Inferno by Dante Alighieri - Book Report/Review Example

Inferno Order No. 253037 No. of pages: 5 Premium 6530 Dante’s ‘Inferno’ was written in the Jubilee year 1300, somewhere between the death of Clement V and the end of Dante’s1 life when he was just 35 years old. The ‘Inferno’ is one of the most intricate and artistic poems ever to be written. The book begins with an introductory canto, which is followed by ninety – nine other cantos. The poem as a whole is divided into three sections comprising of 33 cantos in each, which corresponds to the life of Christ on Earth. So totally there are 100 cantos in the poem which has great lyrical and epical value. In his hand, indeed, the "thing became a trumpet," sounding from earth to heaven, to call the dead to judgment.2 Dante Alighieri – May, 1265 – 14th September, 1321. Durante degli Alighieri, more famously known as Dante Alighieri, was a Florentine poet who belonged to the Middle Ages. His greatest literary work ‘Divina Commedia’, composed in Italian is considered the world over as one of the masterpieces in world literature circles. He is admired as the “Father of the Italian language and is given the title of ‘il Sommo Poeta’ meaning “the supreme poet”. Dante claimed to have descended from the ancient Romans (Inferno, XV, 76) and his father Alighiero di Bellincione, was a White Guelph. This poem is an allegorical metamorphosis of Dante and his quest to overshadow evil and find God’s love. His character is not particularly well defined as it flits in and out between good and evil. He particularly shows and inclination towards Florentine politics and takes part in it wholeheartedly. Though sympathetic towards others, he is quite capable of anger when dealing with his political enemies, but at the same time sheds tears when he comes across suffering souls. His quest to find God and Beatrice the woman of his dreams whom he loves very much leads him on a journey of both pride and dissatisfaction when he meets failure. Dante abhors Hell and fears lurking dangers, but at the same time he displays a lot of courage when he faces different crisis. The harsh feelings of Dante the poet rise in sharp contrast to the kind and compassionate character of Dante as portrayed in the poem. In his quest to satisfy the excruciating pain and torment of many of the historical characters he comes into contact with in his life, he passes punishment on them by taking revenge on their treatment of him in real life. Finally, Dante feels spent and learns to reconcile himself through displaying sympathy for the unfortunate suffering and brings himself to come to terms with the justice God has meted out to him. By passing through Purgatorio and Paradiso, Dante gathers all his courage and strength to meet the high moral standards in order to gain acquaintance in Heaven. Dante Alighieri’s masterpiece , the Divina Commedia was written between 1307- 1314 and narrates the story of Dante , the pilgrim (different from Dante the poet).The first part of this epic , titled “The Inferno” takes Dante through Hell to the base of the mountain which represents purgatory. Inferno can be termed as Dante’s personal treatise with God’s divine justice and in the words of Friedrich Von Schelling, the Inferno is described as, “the most objectively terrible [part] in its subject matter, so it is the strongest in expression and the strictest in diction, sombre and full of dread in its very choice of words”. The Inferno is written in the terza rime meter, which Dante created especially for this masterpiece. The punishment meted out to the sinners who languish in Hell is sharply contrasted with God’s infinite mercy. The Inferno is rich in allegory and the poem begins with Dante finding himself in a dark wood, which represents worldliness, while the mountains represent the journey through Hell and Purgatory, before man can attain God, represented by the Sun. This journey equips Dante with the will “…to learn all there is to know about sin as a necessary preparation for the ascent to God” (Musa 426). European Writers: Selected Authors, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1983).The sinners are tormented for their trespasses, but this is done so they experience the divine justice of God. Dante the pilgrim encounters a host of characters from the Bible. Greek mythology and even the Italian politics of the time and the various characters he meets in his travel through hell lifts his human spirit from the depths of despair to the heights of enlightenment. All human souls have to pass through Hell, before uniting with God and their sins cause them the sufferings experienced in Hell. Dante suffers from “acedia”, the sin of laziness or more specifically the sin of moral laziness and the sloth of the soul and human will. The arduous journey is Dante’s way of expiating his sins and the pilgrims struggles to accept the physical, spiritual and intellectual commitments of his task which will lead him to triumphantly complete the journey. Through his travails the lazy, ignorant human is transformed into the divinely inspired soul, at the end of his journey. Dante’s epic begins in the style of most epics, in “median res” or the middle of things, wherein the pilgrim is in the middle of the woods, ‘ midway this way of life”( middle of his life) when he encounters Virgil who has been sent by Beatrice to guide him in the daunting journey that lies ahead of him. Dante’s journey begins on Good Friday, when Jesus was crucified and he too had to pass through Purgatory and Hell before being resurrected, just like Dante, who will have to face the price for his acedia, before he can seek refuge in God. Dante enters the portals of hell accompanied by Virgil and is shocked by the confusion, disharmony and lack of dignity in the Vestibule of Hell. The multitude of despairing souls and Charon’s shouts combined with a slight earthquake cause Dante to faint. As the pilgrim moves to Limbo he is shocked to see people like Moses , Noah and the Biblical figures who lived before Christ, as well as the great Greek thinkers while the Second Circle is full of lustful people including Paolo and Francesca da Rimini and to see these innocent souls in Hell causes Dante to faint. As the pilgrim and his guide move through the circles of hell they reach the Seventh Circle whose stink proves unbearable for Dante and he collapses behind a rock for relief. Further into the journey, they reach the Wood of Suicides, where upon breaking the branch of a tree , Dante is assaulted by words and blood pouring out of it. The two traverse through the various levels of hell where people are punished for the sins of violence, lust, usury, incontinence, fraud, harlotry, blasphemy, profanity, hypocrisy, thievery. In the region of Hell which punishes the Sowers of Discord, the multitude boggles the mind while the Falsifiers are punished by disease and affliction of their senses. The Ninth Circle or the bottom of Hell is where the worst sinners-traitors- are punished and here we see Dante for the first time brutally grabbing a sinner by his hair. Finally, the pair come face to face with the Master of Hell, Satan himself , who being the ruler of this odious realm is frozen in ice, unable to extricate himself from the horrors of the various sins and sinners. The Inferno traces the progress of Dante the pilgrim from a scared, sympathetic traveler to a man who accepts the retributions of the Divine and can understand that, in order to redeem one’s soul, human beings must go through the ordeal of hell. The faint hearted pilgrim of the first canto gives way to the questioning, accepting and ultimately a much wiser person, who knows that God’s punishments are the harbingers of a morally righteous life. “The spiritualization of the torments received in Hell, give the Inferno powerful moral bearing (Hugo 24).” References Book Title: Aids to the Study of Dante. Contributors: Charles Allen Dinsmore - author. Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company. Place of Publication: Boston. Publication Year: 1903. Page Number: 228. 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