Monroe 1 Dillon Monroe Humanities 7 Mrs.

Dempsey 7 December 2011 The Inferno of the Ages Dante Alighieri wrote The Divine Comedy after being exiled from his home town of Florence, Italy as the result of a coux. This work contains three volumes known as Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. They follow Dante through his metaphorical journey of revenge and self growth and discovery. Throughout his journey he is guided by Virgil who serves as a tour guide of sorts explaining various things to him, and then in the end of Purgatorio and throughout Paradiso, by his muse, Beatrice. Dante wrote the Inferno with much on his mind, thoughts of anger, betrayal, and loneliness have been portrayed very prevalently in this work and it was the culmination of these emotions that created the very essence and fear of hell in the minds of every man woman and child from that point forward, not the Catholic Church. Imagine being exiled from every person you know and love, and everything youve ever known or seen. This is what Dante went through shortly before he wrote his Divine Comedy, and that is what caused his works to be so powerful and impactful. Dante used this work as his vengeance upon everyone who had ever caused him anger or hurt, and due to his recent banishment, the list of people was long. He incorporated many of them in the work directly giving them a severe but fitting punishment for the crime that they had committed, and still others he incorporated indirectly, simply stating the punishment for the crime they committed. These combine to make a multi-layered world of torture, despair, and loneliness; a world where these sinners would forever be alone in the punishment

Monroe 2 for their crimes. Because of the depth and detail of his creation, it became something that could easily be distorted for most any purpose. It is a known fact that the Catholic Church used the fear of hell to extort money from people in the Middle Ages and because of this still today many who believe in the terrors of hell, associate its demons and tortures with the Church. The truth is that while the church did tell its members that there was a hell and that if they sinned and did not repent they would go there, it wasnt until Dante wrote his Inferno that people could truly visualize the horrors that were this place. The corrupt Catholic Church used this to their advantage to get people to follow their commands and pay them money. This fully incorporated the Inferno as the image of hell throughout the world. Still this day the image of hell that is socially accepted is the one brought forth by Dante in his Epic Inferno, was this work truly that great? Or did the Church acceptance of this image propel it forward into the collective unconscious of the human race. While Dantes work truly is a masterpiece and is worthy of all praise it receives, let us look at the other pieces of Literature that have been permanently stored in the archives of our minds; we have greats such as Homers Iliad and Odyssey, Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and many others. Is the Divine Comedy truly on the level of these greats? No, while it is a truly amazing work, it is a rant. Dante uses this work explicitly as a vessel for his personal vendetta, and personal glorification. So while it is a masterpiece that has shaped the way society thinks of hell throughout the ages, much of that can be attributed to the Catholic Church.