Comparing the Underworlds in Dante’s Inferno and The Odyssey

Dante’s Inferno is a narrative poem, with a very complicated rhyme scheme, originally written in Italian. It documents the author’s, Dante, trip through hell, where he learns how hell is organized and the way in which sinners are punished. Dante is guided by the great poet Virgil, who leads him throughout hell. The Odyssey, is an epic authored by the Greek, Homer. The epics centers on Odysseus’ protracted journey home. The protagonist, Odysseus, visits the underworld for a very short amount of time. The two literary works contain many common elements, such as characters being punished, the protagonists interacting with those in the underworld, repeating characters, and the misery of the underworlds. There are also differences between the two works including the types of interactions between the protagonists and those they encounter, the reasons for each protagonists visit to the underworlds, and how the underworld operates. These differences and similarities can be attributed the Dante’s and Homer’s religion, the time period and culture in which they wrote their respective works, and the purpose for the visits to the underworlds in each work. Although there are many similarities between the underworlds in Dante’s Inferno and The Odyssey, the two works ultimately offer two different visions of the underworld due to the authors’ different religious beliefs and culture, as well as the role of the underworld in each literary work.

The vision of the underworld portrayed in Dante’s Inferno and The Odyssey share many similarities. Both Dante and Odysseus confidently travel to the underworld because a woman, with whom they have had an intimate instructs them to. In The Odyssey, Circe instructs Odysseus to “make [his] own wa...

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...raits, nevertheless, the differences outweigh the similarities. Hell primarily focuses on punishing sinners; the House of Death does not. In fact, Odysseus meets many more people who are not being punished, than those who are. Both underworlds are chaotic, but Hell contains a very strict structure, which makes it organized; the House of Death does not have this element during Odysseus’ stay. Dante’s Inferno emphasizes the morality and reasons for sin when conversing with sinners in Hell, while The Odyssey emphasizes Odysseus’ reunion with old friends, as they discuss past events. The differences are at least partly a result of Homer’s and Dante’s differing religions, when they each wrote their own, and the culture in which each of them lived. The two works agree one element though. They each portray existing in the underworld as second to living on earth.