Brief Thoughts on Hell, Part 3: Durante degli Alighieri

Durante degli Alighieri, in short, is known as Dante to us today. Dante lived from about 1265 to 1321. Now, in case you didn’t know, why he is relevant to the subject of Hell, I am about to tell you. I am also glad that this post includes the phrase “brief thoughts” because it implies that I am not going to write too much about the subject, and that is good because there is a lot to say about Dante with relevance to his role in Western history, but I am keeping my comments short. However, I highly recommend that you research him when you have the time. And, indeed, much has been written about this man, Dante Alighieri. Dante was born in Florence Italy, and he is the author of The Divine Comedy (Divina Commedia in Italian). The Divine Comedy is an epic poem which illustrates Dante's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Serious and scholarly works were always written in Latin during the time in which Dante lived; therefore, it was considered a comedy because it had been written in Italian. The poem is an allegorical view of life after death that basically represented the theological idea on this subject that the Western Church had adopted up to this moment in time. Moreover, some of the perceptions represented in this literary work are still held by many today.

My thought on the book, which I highly recommend reading, is that Dante was seemingly at times making literal assumptions on the subject just like many do today. However, the book was perhaps a metaphor of the politics of Dante’s time. In Bells Chiming the Eleventh Hour: Dante Alighieri's Inferno and Three Processes of Civilization, Peter Y. Clark said:

“The first and most obvious influence in Dante's life and in the Inferno appears within the scope of Florentine politics. Dante,like many Italians of his day, felt that to be a decent citizen one must be politically active; he possessed no shortcomings there. However, he not only was a man of action, but he was a man of thought; and hence his civic life reflects his opinions about political events.

Dante considered himself a citizen of Florence always, even in exile. He loved the city with an unyielding and undying intensity. As A. P. d'Entreves points out, she "is the root of his knowledge of and interest in politics," and his pride in her is evident in his concern for her.1 Tirelessly he asked her fate from all in hell, and when asked about his origin he declared: " Where the lovely Arno flows, there was I born and raised, in the great city/ "2”

Well, before this is no longer just a brief thought, I will stop writing here. However, Dante’s view of Hell has been very influential in Western history, and I encourage everyone to study his life and works. Until next time, for now!

2 Allen Mandelbaum, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno: A Verse Translation, Notes by Allen Mandelbaum, Gabriel Marruzzo, and Larry Magnus (New York: Bantam Books, 1982), XXIII, 94-95. All further references to this work are in the text.


Reference:

Bells chiming the 11th hour : Dante Alighieri's Inferno and three processes of civilization.
By: Clark, Peter Y.. Source: Christianity and Literature, 35 no 2 Wint 1986, p 5-15.