Divine Comedy - Autobiographical Journey in Dante’s Inferno

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Dante’s Inferno - Autobiographical Journey

The Inferno is more than just a fictional story about someone traveling through the universe. It is actually more like an autobiographical journey of life through its author, Dante Alighieri’s eyes. Written in the early 1300s by a disgruntled Dante living in exile, he literally describes a man who has been trapped, and must find a way to escape. Allegorically, he’s telling us about the terrible moment of crisis that occurs in each one of our lives “when evil inside and outside of ourselves seems to block any hope for further constructive development”. Written originally as a long poem separated into cantos or songs, he basically wrote with the personal purpose of recording where all of the people he came in contact within his life, will go when they die. This could be one of three places; Hell, Purgatory, or Heaven. He went on to design specific, fitting punishments or rewards based on the life each person led. Dante then tied this all togethor and made himself a character that walks the entire length of the conceptualized...

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