The Divine Comedy
(Dante Alighieri)
Dante's
Divine Comedy is a trilogy about the author's supposed travels through heaven,
hell and purgatory. It is a half-serious
satirical piece in which Dante does everything from describing the seat of God
to placing his worst enemies in hell. Dante
even got into trouble at the time through his placement of people who he knew
in various places, being punished often in horrible ways if they had offended
Dante in life. However, the book is also
a poetic portrayal of the Catholic version of life after death.
Dante
is led by various guides through these places so that he can tell others on
Earth what they are like and hopefully allow them to make the proper choices to
end up in the right place. He speaks to demons, sees angels and discusses the
various environments with dead poets. Dante is very descriptive of the three
places and makes an effort to paint clearly the wonders and punishments he sees
and is led through.
The
most famous of the three books is probably Inferno, the book about hell. In it,
Dante describes the widely-accepted nine circles of hell, where sinners of
different degrees are tortured for eternity. The beginning of hell is not even
quite considered hell proper, but is instead a plain place for those who did
not have the opportunity to be saved. The ninth circle, on the other
hand, is reserved for the worst sinners, such as betrayers, murderers, and
traitors, including Judas Iscariot being devoured. This circle ends with
Lucifer himself, the worst betrayer, who is poetically described as a horrible
huge dragon trapped in ice and forming the last part of hell himself.
The Divine Comedy is a classic read, and Dante's ideas are
widely accepted today in modern conversations. Reading the book, you can see
where ideas such as the circles of hell and the degrees of sinners came from,
and also how sin is cleared away in purgatory for the righteous to enter the
wonders of heaven. It is both a poetic and satirical look at Catholic beliefs
and the after-life as a whole.
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