I finally finished Inferno yesterday. That thing took forever! It was really awesome but by the end, it was starting to feel like homework. Inferno is totally worth the time to read though. There are many references to it throughout literature and movies, etc. Basically, our 'modern' idea of Hell is based on some of the imagery on Inferno, down to Lucifer having bat wings.
The torture the souls receive is of course, based on the sins they committed in life. Sound familiar? Some of the descriptions are deliciously disturbing. The souls are either mangled or bound in some kind of way. I guess that is the point of Hell, isn't it? To be at least slightly uncomfortable for all eternity?
In the Inferno, your offense also determines your location in the circles. You've probably heard the expression, the ninth circle of Hell? Well, that's a location. And, surprisingly enough, it's made of ice. In the center, people cry and their tears freeze to their body. And Lucifer? He's half immersed in the ice. How much would that suck? He also has three faces and chews on sinners like they're bubble yum. delish.
I looked up Dante in the wikipedia after I finished reading Inferno. I realize that wikipedia is not considered a reliable source for research, but guess what. It's my blog and I'm not trying to turn it into an official research paper. So anyway, Dante had some issues. He chose the losing side in a battle for power in what is now Italy and eventually ended up exiled. This irked him because he loved Florence. I think he wrote Inferno primarily out of frustration and to sort of 'call out' bad behaviors of the people who wronged him. There is one particular part of Dante's Hell which is reserved for corrupt religious leaders and such. That losing side of the battle that I mentioned earlier? Yeah, that was the side that wanted less papal control over the government.
Reading that wiki article took some of the mystique out of Inferno. But it was still a good read and if you want to be in on the references in literature and TV, you might want to pick it up.
That's all I have for now.
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