Dante’s Vision of Hell
2021 marks the 700th death anniversary of Dante, who is credited with having sparked the Renaissance in literature in the 14th century. Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Dante, and Shakespeare (all of them poets) could be viewed as the five pillars on which the edifice of modern western literature is built. Homer was Greek; Virgil, Ovid and Dante were Italian; and Shakespeare was English.
The oldest of these five pillars (Homer) dates back to circa 800 BCE! Information on when he was born and when he died is extremely sketchy. Virgil died in 19 BCE (age 50), Ovid in 17 or 18 CE (age 59-61), Dante in 1321 (age 56), and Shakespeare, in 1616 (age 52). In the realm of literature, their work, collectively, has served as a wellspring of ideas, concepts, and techniques in the past and continues to do so in the present. What boggles the mind is the 2,800-year timeline connecting these five pre-eminent writers.
Homer influenced Virgil, who in turn influenced Dante to such an extent that he included Virgil in the supporting cast of The Divine Comedy, his magnum opus. The influence of Homer and Virgil on Shakespeare is reflected in his two plays, Troilus and Cressida and Hamlet, respectively, while a strong Ovidian influence could be detected in Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It is worth mentioning that Ovid’s Metamorphoses (an epic poem in 15 volumes) probably inspired Shakespeare more than any other classical work. The leading poets of the Augustan age (approximately 43 BCE to 18 CE) were Ovid, Virgil and Horace, whose principal works are included in the Western canon.
The Renaissance in art and architecture, which commenced in the 15th century, is synonymous with the powerful and wealthy
Medici family, which ruled Florence for over 100 years. Not surprisingly, this is where the Renaissance began. The Medici family was famous for its patronage of the arts as well as the sciences. Galileo, for example, was a tutor for the children of the Medici family, which provided generous support for his scientific work. Several artists were also supported by the Medici family, including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael.
The Renaissance in literature was lead by such writers as Petrarch and Boccaccio. (The great Hungarian composer, Franz Liszt, was so taken up with Petrarch’s sonnets that he set three of them to music.) Petrarch was only 17, and Boccaccio, only 8, when Dante Alighieri died. Both were heavily influenced in adult life by this literary giant. Hence, one could safely assume that Dante was the fountainhead of the Italian Renaissance in literature. Prior to becoming a poet, writer and philosopher, Dante was a politician, who fought for the Guelphs against the Ghibellines. Though the Guelphs eventually won the battle, they soon split into two rival factions: the White Guelphs and the Black Guelphs. Eventually the latter seized power and banished Dante from Florence as he was aligned with the former. Dante, at the time, was in Rome on a diplomatic mission. When he realised he would never see his beloved Florence again, he was overcome with grief and despair. Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise as it led to his metamorphosis from warring politician to epic allegorical poet. The impact of Dante on the evolution of modern fiction cannot be overemphasised. Moreover, there are so many paintings and statues of Dante in his native city that one wonders if he was the most famous Florentine who ever lived!
Though his literary output is vast, he is best known for his monumental work, The Divine Comedy, written entirely in verse form. To say that Italian is the language of Dante is not an overstatement as Italian did not exist as a codified language prior to Dante. It was Dante who painstakingly molded a bewildering array of Italian dialects ornamented with Latin into a common written language. Though the themes explored in The Divine Comedy are formal, the language is not. Hence, this epic narrative poem marks a turning point in the evolution of Italian literature from an earlier classical form into a modern vernacular form.
The poem (consisting of 100 cantos) is divided into three interconnected parts – Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso – which have to be read in their entirety to be fully comprehended. But here’s the nub: there’s nothing comic about Dante’s descent into hell and his
frightening encounter with Satan (Part I), his long and tortuous journey through purgatory (Part II), and his eventual ascent to God (Part III). Which begs the question, why is this grim personal journey with its horrific adventures and morbid encounters called The Divine Comedy?
Anyone who has read Dan Brown’s Inferno (inspired by Dante’s Inferno) may recall what the protagonist, Robert Langdon, said in this regard: “In the fourteenth century, Italian literature was, by requirement, divided into two categories: tragedy, representing high literature, was written in formal Italian; comedy, representing low literature, was written in the vernacular and geared toward the general population. The Divine Comedy was written in the vernacular – the language of the people. Even so, it brilliantly fused religion, history, politics, philosophy, and social commentary in a tapestry of fiction that, while erudite, remained wholly accessible to the masses.”
In the late 15th century, Botticelli, the great Renaissance artist, produced an illustrated version of The Divine Comedy, commissioned by Lorenzo de Medici. Of the 92 drawings in the original manuscript, one entitled The Map of Hell (La Mappa dell’Inferno), plays a central role in the Dan Brown novel. A subterranean funnel of eternal damnation, The Map of Hell is a graphic visual presentation of hell’s gruesome punishments. So grotesque and outlandish is the imagery that it makes one’s hair stand on end. Since The Map of Hell has nine distinct levels, it is also known as The Nine
Rings of Hell. So intricate and profoundly disturbing is the artwork that it is regarded as one of Botticelli’s finest achievements. In the final analysis, producing The Map of Hell was Botticelli’s way of paying tribute to Dante’s unmatched genius.
The protagonist in The Divine Comedy is the pilgrim Dante. An intriguing feature of the poem is the supporting cast which consists of three guides: Virgil, Beatrice, and St Bernard of Clairvaux (a 12th-centrury Benedictine monk). Beatrice was Dante’s muse. He first saw her when he was nine years old and confessed that he fell madly in love with her. Boccaccio, author of The Decameron, established that the muse, who was married to a wellknown Florentine banker, died in 1290 at the age of 25. Her full name was Beatrice di Folco Portinari and her nickname was Bice.
The Divine Comedy could be viewed as one of the finest allegorical works of all time. Let us dip into the Dan Brown novel for another rich quotation: “In the seven centuries since its publication, Dante’s enduring vision of hell had inspired tributes, translations, and variations by some of history’s greatest creative minds. Longfellow, Chaucer, Marx, Milton, Balzac, Borges, and even several popes had all written pieces based on Dante’s Inferno. Monteverdi, Liszt, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, and Puccini composed pieces based on Dante’s work.” Given the profound admiration that Michelangelo had for Dante, it is entirely possible that his celebrated work, The Last Judgment, was also inspired by Dante’s stark narrative of his personal journey through the bowels of hell.
Curiously, Chaucer (who wrote in the vernacular) was intimately familiar with The Divine Comedy but not Shakespeare, who was born two centuries after him. According to the available evidence, Shakespeare knew very little about Dante or his work. On the other hand comparative studies of Dante and Chaucer suggest that the former (vis-à-vis The Divine Comedy) significantly influenced the latter in respect of his principal work, The Canterbury Tales.
We shall conclude with the opening stanza of The Divine Comedy which is etched in the minds of all Dante devotees:
Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a dark forest, For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Though his literary output is vast, he is best known for his monumental work, The Divine Comedy, written entirely in verse form. To say that Italian is the language of Dante is not an overstatement as Italian did not exist as a codified language prior to Dante.