Dante the writer and Dante the character can also appear at odds, at times.ĭante’s punishments, sentenced for eternity, are designed to fit the crime: the lustful unable to make contact with one another due to gusting winds, the violent swim in a boiling pool of blood they spilled, and the treacherous are chewed on by Lucifer himself. One cause for confusion is the fact that Dante functions as both the writer, as well as the main character. The narrative Dante weaves is incredibly complex, to the point that even today readers can get tangled up in the densely woven web of the underworld. Dante’s Inferno brings us down through the winding trenches of hell for a meet-and-greet with history’s most irredeemable. While the text is nearly 700 years old, it remains engaging for us to imagine life after death.

The draw to read and understand Dante continues to captivate readers to this day. He was exiled from his hometown of Florence, during which time he began writing the Divine Comedy. Born in Florence, Italy, in 1265 Dante was a prominent, yet complicated political and cultural figure. His views echo the larger perspective shared by his medieval contemporaries.ĭante himself was a prominent man in Florentine politics.

The Context Of Dante’s Inferno La Divina Commedia di Dante, Domenico di Michelino, 1465, Columbia Collegeĭante Alighieri, the author of the three-part epic poem, The Divine Comedy, presents us with an incredibly conflicted perspective on Antiquity.

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