Dante: The Divine Comedy Volume 1: Inferno - Book Report/Review Example

DANTE: THE DIVINE COMEDY VOLUME INFERNO The Essay Exploration of the realities about the world Hereinafter as well as the life after death has always been a matter of great interest for the intellectuals, scholars, writers and philosophers, the reflection of which can be found in their sayings, teachings and works. However, the writers and poets belonging to divergent religious and spiritual schools of thought, portray quite different picture of the life after death. It is partially because of the religious belief they follow and the Scripture they imitate as a source of spiritual guidance for them; the same is applied with famous epic poem Divine Comedy written by fourteenth century Italian poet Dante.

Based upon the author’s imagination, on the basis of Biblical narrations, Divine Comedy reflects the pains and sufferings inflicted upon the transgressors for their non-compliance and disobedience to the commandments of the Lord committed by them in their worldly life. Hence, the epic actually serves as the motivation for doing good and abhorring evil deeds in order to win respectable place in the promised paradise lost by the humans in the wake of the very first disobedience made by the first parents of human beings by tasting the fruit of forbidden tree out of the temptations made by Satan for the humiliation of Adam and Eve in the eyes of the Creator.

Since Dante was the follower of Christian faith, his epic poem is based on the story of creation and man’s fall has been described in details in the Old and New Testaments. Additionally, the poem appears to be a religious narration keeping in view the interest of the fourteenth century Italian political authorities and for the scholars and clergy, where the poet experiences to visit all the seven divisions, yet Divine Comedy is actually a source of inspiration for the Christian community at large.

Consequently, the epic aims to teach the Christian to follow the ways of God by revealing the severity of inflictions would be tormented upon the defiant and infidels for their misdeeds in this life. Hence, Christian intellectuals, scholars and masses are the audience of the epic under analysis. Divine Comedy is also criticized as the work created as the reaction to the Islamic belief of the sacred journey of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) called Isra and Mirage in the Holy Qur’an, during which the Prophet had been blessed with the chance of visiting heavens and observing the tormenting situation of the sinners in different classes of hell.

The mythology of Judaism, Christianity and Islam is one and the same, where all these three Abrahamic faiths have belief in the Creator, holy prophets, angels, Satan, heaven, hell, reincarnation, reward and punishment and Day of Insurrection etc. It is therefore the epic is aptly viewed as the reaction of the twelfth century Arabic writer Ibne Al Arabi’s The Kitab of Al Mira, which is called The Book of Ascension or La Escalotolgia Musulmana (Asin, 2003). The epic reveals Dante’s inner thoughtfulness regarding the punishment for committing some sins.

It is therefore some of the critics disparage the Dante’s work by declaring it as strictly against the Christian teachings and mythology. It is due to the very reality that Dante has selected the punishments of his own choice out of his delusion about the Hereinafter. They blame the author for misusing the religious beliefs just to condemn his personal and political rivals. Hence, the elements of political rivalries and personal grudges are evident in the epic. Dante’s hero points out to the consequences of some specific sins and offences, but himself decides the offenders, which makes it mere the description of malice and revenge on the part of the helpless hero against his opponents, who is not able to revenge, but takes the support of heavenly powers to announce punishments on his religious and political enemies.

Thus, Dante’s poem serves as a personal glimpse of the writer that he has created by taking the support of religious mythology. References: Asin, Miguel (2003) Islam and the Divine Comedy Paper Back Publishers Dante, Alighieri Divine Comedy Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.org/files/8800/8800-h/files/8799/8799-h/p1.htm#1