The Structure of Hell
Touring Dante’s Inferno
Sensational from its creation in 1300 till now, the Inferno is the remarkable work of Dante Alighieri. The first part of Dante’s epic poem, the Divine Comedy, the Inferno describes Dante’s journey through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located deep within the Earth, the realm of sinners who have abandoned spiritual principles and instead have given themselves to their lower, bestial urges or violence, or corrupted their humanity through fraud or malice. The work is an allegory, representing the journey of the soul toward God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin
For seven centuries the work has withstood every literary, political and social fashion and endures today as canonical high literature. Not everyone throughout the ages, however, has admired the work: eighteenth-century acolytes of Reason were not completely in-step with Dante, who insisted on limits to reason. But for the most part it was and is universally admired as brilliant; so much so that in the mid-16th century, the name was changed: when originally written, Dante called it simply, La Comedia, The Comedy. Church fathers added the word “divine,” and the name has persisted.
