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Emily Richards

10/13/2017

ENG 401

Paper One

How Man Makes Himself Eternal

Dante Alighieri, both the narrator and the protagonist of his epic work The

Divine Comedy, creates the most comprehensive imagination of Hell known to man

in the first installment, Inferno. Meticulously designed and logically explained, each

type of sinner suffers from a violently miserable and ironic punishment, or

contrapasso. Dante journeys through this landscape with the ancient poet Virgil by

his side, and together they reveal unpopular truths regarding political, religious, and

cultural corruption within his 13th century city of Florence.

Although Dante’s Inferno serves as commentary on his time, he touches on

universal hopes and fears shared by generations of readers. For example, why is

humanity fascinated with memorializing our past? What is the significance behind a

person’s desire for their story to continue beyond their earthly life? The concept of

mortality is prevalent throughout The Divine Comedy—Dante drives home that at

some point, everyone must meet death. What Dante provides in the works, however,

is a look at the possibilities of life after death and the eternal story of the soul.

Dante’s storytelling is a vehicle for multiple legacies: the story’s subjects as well as

the story of Dante himself. Throughout Dante’s narration and his role as a pilgrim in

Inferno, he preserves his own identity and memory as well as the memory of the
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sinners’ souls that he encounters, historicizing both him and individuals in

narratives that remain alive to this day.

First and foremost, Dante’s Inferno is the first of three volumes that alludes to

his prodigious writing skills, and manifests his own identity as one of history’s

literary geniuses. Aligning himself with another legendary poet, his works

continually refer to Virgil’s Aeneid both in literary devices as well as plot choices.

Dante looks up to Virgil as a mentor and liaison to the otherworldly, but as the

journey progresses Dante grows into Virgil’s equal. For example, later Cantos (such

as 15 and 19) show Dante the pilgrim forming judgments about the sinners that he

encounters, as well as predictions of his own future without Virgil’s input. The

pilgrim becomes less of Virgil’s student overcome with pity over the fate of the

damned, and instead takes on a new persona of commentator and prophet. This

progression of Dante the pilgrim parallels Dante the narrator’s growth from simply

a political figure to a literary, cultural, religious, and political force within Italian

society after his exile.

Inferno is often seen as a detailed documentary of the political, economic, and

social developments of Dante’s times, and in his words he creates a historical

narrative of Florence that remains relevant to this day. “Dante documents an age of

major turning points in European history … early capitalism… the development of

international finance… the menacing rise of the nation state… and the increasing

involvement of the Catholic Church” (Durling 4). Throughout the Cantos, Dante

exposes hypocrisy and corruption in the earthly world through the fate of immortal

souls. Therefore, he places the story of Florence and its inhabitants beyond
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mortality; the narrative of the city Dante calls home cannot die because the truths

that he has written will outlive even his own earthly body. His viewpoint of the city

in this specific time period lives on within a larger historical narrative as a result of

Inferno. Dante, as well as the rest of the Florentine souls in the afterlife, remain

forever memorialized on Earth through the poetry.

Similar to the ways in which Dante immortalizes both himself and 13th

century Florence, the individuals that the chooses to speak with in Inferno each have

a specific purpose and, though now dead, their words and actions have remained

alive through their inclusion in this text. “For Dante, the fate of the individual is

inextricably bound up with that of society as a whole, but the great principles are

always seen in terms of the actions and words of concretely represented

individuals” (Durling 3). Dante uses the sins and respective punishments of his

sinners to reflect upon society’s shortcomings. He chooses not only his enemies but

also his friends as members of Hell, desiring to be considered fair. Regardless of

their relationship with Dante, “the most notable figures of the Dantean

underworld… have continued to take on powerful contemporary guises” (Havely 4).

To this day, the subjects Dante speaks with in Hell generate debate and discussion

within political, literary, cultural, and religious spheres.

Inferno focuses heavily on politics, and one of the key people that Dante

historically preserves in his writing is his political opponent Farinata (Canto 10). As

Dante walks through the circle of the Heretics, he hears a voice call out to him; “O

Tuscan who through the city of fire, alive, walk along speaking so modestly, let it

please you to stop at this place” (Canto 10 22-24). We hear the story of Farinata, in
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Hell because of his status as an Epicurean but otherwise an honorable man who

tried to save Florence from corruption. Although Dante condemns him, he gives

Farinata a chance to defend himself: “But I alone, there where all others would have

suffered Florence to be razed, was the one who defended her openly” (Canto 10 91-

93). Through providing extra context in Farinata’s story, Dante portrays his political

opponent in a more objective light, therefore further validating Dante’s stance as

fair and impartial.

Although Farinata’s life on earth is over (a state which is definitive and

immutable), Dante’s recognition of him gives Farinata a sort of phantom body, and

therefore he is linked to the earthly world through memory (Auerback 229).

Realizing that this is his only chance to speak to one among the living, Farinata

expresses himself with urgency and intensity, therefore bringing, “into the

changelessness of their eternal fate a moment of dramatic historicity” (Auerback

230). Without Dante’s inclusion of Farinata’s unique story, the man would simply

fall into the category of nameless, faceless political figures that were included in

historical narratives involving Florence’s fall into corruption.

In Canto 5 (the lustful), Dante tells the story of doomed lovers Francesca and

Paolo, who are eternally battered about in an unforgiving wind. Two of the first

people that Dante speaks with in Inferno, they overcome him with pity as they tell

him the story of, “us who stained the world blood red” (Canto 5, 89). This encounter

has become, “practically mythic; sometimes taken out of context of the whole, it has

been turned into operas, plays and…into the subject of literary criticism” (Kenney

1). Here, Dante explores the age-old trope of forbidden love between a man and a
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woman when it is secret and treacherous, and the consequences that arise from

choices made in the throes of passion (Kenney 1). This archetype has remained in

use throughout history; from Boccaccio, to Shakespeare, to modern writers of our

day such as F. Scott Fitzgerald. Paolo and Francesca are immortalized as

figureheads of the negative effects of lust, and are remembered today as one of

modern society’s first stories about ‘star crossed lovers’.

Similar to Farinata and the doomed lovers, the political and religious servant

Piero Della Vigna in Canto 13 requests that Dante grant him the service of

historicizing his fall from grace. Piero begs Dante to reveal his story to the public in

a fair and true way, in order to be remembered as more than simply his sin of

suicide. Accused of disloyalty and betrayal of the Church, Piero committed suicide to

avoid the pain and humiliation fostered upon him by his peers. Dante resonates with

this story of exile that caused Piero to be, “unjust against my just self,” (Canto 13 72)

and in turn grants Piero’s wish: “if either of you goes back into the world, strengthen

my memory, languishing still beneath the blow that envy dealt it” (Canto 13 76-78).

Dante continues to take their histories into his own beyond, cutting the dead

off from the earthly present but placing them in literary memory (Auerbach 231).

Piero’s story, while it could have been a simply told tale of weakness and unjustified

violence against the self, can now be contested as a result of his lines in Inferno.

Dante’s portrayal paints him as an honorable man who, in a moment of anger and

confusion, made a choice that solidified his eternal damnation. Although he is in hell,

just like Farinata he depends on Dante to preserve his multifaceted story in the

pages of the Inferno.

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Dante’s audience is aware of his placement of both friends and foes within

the various circles of Hell, however it comes as a bit of a surprise when the pilgrim

encounters Brunetto Latini, his former teacher, in Canto 15. Brunetto was an

invaluable source of knowledge in Dante’s early years, providing him with, “an

important early example of civic engagement inspired by classical models” (Durling

10). Dante, true to form, shows no mercy and condemns Brunetto to Hell,

considering him a sodomite who had, “done violence to nature by ignoring and

actively undermining the natural political order, namely the world monarchy of the

Roman Empire” (Kay 1). While Dante the narrator does subject Brunetto to eternal

punishment, he also memorializes the significance that Brunetto had on Dante’s life

and literary career. Dante says to Brunetto: “you used to teach me how man makes

himself eternal; and how grateful I am for that, as long as I live must be discerned in

my language” (Canto 15 85-86). This line is the most telling of Dante’s own desire to

live beyond his words, and have his stories be available for posterity.

Certainly, Dante’s brilliant poetry has earned him a place in history as one of

the most influential literary figures of all time. Dante’s Inferno is often called “…a

mythic journey from self-destruction to self-discovery [that] has been continuously

appropriated as a means of confronting personal and political crises” (Durling 3).

Through his works, he has solidified his memory—as well as the memory of those

whose stories he chose to reveal— within a crucial turning point of world history.

His work serves as a point of reference for countless writers; Inferno was a model

for Petrarch, Boccaccio and other writers in the Florentine vernacular (Durling 3).
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In addition, famous literary names such as Chaucer, Mary Shelley, and T.S.

Eliot (to name a few) have been cited as profoundly influenced by Dante’s work, in

spite of the fact that the culture from which each one came from is so distant from

Dante’s reality (Havely 4). His works also serve as a reference point for many who

are trying any means of addressing, understanding and negotiating traumatic pasts;

world wars, Holocausts, or any other manifestation of Hell on Earth (Havely 5).

Although Paolo, Francesca, Farinata, Piero, Brunetto, and Dante are no longer

physically present, their legacy lives on through the stories told in Inferno. They

remain relevant to the world today because Dante, through his literary genius,

humanized the pilgrim and those he encountered on the journey that details the

most severe consequences of human error.

WORKS CITED

Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno. Edited by

Robert Durling. Oxford University Press, 1996.

Auerbach, Erich. Farinata and Cavalcante. The Kenyon Review. Kenyon

College, 1952. Accessed 10-10-2017.

Havely, Nick. Dante’s Modern Afterlife. St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

Kenney, Theresa. From Francesca to Francesco: Transcribing the Tale of

Passion from the “Inferno” to the “Paradiso”. The University of Notre Dame. 1999.

Accessed 9/10/2017.

Kay, Richard. “The Sin(s) of Brunetto Latini.” Dante Studies, with the Annual
Report of the Dante Society. 1994. www.jstor.org/stable/40166487