International Center for Ethereal Containment and Control

In Dante's Inferno, Dante, on his quest to reach Heaven, is thwarted by three beasts. Each beast represents a particular category of sin -- the lion of violence, the she-wolf of waste, the leopard of malice. Finally, Virgil, the famous poet who had also detailed Hell's terrain, rescues Dante from the Dark Wood. He explains that the only way to see Heaven is to go through Hell. Beatrice, Dante's lost love, sent Virgil to guide Dante through the darkness. And boy is it dark down there.

Dante's Inferno has everything. For one, it was written in the vulgar Italian rather than Latin. In other words, it was one of the first dime novels, written with both the educated reader and the novice in mind. Not unlike Shakespeare's approach. This is most evident in the alternating allusions to Roman and Greek history vs. the base (and funny) fart that the malebranche use as a form of salute. Only Dante would create a work where you have to know a vast body of Greek works to truly appreciate the references -- and then conclude it with a devil's fart.

Dante also plays up the base horror factor. In one canto, Geryon comes swooping towards them as a mysterious shape...a cliffhanger! Although Dante is no modern writer, he paved the way for a very modern style of writing.

And oh yeah, all of this RHYMES. Dante rigidly sticks to a particular rhythm; a man truly obsessed with numbers, every line, every phrase, means something.

Are there flaws? Absolutely. Mostly, Dante's knowledge is spotty -- he confuses references to Cassius and other famous characters, although other writers at the time were equally confused (usually, it's a poor translation or another legendary character with the same name that causes the confusion). But we can forgive Dante for all that, because in some sense he's crafting an entirely new mythology. Certainly, Dante shaped the images of hell in modern culture today, be it the joke about the guy who has to stick his head in shit in hell or the idea that hell is a place where everybody burns -- it's all in the Inferno.

One particular passage is especially evocative:

"For suddenly, as I watched, I saw a lizard come darting forward on six great taloned feet and fasten itself to a sinner from crotch to gizzard. Its middle feet sank in the sweat and grime of the wretch's paunch, its forefeet clamped his arms, its teeth bith through both cheecks. At the same time its hind feet fastened on the sinner's thighs: its tail trhough through his legs and cloised its coil over his loins. I saw it with my own eyes!"

Reminds me of Alien.

Dante's Inferno is a classic. It contains everything from Minotaurs to Medusa, Cerberus to Cocytus, Charon to Dis. It was required reading for my forthcoming Abyss book. But anyone who has any interest in fantasy or hell should take a look.

This version is useful (if somewhat sparse on analysis) because it provides plenty of diagrams.

Labels: Ghost Reviews