Dante's Inferno: The Levels of Hell Level One According to Dante, there are various levels in hell. The first level in Hell is called Limbo. All the individuals who die before being baptized and those who live as virtuous pagans are condemned to spend the rest of eternity at this level. The people being referred to in this level are those who die before accepting Christianity. All the individuals who die non-Christians, including philosophers who typically do not associate themselves with any religion are going to be condemned to this level for eternity. Some of the examples that provided by Dente include famous philosophers like Socrates and Plato. This level is therefore the least severe in terms of punishment and is the farthest from Satan. Level Two The second level is known as lust and consists of the desperate and the despondent. All the sinners who will be found to be guilty of lust will be condemned to this level for eternity. The souls of all the individuals found guilty of this sin will be scattered and blown about without any hope of rest. In this level, people will be subjected to eternal unrest and hopelessness. This level is the second farthest circle from Satan and is slightly harsher than the first one, but is not as cruel as the other circles that follow. Level Three The third level consists of gluttons who will be forced to eat and lie down in vile places. In addition, the gluttons will also be subjected to freezing slush, which is allegedly similar to the harsh environment subjected to pigs. The character considered to be the head of this group of gluttons is Cerberus. The conditions at this level will be like clumps of mud and other deplorable areas. The gluttony level will be harsher than the previous... ... middle of paper ... ...as the potential leaders of all the people who will be condemned to this level. This level is therefore considered to be the most severe in terms of punishment as compared to the rest. Works Cited Dante's Inferno. “The Levels of Hell.” Danteinferno.info. n.d., 30 September 2011, http://www.danteinferno.info/circles-of-hell/ Eileen, Gardine. Visions of Heaven & Hell before Dante. New York: Italica Press, 1989. Goff, Jacques. The Birth of Purgatory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Himmelfarb, Martha. Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983. Thompson, Diane. “World Literature I (Eng 251): Dante's Inferno Study Guide.” Northern Virginia Community College. Last modified 2007. Accessed 30 September 2011. http://novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/eng251/dante.html
Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno. Trans. Allen Mandelbaum. Notes Allen Mandelbaum and Gabriel Marruzzo. New York: Bantam Books, 1980
In the fourteenth century a renowned Italian rhymester or poet called Dante emerged. He used this book six as a journey through hell in the poem inferno. In the same technique as Virgilis, Dante was able to come up with different designs of hell in which greater and severe punishment and sentences were beheld on those individuals who committed greater seasons. In this passage it is evident that Dante exercised his imagination and invention to come up with stri...
Amid the fires and the terrible music, the torture and the torment, mankind finally receives the punishment for their sins. The punishment is made even more terrible because it is a Hell they created for themselves, right here on Earth.
Moreover, Dante, the narrator of the Inferno, has succeeded in not only telling the frightening story of the Inferno, but also pointing out the importance of the relationship between human’s sins and God’s retribution, using the monsters as the symbols for each kind of sin and its punishment throughout the progress of the story, which teaches his readers to be well aware of their sins through the literature – a part of humanities; the disciplines that teach a man to be a human.
Durling, Robert M., Ronald L. Martinez. Notes. The Inferno. Vol 1. By Dante Alighieri. Trans. Robert M. Durling. New York: Oxford UP, 1996.
...d God(Rudd 8-11). Keep in mind the punishments are still getting worse as they go down to the bottom of hell. These punishments are to stay in a river of blood or get shot, get souls trapped in trees and only talk when bleeding and having harpies eat them, very weird and the last one is burning sand and raining fire. Dante may have chosen to give the seventh layer these punishments because he saw it fit because since they harmed themselves god or others they will be harmed forever in hell.
As mentioned above, the structure of Hell is determined by the sins people commit during their lifetime (the specific morals people disobey) and how ‘bad’ these sins are considered to be (within their respective divisions). The sins being described in The Inferno abide by the rules written for the Catholic religion in The Bible, which is why The Inferno is often viewed as a religious text. This explains why Aristotle and Dante would disagree on a few key points of what it means to be virtuous. Aristotle is adamant about not having excess nor deficiency and rather finding a middle ground (mean), whereas Dante abides by the virtues laid out in The Bible. Hell usually personifies what would be considered excessive rather than deficiency in Aristotle’s code of ethics because of its background in the Catholic religion. One example of this exists with humility. In the Catholic context, humility stands a virtue that is praised in The Bible (and therefore Inferno) whereas in Nicomachean Ethics humility is a vice to be looked down on. This continues to be the case with many different excesses and virtues for
Despite the obvious flaws of Dante himself, he does give a clear vision of how punishments will be taken forth in the afterlife. He gives reason to fear and respect the law of God lest eternal punishment be your only promise in the afterlife. These punishments are as relevant as can be, so he offers a very vivid picture of hell. The men that he puts in hell give it a realistic twist, enhancing the fear that is felt upon reading this work
“Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here.”(Alighieri 18) this statement is viewed while entering through The Gates of Hell. The Inferno by Dante Alighieri is one perspective of Hell that has been written. According to the Cambridge University Library, Hell is set up like a funnel that extends from the surface of the Earth located near Jerusalem; it expands down to the center of the Earth (Cambridge 2006). In this cone-like structure, there are circles that divide sins by the severity of the sin committed. Each circle is on a different ledge or level that separates them from each other (Alighieri 25). Dante and his guide Virgil travel through all the circles of Hell during the Lent season. Through their travels they inspect and comment on the variations
In the book Inferno by Dante Alighieri, we see the character Dante the poet reflects on himself to be Dante the pilgrim and how he copes on his exile from Florence. Dante the poet creates his own idea of Hell, creating nine circles for each specific sin. Sinners reside corresponding to the sin they have committed. In his view on Hell and where in Hell sinners belong, that leads us to the standards in humanity and how it has changed in culture and time. The standard of humanity and the way they react to different behaviors of other people come in different ways depending on the sin, but can also be viewed the same as it was in Dante’s time. Two people Dante would have placed in Hell are Saddam Hussein and Heinrich Himmler. The sins Dante claimed, violated absolute
Many arguments have been made that Dante’s Inferno glimmers through here and there in Milton’s Paradise Lost. While at first glance the two poems seem quite drastically different in their portrayal of Hell, but scholars have made arguments that influence from Dante shines through Milton’s work as well as arguments refuting these claims. All of these arguments have their own merit and while there are instances where a Dantean influence can be seen throughout Paradise Lost, Milton’s progression of evil and Satan are quite different from Dante. Dante’s influence on Milton is noted by many scholars and is very apparent in several instances throughout Paradise Lost, however, Milton shows a progression of evil through his own vision of Satan and creates a Hell that is less meticulously constructed than Dante’s and more open to interpretation.
Dante’s Inferno presents the reader with many questions and thought provoking dialogue to interpret. These crossroads provide points of contemplation and thought. Dante’s graphic depiction of hell and its eternal punishment is filled with imagery and allegorical meanings. Examining one of these cruxes of why there is a rift in the pits of hell, can lead the reader to interpret why Dante used the language he did to relate the Idea of a Just and perfect punishment by God.
Alighieri, Dante. "The Inferno." The Divine Comedy. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: First New American Library Printing, 2003.
...the way down to the traitors were Satan himself dwells. It continually gets more serious. In Purgatory, the climb is aggressive and difficult in the beginning, working your way up the mountain you find the journey gradually getting easier. This depiction of what the whole scheme of things was a completely forging idea, but makes sense. After leaving Satan and Hell we find that some of the sins that are punished in hell are also punished in the first stages of Purgatory. The difference in why some individuals made it and others didn’t is all in the repentance and recognition of God in their lives. This is the basic message I got from these books, when in fact we all stray from the narrow path, we must never hesitate to seek forgiveness and to inline our lives with the ways of God, for we know not the day nor the hour when our souls will be called to the next life.
In conclusion, a great deal of tension and contrast between “dark” and “light” in The Inferno helps us to explore Dante’s self portrait—he fears dangerous desires and sinful darkness, but shows much courage and hope towards life since he nevertheless follows his guide Virgil to dive into horrible Hell. As shown in Canto I, such emotional reaction to dark and light symbols lays a great foundation for developing Dante’s broad and universal traits as his journey progresses.