Difference between revisions of "Dante's Inferno"
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[[Image:Gfdyte7y6.jpg|right|thumb|300px|Satan is trapped in the frozen central zone in the Ninth Circle of Hell, Inferno, Canto 34.]] | [[Image:Gfdyte7y6.jpg|right|thumb|300px|Satan is trapped in the frozen central zone in the Ninth Circle of Hell, Inferno, Canto 34.]] | ||
| − | The first | + | The '''Inferno''' is the first of the three cantiche in [[Dante]]'s poetic work, ''The Divine Comedy,'' about his imagined trip to [[Hell]] ('Inferno' is the Italian word for 'Hell'). It is very frightening. According to Dante, the inscription at the entrance to Hell reads "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." |
''The Divine Comedy'' was most famously illustrated by Gustave Doré, whose very literal interpretations of the punishments sinners suffer in Hell are truly horrifying. | ''The Divine Comedy'' was most famously illustrated by Gustave Doré, whose very literal interpretations of the punishments sinners suffer in Hell are truly horrifying. | ||
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[[Category:Poetry]] | [[Category:Poetry]] | ||
Revision as of 16:29, September 5, 2008
The Inferno is the first of the three cantiche in Dante's poetic work, The Divine Comedy, about his imagined trip to Hell ('Inferno' is the Italian word for 'Hell'). It is very frightening. According to Dante, the inscription at the entrance to Hell reads "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."
The Divine Comedy was most famously illustrated by Gustave Doré, whose very literal interpretations of the punishments sinners suffer in Hell are truly horrifying.
In Popular Culture
A 2002 best-selling mystery novel by Matthew Pearl, The Dante Club, is a piece of historical fiction set in Boston in 1865. It is based partly on real events; the Dante Club was real, the mystery story is not. At the time, not many people in the United States knew Italian or Dante's work. A group of writers formed a club to translate Dante's work and promote his importance. Three of them were Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell. Like Dante's work itself, it has frightening and gruesome scenes, but is rich in historical background.