The Opening Foundational Themes of Dante’s Inferno

1743 Words4 Pages

The Divine Comedy, written by Dante Alighieri somewhere around the year 1308 and originally called The Comedy, is widely considered one of the preeminent works of Italian literature. It is an epic poem that consists of three books: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise, which chronicle (narrate) the adventures of Dante the Pilgrim (a fictitious character personified by Dante himself) in his travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. Although frightening on a literal level, on a more significant level it represents allegorically a deeper subject: the trials of the human soul to achieve morality and find unity with God. As we travel with Dante the Pilgrim on his journey to leave behind his sin and achieve peace with God, we can see that even from the very beginning of Inferno these themes of man’s return to God, the perfection of God’s justice, and the higher importance of Grace over Reason are made apparent and are the foundation stones upon which Dante chooses to build the rest of his Divine Comedy.

In Canto I, Dante the Poet immediately makes clear the allegorical nature of his poem by beginning with the following passage: (Musa 3)

“Midway along the journey of our life,

I woke to find myself in a dark wood,

for I had wandered off from the straight path.

How hard it is to tell what it was like,

this wood of wilderness, savage and stubborn

(the thought of it brings back all my old fears),

A bitter place! Death could scarce be bitterer.

But if I would show the good that came of it

I must talk about things other than the good.”

The first theme that becomes apparent from the above passage is the theme of man’s return to God. By writing “our” journey of life, Dante thrusts himself into a role of a character known as an...

... middle of paper ...

...for the first part of the journey, had chosen some revered Christian figure or simply allowed Beatrice to guide him the whole way, this important point and theme would have been lost.

In the opening Canto of Dante’s Divine Comedy, he immediately makes several powerful moves that help lay the foundation for the themes that constantly reoccur throughout the epic poem. We can see that to Dante the themes of Man’s Return to God, the Perfection of God’s Justice, and the Triumph of Grace above Reason, were essential elements that Dante tried to communicate to his readers and that make up the allegorical nature of the epic.

Selected Bibliography

Dante, Alighieri. The Portable Dante. Trans. Mark Musa. New York, NY: Penguin, 2003. Print.

Johnston, Ian. "Lecture on Dante's Inferno." Johnstonia. Web. 15 Dec. 2010. .

Open Document