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The Role Of Justice In Dante's Inferno

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The Inferno, an epic allegory and part one of the Divine Comedy, described Dante’s pilgrimage through Hell, guided by Virgil, the ancient Roman poet. In the Italian poet’s work, he provided readers with in-depth imagery of Hell, its inhabitants, and gruesome, but just punishments. The Inferno was an unprecedented, but controversial work for its time. While it damned officials of the Church and contained unconventional, imaginative ideas, which may not have been well received, the poem created a more solid description of what awaits those who do not abide by the laws of God. Today, Dante’s work raises questions on what inspired him, its reception from the medieval Catholic Church, as well as its effects on the artistic community during the late …show more content…

By Dante having described his pilgrimage through Hell, guided by Virgil, the ancient Roman poet in a vernacular language, he has allowed knowledge dealing with how the church can be corrupt to be obtained en mass. The Italian poet’s work also provided readers with vivid imagery of Hell, its inhabitants, and gruesome, poetic- justice style punishments. The Inferno was an unprecedented, but controversial work for its time mostly because of the light it shed on church corruption. Had it not damned officials of the Church and contained as many unconventional, imaginative ideas, which were very well received, the poem could have created a more solid description of what awaits those who do not abide by the laws of God for the church to use against the common people. In comparing the receptions of Dante’s from the medieval Catholic Church and those of the artistic community during the late Medieval and early Renaissance era, it has been proven that the Inferno . Dante immortalized those he held in high regards, but used his knowledge of language to show how much contempt should be placed on the church. Since the publication of the Inferno, Dante has spawned and tended to others fertile imagination, along with being accepted with varying degrees of skepticism by Catholic Churches everywhere. While it seems out of place that this “pagan pseudo-philosophical” ideology of the immortal soul and its otherworldly journey, which is separate and unlike any text in the Bible, has been so accepted, it possibly strengthened the following of the medieval Catholic

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