing that places each of the main characters in Hamlet into one of the circles of hell from Inferno. Gertrude lands in the second circle for lust due to marrying her dead husband’s brother. Laertes ends up in the 5th circle of hell for anger due to his desperate need to avenge his father and sister’s death by plotting to kill Hamlet. Ophelia lands in the middle ring of the 7th circle for suicide.

In Dante’s Inferno, he writes about his journey through hell for the purpose of recognizing his sins. He goes through this journey with Virgil, a voice of reason for Dante. Dante meets people through his journey of the many circles in the Inferno that lead him down into the center of hell, where Satan is. Satan is seen as being monster-like with three heads, representing a mocking of the Trinity and blowing his wings around the cocytus river. The final thing seen here is the fact that Dante’s description of Satan is a bit disappointing compared to the other descriptions he has written about the inferno.

In Dante’s Inferno it also says, “The sinner is the middle, whose feet are sticking out of Lucifer’s mouth, is the worst human sinner of all time: Judas, who betrayed the Son of God… The other two sinners, whose top halves are sticking out of Lucifer’s mouth, are Cassius and Brutus,” (34).This shows who the three biggest sinners were and shows how the punishment is way tougher for them. Since Lucifer flaps his wings eternally and has three faces, Judas, Brutus and Cassius are placed in Satan’s mouth to be chewed on eternally. Dante feels that he has also been betrayed by these sinners so that is the way in which he has those three sinners punished eternally in hell. Dante feels that they should spend an eternity in hell due to the fact that he has been betrayed .

Dante's journey is more for self enlightenment in comparison to other great epics, such as Beowulf. Although Dante does not realize it, he is there to improve himself. During this trip, he feels pity for the sinners in the levels of Hell and often faints because of the awful treatment they are being subjected to. He eventually feels compassion for the sinners and realizes that Hell is a place that you would not want to be in. He then goes back to the normal world wanting to tell everyone to change the way they live so they do not end up in Hell, like he experienced on the

God’s Justice in Inferno One of the most significant themes, if not the most significant theme within Dante’s Inferno is the perfection of God’s divine justice. Dante expressees divine justice within Inferno in a multitude of ways, with one of the the most prominent examples being the overall structure of Hell and how the punishment for the sinners (perfectly) reflects upon the sin. To the modern reader, Hell likely seems more like an act of cruelty than divine justice, much less a product of God’s love. At first,the torments that the sinners are subjected to seems extreme and grotesque.

In the Inferno, Dante describes the different levels of hell and the punishment which corresponds to the sin. Dante categorize hell into three major sins consisting of incontinence, violence, and fraudulent. Fraudulent is portrayed as the worse sin in the Inferno while incontinence is seen as a less serious sin. Each category has sinners which have all been punished for their wrong doings in life. The three major sins consist of circles where Dante separates the different sinners.

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 Canto IV, Dante addresses two theological issues of salvation. According to Christianity, all souls that lived sinless life but were not baptized, are denied salvation. Dante designates his first circle of hell, called Limbo, for those poor souls. In Limbo, they are not tortured, but the cannot have salvation. It was a very simple and brilliant solution.

Dante’s Inferno focuses on spirituality and sin, whereas in Susan E. Blow’s article, Dante’s “Inferno”, the author ignores Christianity. Christians bear the burden of making conscious decisions and to ignore wrong thoughts or evil things. Dante believes that Christians must avoid evil doings or experience the wrath of God. Blow states that through sin a person learns wisdom. When discussing the “Inferno”, Blow notes that “view that sin ultimately rests is, that man can only learn what he is, by finding out what he is not, and that the violation of his ideal nature reveals him to himself”(123).

In Inferno, Dante is the main character who is fighting between good and evil, which translates to be the theme of the story. Dante explores deeply the Christian hell and heaven, which includes the immediate Purgatory. This experience makes him cast his allegiance to good and God. The differences between these two stories are depicted when comparing the epic conventions, epic characteristics, and when comparing the various religious backgrounds of the times in which these two stories were written.

The idea of Hell itself in most Judeo-Christian denominations begins with the simple premise of being a place for those who have either sinned or turned his or her back on God, damning them to an eternity of punishment and suffering. A major idea presented in Inferno is the idea of the contrapasso. Justin Steinburg in his essay “Dante’s Justice? A Reapprasial of the Contrapasso” summarizes the idea by explaining it as a balance of crime and punishment in Hell. In canto 28 in the Inferno, the Dante first poses the idea in text when Bertran de Born must carry his own head in his arms after separating father from son.

In conclusion, many of Dante’s punishments depicted for the sinners within Dante’s Inferno are fitting for their sins. Although some are not entirely exact, I do understand why these are the punishments depicted for

“Durante Degli Aligheries Inferno {Part of the Divine comedy} is widely regarded as the greatest poem in modern european language, its allegorical comparisons, metaphors and satirical critisism of italy in the 15th century all contribute to its level of prestige. However, what influenced Dante Aligherie to create such a masterpiece? By looking at Dante Aligheries participation in Florentine Politics and comparing it to the extensive amount of political references used in Dantes Inferno it is clear that Politics played a vital role in creating Dantes depiction of Hell. Furthermore, by examining the importance of religion in medieval Italy and Dantes connection to the church, one can easily see that Dante heavily uses religious references to the pope of the church. Finally, this essay will investigate how Dantes connection to Florentine art influenced the poems content.