The document discusses The Divine Comedy, an epic poem by Dante Alighieri. It describes how Dante was initially influenced by medieval metaphysics and political events. The Divine Comedy describes Dante's journey through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, and through sin, repentance, and salvation. Considered one of the greatest works of literature in Italian, it has had a profound influence on theology and imagination of the afterlife.

2. I was introduced to The Divine Comedy when I
was a senior in high school. At first, I thought
it was just another book that we had to read.
But, after reading the
first canto, I couldn’t
put the book down.

3. Dante is seen as
the father of
modern Italian,
and his works
have flourished
greatly
throughout his
lifetime

4. He was greatly
influenced in his
writing by medieval
metaphysics and
political events.

5. Dante Alighieri was an Italian poet
and a moral philosopher best
known for the epic poem The
Divine Comedy

6. His work, the divine comedy is divided
into sections representing the three tiers
of the Christian afterlife: purgatory,
heaven, and hell.
The entire Divine Comedy : the Inferno, Purgatorio and
Paradisio, is about the symbolic voyage through
hell, purgatory and into heaven.

7. This great poem, a work of
medieval literature is generously
considered the greatest work of
literature comprised in Italian

8. a philosophical
Christian vision
of mankind’s
eternal fate.

9. Dante’s Inferno describes Dante’s
journey into and throughout hell, with
Virgil as his guide, who Dante ironically
looks up to.

10. The Divine comedy
is the spiritual
voyage through
sin, repentance, pen
ance for sin, and
salvation.

11. DAnte wrote his work in
the common language of
Italian at the time. he did
this so people who read
his book would know the
road that they were on in
terms of whether or not
they were going to heaven
or hell.

12. Each section contains 33 cantos plus the
introduction which when added up equals One
hundred which stands for
The Father, The Son, and The Holy
Spirit.

13. although critics and commentators normally
address the work as a whole, the first
canticle, Inferno, is the main canto that has met
with the most avid critical response.

14. Dante’s
Inferno has
influenced
the mind of
the
medieval,
the
renaissance
and even
the modern
thinker.

15. Our vision of hell
is mainly
influenced by
Dante than by any
other scripture
written.
IN
fact, Scripture
says quite
little about
hell.

16. Dante’s work has given
much imagination
when it comes to hell
and what it contains.

17. Dante was also the first one to use his
imagination to devise a hell in which the
punishments suited the crime.

18. Modern writers like T. S. Eliot, Ezra
Pound, Samuel Beckett, and James
Joyce have all gone back to Dante for
imagery as well as countless other
artists who have gone to these pages
for inspiration.

19. The idea of “levels” of hell, and demons that
act as some kind of civil servants for torture,
comes straight from Dante. Even Milton felt the
influence of Dante, as he populated his hell
with devils and torture devices.

20. Though, Dante’s work fell into dishonor
during the Enlightenment, only to be
discovered later by Blake and the
metaphysical poets.

21. Today, we can
see that even
our
understanding
of heaven and
hell is owed to
this man’s work.

22. The Divine
Comedy by
Dante
Alighieri was
crucial to the
development
of literature
and
theological
thinking.

23. Even so, Inferno
continues to be a
very relevant
piece of religious
literature that
should still be
used today.

24. Citations
http://www.humanities360.com/index.php/the-historicimportance-of-inferno-by-dante-alighieri-3-51699/
https://www.stanford.edu/dept/DLCL/cgibin/web/files/lummus-inferno-influence.pdf
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dante/
http://www.greatdante.net