Dantes Inferno
Dante's Inferno
Dante Alighieri, one of the greatest poets of the Middle Ages, was born in Florence, Italy on June 5, 1265. During his adolescence, Dante fell in love with a beautiful girl named Beatrice Portinari. He saw her only twice but she provided much inspiration for his literary masterpieces. Her death at a young age left him grief-stricken. His first book, La Vita Nuova, was written about her.
At the turn of the century, Dante rose from city councilman to ambassador of Florence. His career ended in 1301 when the Black Guelph and their French allies seized control of the city. They took Dante's possessions and sentenced him to be permanently banished from Florence, threatening the death penalty upon him if he returned. Dante spent most of his time in exile writing new pieces of literature. Among his works, his reputation rests on his last work, The Divine Comedy. He began writing it sometime between 1307 and 1314 and finished it only a short while before his death in 1321, while in exile. In this work, Dante introduces his invention of the terza rima, or three-line stanza as well as himself as a character.
The Inferno is the first of three parts of Dante's epic poem, The Divine Comedy, which depicts an imaginary journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Dante's Inferno describes the descent through Hell from the upper level of the opportunists to the most evil, the treacherous betrayers and those bound to Hell as was Judas, on the lowest level. His allegorical poem describes a hierarchy of evil. Dante is the hero, who loses his way in the "dark woods" and journeys to nine regions arranged around the wall of a huge funnel in nine concentric circles representing Hell. Fortunately, his lady, Beatrice, along with the Virgin Mary herself, sends the spirit of Virgil, the classical Latin poet, to guide Dante through much of his journey. But as much as Dante admires and reveres Virgil, and though Dante considers him to have...
Please login to view the full essay...