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This 5 page paper discusses the function that religion performs in Dante's "Inferno" and argues that the poem makes no sense unless it is seen as a work set in a religious framework.Bibliography lists 2 sources.
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5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVRlgInf.rtf
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description of a vision he had of the journey of a soul from hell to paradise. The Inferno is probably the best well known of the three; like Satan in
Miltons Paradise Lost, all the most interesting characters seem to be in Hell. This paper explores the function of religion in the Inferno. Discussion The short answer is that religion
and religious concepts of the afterlife provide the framework for the poem, which is a guided tour of the Pit. When we talk about the "circles of Hell," this is
where we got the expression, for Dante envisioned the Inferno as being divided into nine circles, each lower than the one before, until at the bottom Satan is sitting in
a lake of ice, not fire, gnawing endlessly on the three greatest betrayers in history: Judas, Brutus and Cassius. Perhaps the most unique thing about the Inferno is that the
people condemned to it all suffer punishments suitable for the crimes they committed while they were alive. In addition, the punishments grow more severe the lower Dante goes; at its
bottom the Inferno is icy and miserable. Paolo Milano, who edited The portable Dante, gives us insight into the importance of religion to the poet and to the time in
which he lived when he says that the poem is not the result of Dantes inner contemplation, "it is rooted in the immediate Christian world of the year 1300, as
seen by a Tuscan exile" (Milano, 1947, p. xxiii). But Dante seems as comfortable in the pagan universe as in the Christian one, in fact his guide is the Roman
poet Virgil rather than one of the saints. "Intellectually he prizes the Christian virtues-humility, temperance, obedience. Yet he cannot help admiring singleness of purpose and strength of will, whatever their
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