Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri Review

Book Report: Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
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Book Report: The Divine Comedy (La Commedia) by Dante Alighieri
Introduction
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), a renowned Italian writer and poet, makes for one of the individuals who found himself on the wrong side of the powerful religious system that influenced even the polities of medieval times in Europe. Dante's poem, The Divine Comedy or La Commedia, documents a journey into the afterlife divided into three parts: Inferno or Hell, Purgatorio or Purgatory, and Paradiso or Heaven. Dante showcases his faith, mastery of reason and stretches his imagination of the afterlife for an allegorical representation of his enlightened understanding of the misleading influence of the religious system and authority of his time on matters of faith and politics.
Hell (Inferno)
Inferno or Hell makes for a daunting encounter for Dante and his guide Virgil who promises to see him through and out of the treacherous journey. Together they come to the gates of Hell with a sign, "Give up hope you who enter," but they do not go in, and instead, they embark on a journey through the nine circles of Inferno. The first circle, Limbo, has the unbaptized souls where pagans and non-believers of Christ remain for eternity. Among the souls Dante meets include Socrates, Horace, Aristotle, Ovid, and Homer CITATION Ali16 \l 1033 (Alighieri, 2016). There was no suffering in this circle, but the souls desired God's mercy to befall them. Under the guard of a half man and half beast named Minos, the second circle held the souls of the lustful sinners or who loved out of the context of the allowed conventions. It included the likes of Paris, Cleopatra, and other sinful lovers who were under the torment of an endless wind. The third circle of Inferno is filled with alcoholic and greedy souls spending their eternity in mire and mud under the watchful eyes of a dog with three heads. Spendthrifts and misers were going in circles in the fourth circle that was previously manned by Plato but standing guard now was a beast CITATION Ali16 \l 1033 (Alighieri, 2016). The lazy and angry souls were in the fifth circle of Hell, with the former suffocating in the swampy river's depth while the latter fighting in the mud of the same. The sixth circle of Inferno took angelic intervention for Virgil and Dante to enter due to the guards' adamant refusal to let Dante into the part that held, in open graves, the souls of those who did not believe in immortality. Minotaur, a half-man-half-bull, guarded the seventh circle that held the souls of the violent and included three different parts. Those who were violent against their loved ones or those close to them languished Phlegethon, the river of boiling blood CITATION Ali16 \l 1033 (Alighieri, 2016). Suicide victims made up the second part of the seventh circle as trees and bushes with human feelings and emotions under harpies' constant torment. Violators of nature were in the third part with the rain of snowflakes as their verdict. The eighth circle of Hell had ten parts, with the first having the seducers and panders being whipped while the second had the souls of flatters being dipped into feces. The other parts harbored simonists with their feet o...