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Submitted by qwerty626 on April 16, 2008
Category: History Other
Words: 2381 | Pages: 10
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It is one of the most known and referenced books of its time and is still a commonly read work of literature, but is Dante Alighieri’s The Inferno more that just one man’s interpretation of what hell is like? We know it now as a remarkable piece of literature, but some contend that it was a turning point in writing and how many viewed the world. Claims have also been made that it is an example of how man paved the road out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance, the period that shaped a lot of modern thinking. The book was received as a masterpiece and helped change the literary world of it’s time, but was it the book as a whole that helped lead the West out of the dark ages or was it the situations within? While the Divine Comedy was on the cutting edge and kick started the literary world into the Renaissance, the themes of the story have a strong lean toward old world thinking.
As with all great works of literature, the author imprints a part of himself in his story, but there is no better example of this than The Inferno. Dante made himself the main character and we follow him on his journey through hell, but that isn’t the only part where his personal life appears in the story. In most of the levels of hell, he talks to someone who he knew in his own life who he either hated enough to put them in hell, or just thought it was fitting that they reside in the underworld. His love in life, Beatrice, also shows up later in the second book of the Divine Comedy, as his guide for purgatory and heaven. But it was the Guelph-Ghibenlline conflict and later the Black Guelphs and White Guelphs in Florence that would lend the most characters for his story. Dante was a member of the White Guelphs that wanted more freedom from Rome and the Pope of the time, Pope Boniface VIII. While visiting the Pope as part of a White Guelph delegation, his city of Florence was entered by Charles de Valois, who sided with the Black Guelphs and they took control of...
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