How Did Politics Affect Dante's Inferno

Dante’s divine comedy Inferno address a series of issues that related to the period of the early 1300s. Dante gave excessive detail of his perspective of Hell, though his views on Hell were borrowed primarily from his literary hero Virgil and The Iliad, and he even went so far as to add Virgil as a character within his divine comedy. Inferno was set up by Dante to be a model of the universe, detailing how the inner circles of Hell were organized and how Heaven and Purgatory played a role in the afterlife. Throughout Inferno, Dante described his views on the political, economic, and cultural aspects that were believed during the Middle Ages, and he stated his opinions by also using examples of figures that he believed would live in the multiple

Within his divine comedy, Dante broke down the sins that were represented within each sub-circle of Hell by splitting each layer into a Canto, and each Canto contained Dante’s reactions to seeing the atrocities and cruelties that happen within Hell. Typically, the political laws of the Middle Ages dictated how there was only one God that should be believed in, and those who took part in pagan activities – whether or not they knew of any other God – would not be sent to Heaven. Dante did bring up the issues he had with this ideology, most noticeably in Canto IV. Within this section, Dante, along with Virgil, who accompanied Dante through each sub-circle of Hell and explained the truth behind each level, entered Limbo, the circle that contained those who never knew of God. Limbo was described as a place of “sighs of sadness, but not of torment” (Dante IV, line 28) because the people that lived within Limbo lived in perpetual sadness; the area was portrayed as being very beautiful, with “a noble castle…and a meadow green with fresh grass” (Dante IV, lines 106-112), and it was made this way because nobody within Limbo actively sinned. Instead, the souls of the dead were damned to Limbo because they died without being baptized or without being Christian, so, therefore, there was no chance that these people would ever see Heaven. Limbo

Most of the beliefs during the Middle Ages revolved around how those who fell prey to sins like Lust and Betrayal – as well as sins like Injustice and Passion – were among the worst of all, and Dante went into great detail about these beliefs in both Canto V and Canto XXXIV. Within Canto V, Dante visited the Circle of Lust and saw many ancient figures that he revered or studied, figures like Cleopatra, Helen, Achilles, Dido, and Paris; soon after, though, he learned of a couple that made his heart break, and Dante’s true opinion on Lust comes to light when he discussed the fate of the couple Francesca and Paolo. Dante learned how Francesca was doomed to be in an abusive marriage and how she found solace in her teacher Paolo and, while reading Lancelot and his love for Guinevere, the two kissed, sealing their fate within the Circle of Lust. Dante’s level of heartbreak and shock was so strong that his “body fell like a corpse to he ground” (Dante Canto V, line 142), and this action truly solidified how horrified he must have felt to know that those who truly loved each other, but were meant to be with another, would be forced to live within a world of torturously painful wind for an eternity. Worse than Lust, though, is Betrayal, which Dante finally visits with Virgil in Canto XXXIV before passing upwards