Inferno

Image credit: Booktopia

I guess for no other reason than it’s considered a canonical classic and I had never read it before, this week I took a little tour of Hell with the first part of Dante’s epic Divine Comedy, Inferno.

The poem, a splendid trek composed of 34 cantos/stanzas, tells the story of Dante’s being lost in a dark wood (what can best be described as a midlife crisis) and attempting to climb a mountain only to find his way barred by three fearsome beasts. Terrified, his evening becomes stranger when the shade/ghost of the poet Virgil comes to his aid and takes him on a journey through the nine circles of Hell as a means of teaching him to recognise and reject various forms of sin if he’s to end up in the good place.

Despite being an avid reader and a total lover of literature, I really struggle when it comes to poetry. Sadly, it’s a form of writing that my brain cannot fathom and therefore, I can’t really appreciate its majesty as devoted (cleverer) audiences can. However, this week I gave it a shot and came out of Dante’s Inferno feeling a little more cultured and surprisingly moved.

While the references and metaphors may have gone over my head somewhat, what I really enjoyed about Inferno was it’s simple narrative of the journey and the incredible imagery that Dante creates. The nine circles of Hell, each a new and even more horrifying realm of torture and torment than the last, really are the stuff of nightmares. For anyone in deep with those belief structures, it’s the equivalent of having a super horrible hangover in that it’s so painful and sick/fear-inducing enough to make you steer clear from the stuff that got you there.

Image credit: Encyclopedia Britannica

While a fair portion of the poem is written with a dreamlike, majestic, even ethereal tone, a great contrast to the vile, dank, and sordid environments, there are moments during the poem in which Dante falls into a crassly comedic way of describing the places and people, which very nicely gives this sense of mortal man’s malleability and how he can be swayed from good to evil.

The poem itself is metaphoric, dreamlike/nightmarish, and provocative, it might not be the best thing to read right before bedtime, but it’s pretty damned cool.

Inferno is the first part of Dante’s Divine Comedy, written in 1320 and followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso.