For nearly 800 years Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy has been read and praised by people from different eras throughout the world. It is considered the pinnacle of Italian literature and is celebrated as one of the most popular epic poems internationally. Of the three sections it contains within itself; Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradiso, the Inferno has always seemed to be the most read. But why?
Many come to the conclusion that the Inferno is most loved because it is the most thrilling, the imagery described as Dante descends through the nine circles of Hell is so descriptively gruesome that it makes any horror film pale in comparison. Yet the Inferno is not read solely by fans of gore, contrarily it is often read by literature lovers, philosophers, and religious alike.
Other than its eloquent use of poetic language, the Inferno draws in so many readers because of its allusions to humanity. While the whole Divine Comedy deals with the human condition, the Inferno in particular focuses on the corruption and shortcomings of humans and society as a whole. In each Canto Dante finds and speaks to “shades”, the non-corporal entities of those suffering in Hell. Among them he finds famous poets, politicians, and members of the clergy. Even his guide Virgil, is based on the famous ancient Roman poet damned to the first circle of Hell where those who were worthy but lived before Christianity or were unbaptized remained.
While the whole work has obvious religious overtones and follow a Catholic idea of sins, the gravest offenses which corresponded to the most devastating tortures in the deepest parts of
Hell are those dealing with corruption and malignance towards others and society in general. The seventh circle holds those who committed violence against others, property, and themselves (suicide). The eighth circle contains 10 pouches of torture for those who commit fraud ranging from panderers and seducers to flatterers and fraudulent counselors to the sowers of scandal and schism in the ninth pouch and falsifiers in the tenth.
The final circle of Hell, where Satan remains, is reserved for those who committed treachery. Everything are encased in a frozen lake, the depth of submergence depending on the level of severity of the act of treachery. Treachery can be highly detrimental in and human relationship, community, and society as a whole. It is as rampant now as it was in Dante’s own time. When the state partakes in acts of deception and violations of the trust of its inhabitants, even though it may seem common ground in modern times, the results are devastatingly devaluing to all. If human beings cannot overcome the doomed deeds of treachery, then we only further incase ourselves in our own Hell on Earth where no one can be trusted.
“O you possessed of sturdy intellects,
Observe the teachings that is hidden here
Beneath the veil of verses so obscure.”
(Dante Alighieri. Inferno. Canto IX, verses 61-63)
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