Inferno Research Paper

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Inferno Research Paper

Anthony K. Cassell stated in his critical essay titled “Farinata” that “the methods of punishment in Dante’s Hell are exquisitely diverse.” The cantos in Inferno are focused on Circles or subdivisions of Hell that describe specific punishments for the suffering souls based upon the sin they committed. The deeper into Hell, the worse the sins that were committed, therefore the agonies of the punishments are greater. In Inferno, Dante brings the issue of sin into light by giving instances of sins he has taken note of. He places the guilty souls at different levels of Hell, depending on which crimes he believes are the worst to commit, showing “how Dante portrayed his understanding of God’s justice” (Cassell). Inferno, by Dante Alighieri should be seen as a manual of moral and religious instruction because it represents the theme of divine justice for sin.

Dante Alighieri was an Italian poet and moral philosopher. He was considered the father of Modern Italian. He was born into a family who had a history of involvement in the Florentine political scene. At the time of his arranged marriage to the daughter of a family friend, he was in love with another woman named Beatrice. Beatrice had a major influence in Dante’s epic. Dante was a part of the White Guelphs, but was exiled from Florence in 1302 by the Black Guelphs, the political faction in power at the time who was in league with Pope Boniface VIII, whom Dante encounters in Hell in his epic. This epic, The Divine Comedy, which Dante is best known for, is made up of sections of the three tiers of Christian afterlife: purgatory, heaven, and hell. On the Biography.com website over Dante Alighieri, it says Dante’s Comedy was “written as a warning to a corrup...

... middle of paper ...

...e. "Inferno." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin

Puchner. Shorter Third ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013. 1053-172. Print. Beginnings to 1650.

Burge, James. “Dante: Reason and Religion.” History Today 61.3 (2011): 10-15.

Humanities Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 9 May 2014.

Cassell, Anthony K. “Farinata.” Dante’s Fearful Art of Justice. Toronto: U of Toronto P,

1984. 15-31, Rpt. in Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 142. Detroit: Gale, 2012. Literature Resource Center. Wed. 9 May 2014.

"Dante Alighieri." 2014. The Biography.com website. May 10 2014.

http://www.biography.com/people/dante-9265912.

Franke, William. “Dante’s Hermeneutic Complicity In Violence And Fraud In

“Inferno” IX-XVII.” University Of Toronto Quarterly 82.1 (2013): 1-19. Humanities Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 9 May 2014.

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