Why is dantes inferno a comedy

And real-world history is placed alongside divinity too: who is Satan eternally devouring? Judas, the betrayer of Christ, in one of his three mouths, yes. But Brutus and Cassius, the betrayers of Julius Caesar, are in his other two mouths. Dante is indeed suggesting that Julius Caesar may have been on the same level of importance as Jesus.

That, via the translation of Clive James, was a personal score for Dante to settle as well, since the forces that had aligned with Charles had had him exiled from Florence — for almost the last 20 years of his life he was barred from his beloved city.

The Divine Comedy wasn't popular in the English-speaking world until poet William Blake, who made many illustrations for it such as this, advocated strongly for it Credit: Alamy. Barrators, the term for politicians who are open to taking bribes, are stuck in hot pitch because they had sticky fingers when they were alive.

Caiaphas, the high priest who helped condemn Christ, is himself crucified. These are stunning images, but made all the more powerful by the language in which Dante chose to convey them: not Latin, the language of all serious literary works in Italy to that point, but Florentine Tuscan.

In the early 14th Century, Italy, a patchwork of city states with various external imperial powers vying for influence, was also a patchwork of different languages. Writing in the Florentine dialect of the Tuscan language could have limited the appeal of The Divine Comedy. It helped that he also incorporated, where appropriate, elements of other local dialects as well as Latin expressions, to widen its appeal.

Florentine Tuscan became the lingua franca of Italy as a result of The Divine Comedy, helping to establish Florence as the creative hub of the Renaissance. Through the force of his words, Dante helped create the very idea of the Italian language that is spoken today.

Thus in the figure of Virgil, Dante found a symbol who represented the two key institutions: the papacy and the empire, destined by God to save mankind. Reading Dante for the first time, the reader faces monumental problems: another society, another religion medieval Catholicism is not the same as modern Catholicism , a different culture, and a different political system, where politics controlled the papacy, and the papacy was manipulating the politics of the times — and often the pope was a political appointment.

The physical aspect of Hell is a gigantic funnel that leads to the very center of the Earth. See the diagram later in this section. According to the legend used by Dante, this huge, gigantic hole in the Earth was made when God threw Satan Lucifer and his band of rebels out of Heaven with such force that they created a giant hole in the Earth.

Satan was cast all the way to the very center of the Earth, has remained there since, and will remain there through all of eternity. In each circle, Dante chose a well-known figure of the time or from history or legend to illustrate the sin. As Dante descends from circle to circle, he encounters sinners whose sins become increasingly hateful, spiteful, offensive, murderous, and traitorous. He ends with Satan, eating the three greatest traitors in the world, each in one of his three mouths, at the center of the Earth.

Dante's scheme of punishment is one of the marvels of the imaginative mind; at times, however, it involves a rather complex and difficult idea for the modern reader. Each sinner is subjected to a punishment that is synonymous with his or her sin — or else the antithesis of that sin. Their sins were that they worshipped money so much that they hoarded it, or the opposite, had so little regard for money that they spent it wildly. Nothing is so antagonistic to a miser as a spendthrift.

Thus, their punishment is to bombard each other continually with huge stones expressing the antagonism between excessive hoarding and excessive squandering. Another example is the Adulterous Lovers. In this world, they were buffeted about by their passions; in Hell, they are buffeted about by the winds of passion, as they eternally clasp each other. Those who deliberately committed adultery are in a much lower circle. The punishment of the Thieves is simple. Their hands, which they used to steal, are cut off, and their bodies are entwined with snakes or serpents, as were encountered in Eden.

We follow the guide and Dante through adventures so amazing that only the wildest imagination can conceive of the predicament. Please enter your email address so we can send you a link to reset your password. Your Comments. Sign In Sign Out. We reserve the right to remove any content at any time from this Community, including without limitation if it violates the Community Standards.

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