Dante's Inferno

In Dante’s Inferno we read of the nine circles of Hell and why souls are put there based on Dante’s Christian view of their sins. There are people suffering in the cores of Hell due to lust, adultery, suicide, gluttony, greed, etc. Souls suffer as they grieve their contrapasso punishment for the atrocities they have done while in their bodies on Earth. They have been traitors to the word of God and now they are destined to spend their eternities in Hell where they constantly remember the sins they have caused against the bible, Christ and God. Though there are the souls in Limbo that suffer from never knowing the word of God. These souls in Limbo are those that were Pagans and the unbaptized infants. But now the question is why does Dante place these souls in these certain circles of Hell and how does he decide? Dante lived in a Midlevel time of Christianity and based his view on what his religion taught them. How does Dante’s view of Hell in his time compare to Christianity’s modern view of Hell. I myself being of the same religion, I have come to believe that everyone can be forgiven as long as they truly repent the sins they have committed. It is not if you commit one sin that you are doomed to live your life in Hell, but rather that if you ask for forgiveness and repent the right way you can still make your way to heaven. As we read through Dante’s Inferno we can clearly see that Dante does have harsh feeling for a few popes of his time such as Pope Boniface VIII. Dante was born and raised in Florence, Italy near mid or late 1200’s. Throughout his time, there were issues with politics in Florence. The Florentines ended up splitting into the Neri (Blacks) and Bianchi (Whites); Dante was a Bianchi (Hollander). The issue had been that the Whites wanted more freedom from the church, while the Blacks remained under the Pope Boniface VIII’s ruling. For a time the Whites were in power, but soon the Blacks took over. Whites later invaded the city and

Citations: Alighieri, Dante and Gustave Dore. Inferno. Trans. Anthony, Esolen. New York: The Modern Library, 2005. Print Bullinger, E. W. The Number Nine. The Bible Study Website. Web. 3 Dec. 2010. <http://biblestudy.org>. Gilmour, Nathan. P. Dante 2008: The Inferno. Hardly the Last Word, 2008. Web. 5 Dec. 2010. <http://hardlylastword.com>. Hollander, Robert. Princeton Dante Project. Princeton University, 1997. Web. 2 Dec. 2010. <http://bookteacher.org>. What Does the Bible Say. Got Questions?Org, 2002. Web. 2 Dec. 2010. <http://gotquestions.org>.