Hell, as envisioned by Dante Alighieri in his Inferno, is described by Robert Hollander as a “perfectly functioning bureaucracy” . The organization of it, however, creates many conflicting issues within the text. The way Dante organizes the circles and each of the sins within them is complicated and problematic, especially when considering how interrelated each of these sins are and how easy it is for a soul to fit into more than one circle. Not only does Dante fail to explain how these problems are dealt with, but his condemning of real people to his fictionalized version of Hell only serves to further convolute his concept of Hell, in its entirety. The only information we are provided, regarding the determination of souls, is found in the …show more content…
There are so many that are detailed within the text that they eventually begin to overlap, threatening the integrity of the organization as a whole. Dante’s use of real people further highlights these conceptual issues. An example of this is when Jacopo da Sant’ Andrea and Lano of Siena are punished within the seventh circle of violence (specifically suicide), regardless of their damning sins being prodigal in nature. Hollander attempts to explain away Dante’s discrepancy with the idea that Dante separated those who are characterized by the trait of prodigal into the fourth circle of prodigality, and those who were excessively “‘prodigal’ in so thoroughly intentional a way that they did not casually toss away their possessions, but willfully destroyed them in a sort of ‘material suicide’” . Hollander thus leads the reader to believe that Dante creates Jacopo and Lano as the two exceptions, being so prodigal, that even though they knew it would end in their deaths, they continued to be ‘violently’ prodigal anyways. It explains that this excessiveness is its own form of suicide, which is quite a stretch, even for Dante. If this excuse is to be accepted as valid, then it excuses Dante completely from having to follow his own rules . If he refuses to follow the rules he made and put people in the circle of Hell that corresponds to their damning sin, then the whole organization of Hell becomes
In most ancient literature some sort of divine justice is used to punish people's acts in life. This is that case with Dante's Inferno, where the Author categorizes hell in 9 circles. Circle 9 being the lowest sins and punishments as the circles decrease. From the time this was written to now in days many things have changed, and things are not seen the same no more. Back then sins like greed and gluttony were ranked as high sins but now people would probably rank those very low with other things like murder way on top. Yet the basic structure set by Dante remains.
In Dante’s Inferno, hell is divided into nine “circles” of hell; the higher the number, the more likely the sin and the pain you will endure. However, I do not completely agree with Dante’s version of hell, perhaps due to the difference in time periods. In this essay, I will be pointing out my concerns with Dante’s description of hell and how I would recreate hell if I were Dante. The first level of hell in the Inferno is for those unbaptized yet virtuous. Although some did not have a sinful life, if they did not accept Christ, they were sent to Limbo.
Everyone has a different perception of what really is heaven and hell and where people end up in the after life. Some people are not even religious and have their own personal thoughts about what is next after death. The Inferno or to be more precise “Hell” can be described and defined as a place where people end up after death in the natural world, when people have not followed God’s ways and laws of living. It is has been depicted throughout the years of time that suffering in hell is horrific, gruesome, and unimaginable. In Dante’s Inferno, Dante portrays the protagonist as he is guided by his ghostly friend Virgil the poet through the nine chambers of Hell. The transition from one circle to another is very shocking and graphic at what he witnesses through each circle. Dante uncovers where each sin will lead people to once the sinners souls face death. He faces many trials and tribulations through the beginning to end of the Inferno. Dante felt impelled to write the Inferno because he was going through his own personal struggles at the time. In a way he was extremely depressed because he was exiled out of Florence, and the love of his life Beatrice died. While Dante was in exile for so many years, it allowed him to write some of his most significant works of literature that people still read to this day.
He had meticulously described it to illuminate the Bible’s interpretation, especially for the degrees of sin. For instance, during his journey through Hell, he had traveled through nine rings, each containing different forms of sin. Within the rings, Dante had met individuals who were cast into Hell for adultery and heretical beliefs. However, Dante had not only described who he saw, but also the quality of their lives in Hell. D’Epiro states, “The poet’s most famous portrait of flawed grandeur is that of Ulysses, whose sins as a false counselor have caused him to be enveloped in flames like a human torch.” (99) Dante had wanted to put an emphasis on how perilous Hell was because of the time period’s grasp on religion in 1320.
In Dante’s Inferno, those who never repented for their sins are sent there after death. Like the old Latin proverb says, “The knowledge of sin is the beginning of salvation.” (“Latin Proverb Quotes” ThinkExist) The punishments in his Hell are decided by the law of retribution, which according to Webster’s Dictionary is the total effect of a person's actions and conduct during the successive phases of the person's existence, regarded as determining the person's destiny. (“Retribution” Merriam-Webster) Therefore, Dante creates a variety of reprimands for the three different types of sins: incontinence, violence, and fraudulence. These penalties can also be referred to as allegories because of their hidden moral meaning. The three best allegories in Dante’s Inferno describe the flatterers, fortune tellers, and suicides.
“Early in the spring of 1300, "midway along the road of our life," Dante is lost and alone in a dark, foreboding forest. To survive this ordeal, he must visit the three realms of the afterlife, beginning with Hell.” (Smith) Dante’s Inferno, one of the great classical poems that have come out of literature that’s topic is hell. Dante’s Inferno, gives a descriptive look into hell, from the eyes of Dante. Dante goes into detail about every part of hell. The people, what it looks like, sins to go there, the whole shah-bang. Dante splits up hell into nine different parts. In which he sends different types of sinners to each part. Each hell is made up differently, each has different systems that make up that particular systems. For example, circle three, has Cerberus the three headed dog, and another circle is completely frozen over. There are three circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno that are the best in the book: Circle one, circle six, and circle three.
In the Inferno we follow the journey of Dante as he wanders off the path of moral truth and into Hell. The Virgin Mary and Santa Lucia ask Beatrice, Dante’s deceased love, to send some help. Thus, Virgil comes to the rescue and essentially guides Dante through Hell and back to the mortal world from which he came. However, things begin to seem kind of odd. When reading the Inferno one may begin to question the way Dante describes Hell and the things that occur within, or even the things we have always believed about Hell. Despite the way it is described and well known in western civilization, Hell is not at all how we expect it to be because of Dante's use of irony throughout this poetic masterpiece.
Dante’s definition of justice is fascinating because it incorporates many aspects of Philosophy and Catholicism. According to Dorothy L. Sayers, Dante classifies sins into 3 categories which is heavily based on Aristotle. Dante’s classifications are Incontinence, Violence, and Fraud. Incontinence is an uncontrolled appetite, in other words, people pursue bodily pleasure while thinking that they should not do so. This includes gluttony and lust. Violence is a perverted appetite which means people pursue acts that are especially wicked. Fraud is the worst type of sin because it harms reason. These sins create Dante...
...ards monstrous figures and sympathy towards those who seem to be tortured unjustly. In his perverse education, with instruction from Virgil and the shades, Dante learns to replace mercy with brutality, because sympathy in Hell condones sin and denies divine justice. The ancient philosopher Plato, present in the first level of Hell, argues in The Allegory of the Cave that truth is possible via knowledge of the Form of the Good. Similarly, Dante acquires truth through a gradual understanding of contrapasso and the recognition of divine justice in the afterlife. Ultimately, Dante recognizes that the actions of the earthly fresh are important because the soul lives on afterwards to face the ramifications. By expressing his ideas on morality and righteousness, Dante writes a work worth reading, immortalizes his name, and exalts the beliefs of his Christian audience.
Dante Alighieri presents a vivid and awakening view of the depths of Hell in the first book of his Divine Comedy, the Inferno. The reader is allowed to contemplate the state of his own soul as Dante "visits" and views the state of the souls of those eternally assigned to Hell's hallows. While any one of the cantos written in Inferno will offer an excellent description of the suffering and justice of hell, Canto V offers a poignant view of the assignment of punishment based on the committed sin. Through this close reading, we will examine three distinct areas of Dante's hell: the geography and punishment the sinner is restricted to, the character of the sinner, and the "fairness" or justice of the punishment in relation to the sin. Dante's Inferno is an ordered and descriptive journey that allows the reader the chance to see his own shortcomings in the sinners presented in the text.
Dante’s The Divine Comedy illustrates one man’s quest for the knowledge of how to avoid the repercussions of his actions in life so that he may seek salvation in the afterlife. The Divine Comedy establishes a set of moral principles that one must live by in order to reach paradise. Dante presents these principles in Inferno, where each level of Hell has people suffering for the sins they committed during their life. As Dante gets deeper into Hell, the degrees of sin get progressively worse, as do the severity of punishment.
Each contrapasso is well thought out and devised to try to show that each sin is different, yet equally punishable in the afterlife. The contrapassos, and therefore the circles of hell, are placed in manner of a sin’s severity, or at least in Dante’s eyes. Sins of the flesh, animalistic sins, and sins of passion are not as harshly punished as sins of reason, calculation, and cruelty. Dante believes that human reasons separates man from beast, and to abuse such a gift from God warrants an unimaginable pain. Thus the deeper in hell you travel, the more thought out sins are punished and the less desirable the punishment.
Dante’s Inferno presents the reader with many questions and thought provoking dialogue to interpret. These crossroads provide points of contemplation and thought. Dante’s graphic depiction of hell and its eternal punishment is filled with imagery and allegorical meanings. Examining one of these cruxes of why there is a rift in the pits of hell, can lead the reader to interpret why Dante used the language he did to relate the Idea of a Just and perfect punishment by God.
Inferno, the first part of Divina Commedia, or the Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri, is the story of a man's journey through Hell and the observance of punishments incurred as a result of the committance of sin. In all cases the severity of the punishment, and the punishment itself, has a direct correlation to the sin committed. The punishments are fitting in that they are symbolic of the actual sin; in other words, "They got what they wanted." (Literature of the Western World, p.1409) According to Dante, Hell has two divisions: Upper Hell, devoted to those who perpetrated sins of incontinence, and Lower Hell, devoted to those who perpetrated sins of malice. The divisions of Hell are likewise split into levels corresponding to sin. Each of the levels and the divisions within levels 7,8, and 9 have an analogous historical or mythological figure used to illustrate and exemplify the sin.
The soul can be defined as a perennial enigma that one may never understand. But many people rose to the challenge of effectively explaining just what the soul is about, along with outlining its desires. Three of these people are Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine. Even though all three had distinctive views, the similarities between their views are strikingly vivid. The soul indeed is an enigma to mankind and the only rational explanation of its being is yet to come and may never arrive.