The Vestibule of Hell and the Souls Mustering to Cross the Acheron (1847)
by William Blake
Sandro Botticelli’s depiction of Dante’s Inferno
Salvador Dali’s paintings of Dante’s Inferno
Dante’s Commedia
- it is a work of Italian medieval literature, named the Divine Commedia by another Italian poet, Boccaccio, to emphasize the subject matter of the work, the realms of the afterlife: hell, purgatory and paradise, but also to signal the elevated style in which it is written.
- Dante claims that he is directly inspired by God, and the visionary experience of the poet is taken at face value by the early commentators.
- the three realms of the Commedia‘s three parts are as follows: down in the depths of Hell in the Inferno, up the mountain of Purgatory in the Purgatorio, and through the ever-higher spheres of Heaven in the Paradiso.
- the Commedia is made up of one hundred chapters that Dante calls cantos (literally, “songs”), divided into three groups of thirty-three; the extra is added to the Inferno, which opens with an introductory canto. The numerological structure of the poem is also revealed in the landscape of each part. Hell is divided into nine circles, each containing a different category of sinners receiving their own proper form of punishment. (taken from the Norton edition)
- the Roman poet Virgil is the pilgrim’s guide, as well as the poet’s, (literally and metaphorically) because of his Aeneid.
- In keeping with Christian doctrine, the souls in the underworld (of the Inferno) have no material bodies, yet their shades retain the appearance of the bodies they had while alive. The punishments they suffer in Hell leave marks on their immaterial flesh.
