Examples Of Paganism In Dante's Inferno

Dante's epic poem, Inferno, is obviously a deeply Christian work. One is surprised, then, to find that Inferno is full with allusions to pagan mythology and is inhabited not just by biblical figures, but also by characters of Greek and Roman antiquity. After all, the most important character besides Dante is Virgil, a renowned Roman poet but a pagan nonetheless. It is odd that Dante would give so much authority in his epic to a pagan. Even though this may seem strange to us, Dante finds a way of

achieve a synthesis between narrative and cultural elements derived from paganism and his intentions as a Christian author writing for a Christian audience. Medieval literature in general attempted to do this and Dante was no different with regard to this in his copying of Virgil and the Aeneid in their depictions of hell in pagan mythology. Analysis There are a host of specific examples from pagan mythology in the Inferno. For instance, in Canto 15, we see Dante leaving the wood of suicides. The

Infernal Struggle in Dante’s Inferno and Book VI of The Aeneid Does hell have its own history? For Dante, the structural and thematic history of ‘hell’ in the Inferno begins with the Roman epic tradition and its champion poet, Virgil. By drawing heavily from the characteristics of hell in Book VI of The Aeneid, Dante carries the epic tradition into the medieval world and affirms his indebtedness to Virgil’s poetry. Moreover, Virgil becomes a central character in the Inferno as he guides Dante

and his use of contrapasso. Durante degli Alighieri, usually referred to as Dante (1265-1321), was an Italian poet, moral philosophers, and political thinker best known for his epic poem La divina commedia. Essentially, The Divine Comedy describes Dante's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise guided at first by the Roman poet Virgil, and then by Beatrice, the subject of his undying love. In many ways, though, the poem is both a literary story of a journey and a commentary about the political

with the East. The Islamic world was generally associated with relentless stereotypes, such as the character of the oppressive Oriental ruler, as well as the persistent idea of sexual immorality within Eastern customs. Some Christian doctrines, for example the thirteenth century Franciscan friars, strongly identifies Islam with the coming of the anti-Christ, and many medieval Christian writers displayed resentment towards Islam through attacking the basis of the religion in an attempt to undermine its