The Influence Of Politics In Dante's Inferno

The Oxford Dictionary gives five different definitions of the meaning of “politics.” One definition is: “activities within an organization that are aimed at improving someone’s status or position and are typically considered to be devious or divisive.” Another definition is: “a particular set of political beliefs or principles.” For a long time, politics has shaped the way that people write and think about life. Politics has been a major influence on literary works, such as Dante’s Inferno, Don Quixote, and Corinne, Or Italy, and in these works you get the chance to understand the political beliefs from the author’s point of view instead of from another character in the novel.

Dante’s Inferno, although seemingly a religious epic poem, actually has many political undertones. The basis of his political influences start with his personal connection with the commercial world of Middle Ages Italy. This connection helped shape his political career, which in turn, influenced The Inferno. He was the son of a banker, the brother-in-law of a moneylender, and he, himself, engaged in some business and was a member of a guild, the "Arte dei medici e degli speziali." A guild is “an organized group of people who have joined together because they share the same job or interest; especially an association of people who made or sold goods in the Middle Ages (“Guild”, Def. 1). One can see how this fits into a political sphere, in which people with the same interests come together to protect their own interests. Dante was primarily involved with drugs and spices, but he probably joined the guild to further his political career. In the major cities of northern Italy, the world in which Dante lived, commerce was the main way people earned a livng and ma...

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...nt Roman ruins, Corinne talks about ancient Roman politics. She presents Italy, even before Napoleon’s conquest, as being influenced by outside forces and lacking control of its own destiny.

Politics have been a major influence for authors throughout the ages. We’ve seen examples in Dante’s Inferno, Don Quixote, and Corinne, or Italy. Politics in literature is not something that is relatively new and there are probably examples of how politics has influenced authors and their works even before Dante. In Don Quixote and Corinne, or Italy, the author makes it seem as though the character is the one experiencing the political situations when it is actually the author, who is channeling their feelings into characters, as many authors do. Dante’s Inferno, Don Quixote, and Corinne, or Italy are three brilliant works of art with powerful, albeit, hidden political messages.