Introduction to Dante Alighieri’s Inferno

Allegory in General• A figurative mode of representation conveying meaning other than the literal• Generally treated as a figure of rhetoric, but does not have to be expressed in language

Allegory• A device used to present an idea, principle or meaning, which can be presented in literary form or in visual form

Allegory as a Literary Device

• An extended metaphor through an entire narrative • Objects, persons, and actions are equated with meanings that lie outside the text

Dante Alighieri

About Dante’s Comedy

• There are three parts or canticas.• Each part is composed of 33 cantos (with one canto – the first – serving as an introduction).• Each verse has three lines (or tercets).

Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood…

Jeremiah 5:6“Therefore a lion from the forest shall kill them…

… a wolf from the desert shall destroy them…

A leopard is watching against their cities…

Everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are great.”

Virgil I was a soul among the souls of Limbo, when a Lady so blessed

and so beautiful… called

to me.

Beatrice“I come from there, where I

would fain return;Love moved me, which compelleth

me to speak.”

•

The Descent into Hell

Dante’s Journey Begins

The Law of Symbolic Retribution:

As they sinned,so are they punished.

I AM THE WAY INTO THE CITY OF WOE.I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN PEOPLE.I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL SORROW…`

SACRED JUSTICE MOVED MY ARCHITECT.I WAS RAISED HERE BY DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE, PRIMORDIAL LOVE AND ULTIMATE INTELLECT…

ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER

HERE.

The Vestibule of Hell

“But because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor

hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of

my mouth.”Revelation 3:16

“… what souls these are…eager to cross… in this

infected light…”

On the Shores of Acheron

“Woe to you depraved souls! Bury here and forever all hope of

Paradise: I come to lead you to the other shore, into

eternal dark, into fire and ice.”

Charon

Circle 1: Limbo“…these [souls] were sinless… suffering Hell in

one affliction only: that

without hope we live on in

desire.”Virgil

Minos… examines each lost soul… and delivers his verdict with his coiling tail…

Circle 2: The Carnal“Their hellish flight… sweeps the souls of the damned before

its charge. Whirling and battering it drives them

on…”

“Love, which permits no loved one

not to love, took me so

strongly with delight in

him that we are one in Hell, as we

were above.”

“Love led us to one death. In

the depths of Hell Caina

waits for him who took our lives.”

Circle 3: The Gluttons “…hailstones,

dirty water, and black snow pour from the dismal air… monstrous

Cerberus… howls through his

triple throats…”

“We made our way across the sodden mess of souls the rain beat down… all those illusions of being seemed to lie drowned in the slush…”

Circle 4: The Hoarders and the Wasters

“… these shades dance and crash eternally… they strained their chests against enormous weights… rolled them at one another… one party shouting out: ‘Why do you hoard?’ and the other: ‘Why do you waste?’”

Circle 5: Wrathful and Sullen

…the river floods and forms a marsh called Styx, a dreary swampland, vaporous and malignant.

The Journey ContinuesCircles Six to

Nine

A thousand shades of spirits purged from

Heaven…

…all at once three hellish and inhuman Furies sprang to view, bloodstained and wild.

Clearly, he was a messenger from God’s Throne… He reached the Gate of Dis and with a wand he waved it open…

Circle Six: The Heretics

… here the tombs were chests of pain: for, in a ring around each tomb, great fires raised every wall to a red heat.

“… Like lies with like in every heresy, and the monuments are fired, some more, some less; to each depravity its own degree.”

The Minotaur… and there at the very top… lay spread the Infamy of Crete, the heir of bestiality and the lecherous queen who hid in a wooden cow.

Circle Seven: The Violent

Violent Against Neighbor

The Violent Violent Against

Themselves

I heard cries of lamentation rise and spill… but saw no souls in pain in all that waste…

The Violent Violent Against God,

Nature, and Art

And over all that sand on which they lay or crouched or roamed, great flakes of flame fell slowly as snow falls in the Alps on a windless day.

Circle Eight: The Fraudulent

Panderers and Seducers

Flatterers

Simoniacs

Fortune Tellers

Grafters (Barrators)

Hypocrites

Thieves

Evil Counselors

Sowers of Discord

Falsifiers

Giants and Titans

Circle Nine: Treacherous

And we walked out once more beneath the stars.