Retro Rants: Dante's Inferno

I Find Your Lack of Faith….Disturbing.

I’m going to be perfectly honest here, dear reader: I have a special place in my heart for Dante’s Inferno. In fact, I try and make a point of reading it at least once a year.

There’s an undeniable gothic beauty to the horrors witnessed by Dante and Virgil on their safari through the rougher side of the Christian afterlife, and Dante’s charmingly antiquated writing style so fully embodies the spirit of the Renaissance that you’ll find yourself caring more about Florentine politics than you perhaps already do.

And it’s just so creative!

I don’t know what kind of marinara fueled fever dream this man experienced in order to come up with a scenario where a bunch of people who spent their lives fortune telling are punished by having their heads turned a complete 180 degrees so the tears from their constant weeping fall down their back and through their ass crack for all eternity but I’d certainly like to never experience the same.

Seriously, Dante, are you ok? Because it seems like you are very not ok.

For those of you who are unaware The Inferno involves the poet Dante Alighieri as he traverses through the circles of hell. However, let me take this opportunity to say that said circles of hell and the punishments therein are an entirely poetic invention and aren’t actually in the bible or, you know, actually mentioned anywhere in the Christian religion. I say this because I’ve met a surprising amount of people who think otherwise and I find their willingness to accept Italian fanfiction at face value a little unnerving.

And make no mistake, dear reader, that’s just what The Inferno is: fan fiction.

Mind you, it’s by far and away the best piece of self-insert fan fiction I’ve ever read….well, make that the only good piece.

You see, while Dante is traversing through hell he encounters certain wayward souls experiencing all manner of grisly punishments. Some of them are famous characters of classical lore such as Achilles or Odysseus.

Others are much, much more contemporary.

That’s right. Dante didn’t just use The Inferno to express the horrors of divine punishment. Oh, no, dear reader, Dante used The Inferno to throw massive amounts of shade at people he didn’t like.

Becoming the avatar of the stereotypical author quip “be careful or you’ll end up in my novel,” Dante took famous murderers of his own time, enemies of his political faction, and even people who’d made the mistake of slighting him personally and condemning them (and in some cases several generations of their family) to eternal torment in the section of the Christian afterlife that isn’t likely to get a good Yelp review.

Think my hat looks stupid? Well, into Malebolge you go

It’s vindictive. It’s shallow. Why, some may even call it cruel of him to do such a thing.

Given that some people Dante mentions as having a spot reserved for them in hell would have been alive to read The Inferno it was undeniably arrogant.

And oh how I love him for it.

The knowledge that this grand epic of Divine righteousness is punctuated with personal shit-talking somehow makes it all the more enjoyable, like finding a surprise curly fry in a basket of straight chips.

Now, like many classics, I’d say whether or not you end up enjoying The Inferno comes down to your translation. I rolled with the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow version (with introduction and notes by Peter Bondanella) and found it to be manageable. At least it didn’t suck itself off about how grand of an undertaking it was like some other versions I’ve seen.

Regardless, I hope you find a translation that works for you and that you give it a try. It’ll fit in perfectly on your bookshelf nestled between your standard copies of Dracula and Frankenstein (and you can throw Paradise Lost into the lineup if you’re feeling particularly edgy).