Rick Reads The Life's Work of an English Teacher

Review of Inferno

A brief review of Inferno for new participants joining the Purgatorio study.

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Entering the Dark Wood

Inferno: A 34 Canto Descent

A brief review for new participants joining our Purgatorio study.

Dante’s journey begins in confusion, fear, and spiritual crisis.

A lone traveler in a hooded robe on a dark forest path.

Dante’s World: Sources & Influences

  • Christian Scripture and theology
  • Classical epic tradition (Virgil, Homer, Ovid, Lucan)
  • Aristotelian ethics (via Aquinas)
  • Medieval Florence: politics, exile, corruption

An illustration of the sources that shaped Dante's world.

Dante’s Purposes

  • Moral: Reveal sin’s true nature
  • Spiritual: Chart the soul’s ascent
  • Political: Critique corruption
  • Poetic: Elevate the Italian vernacular

An illustration of Dante's four purposes.

Dante’s Definition of Sin

Disordered love + misdirected reason

Scholars: Augustine, Aquinas

Contrapasso: punishment reveals inner truth by demonstrating the nature of the sin.

The Three Divisions of Sin

  • Incontinence: Souls swept by chaotic winds and rain, symbolizing lack of self-control. Figures reach upward but are carried away by stormy motion.
  • Violence: A fiery landscape divided into three zones: a river of boiling blood, a forest of twisted trees, and a burning desert under falling flames.
  • Fraud: A labyrinth of bridges and ditches (Malebolge) where serpents, demons, and deceivers writhe in shadow.

Three panels showing the storm of incontinence, the fires of violence, and the ditches of fraud.

The Architecture of Hell

  • Funnel-shaped pit beneath Jerusalem
  • Nine circles arranged by gravity of sin
  • Increasing distortion of love and reason

Hell as a funnel-shaped pit that narrows toward the bottom.

The Nine Circles

  1. Limbo (A dark, Hades-like realm)
  2. Lust (Winds)
  3. Gluttony (Garbage snowing down)
  4. Avarice (Rolling great weights)
  5. Wrath (Marsh of the Styx)
  6. Heresy (Red-Hot Tombs)
  7. Violence (Phlegethon, Suicides’ Wood, Desert)
  8. Fraud (Malebolge)
  9. Treachery (Cocytus)

The nine circles of Hell, one above the next.

The Guardians

  • Charon ferrying souls into Hell (not shown)
  • Minos coiled around the entrance, judging souls with his tail.
  • Cerberus snarling over the gluttonous.
  • Plutus looming with golden hoard.
  • Phlegyas steering his boat across the Styx.
  • The Fallen Angels guarding the walls of Dis (not shown)
  • The Minotaur raging at the edge of the violent circle.
  • Geryon descending with patterned wings and serpent tail.
  • The Giants standing in wells, many of them chained.
  • Lucifer frozen at the bottom, three faces devouring traitors.

The guardians of Hell in a single illustration.

Representative Sinners

  • Pope Celestine V
  • Homer, Aeneas, Saladin
  • Paolo & Francesca
  • Ciacco
  • Anonymous clerics
  • Filippo Argenti
  • Farinata
  • Alexander the Great
  • Pier delle Vigne
  • Jacopo da Santo Andrea
  • Capaneus
  • Brunetto Latini
  • Unnamed usurers
  • Jason/Venedico Caccianemico
  • Thais
  • Pope Nicholas III
  • Teiresias
  • Michael Scot
  • Caiaphas
  • Vanni Fucci
  • Ulysses & Diomede
  • Bertran de Born
  • Master Adam/Gianni Schicchi
  • Bocca degli Abati
  • Ugolino & Ruggieri
  • Friar Alberigo
  • Satan (Brutus, Judas, Cassius)

Six panels labeled Luxuria, Haeresis, Violentia contra naturam, Fraus, Proditio, and Simonia, above a scene of gold and scattered tools.

Beatrice at the top of a triangle, with terza rima and the three beasts at the base. The caption reads: Love, Language, and Moral Order.

Other Instances of the Recurring Pattern

  • The Commedia consists of three canticles: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso
  • Terza rima (three-line stanzas called tercets)
  • Three beasts (leopard, lion, and she-wolf)
  • Three heavenly ladies move to initiate Dante’s journey (Mary, St. Lucia, Beatrice)
  • Three divisions of sin (incontinence, violence, fraud)
  • Three faces of Lucifer (a parody of the Trinity)
  • Three sinners in Satan’s three mouths (Brutus, Judas, Cassius)

Transition from Inferno to Purgatorio

  • Repentance
  • Intervening grace:
    • Healing
    • Reordered love
    • Virtue restored

An illustration of the turn from Hell toward repentance and grace.

Transition to Purgatorio

Inferno has revealed the truth of sin.

Purgatorio reveals the possibility of transformation.

Read Canto I of Purgatorio for next week. Be sure to look over the notes for that canto in the back of the book.

A map of the mountain of Purgatory, from the shore of the excommunicates up through seven terraces to the earthly paradise.