Within the pages of the Inferno, Dante Alighieri makes countless references to the Classical world. He appropriates everything from lauded ancient heroes like Ulysses to the very rivers of the Greek underworld and places them in his version of Hell. The way he utilizes these Classical attributes demonstrates the poet’s views on the world of the Greeks as he both celebrates and condemns them. The first appearance of a Classical element in Dante’s magnum opus is at the beginning of the poem in the first canto when the Roman poet Virgil comes to the rescue of the protagonist. Immediately, Dante shows his admiration for the ancient poet explaining that it was from him that the Italian “took the noble style that was to bring [him] honor” (1055).
…show more content…
One of the methods he employs to do this is usurping features from Greek mythology. He takes these features and places them wherever he whims in his written account of Hell, in effect, undermining them. For example, Dante seizes four of the five rivers from the Greek underworld: Acheron, Styx, Phlegethon, and Cocytus. He places them under the domain of his Hell, and, as such, he turns them in property of the Christian faith showing the dominance of said religion over the faith of the ancient Greeks. Dante further demonstrates his God’s supremacy above Greek religion by taking specific religious figures from Greece and forcing them to serve that God in Hell. Charon, for instance, was in charge of ferrying the deceased into the underworld in Greek mythology and takes a similar position in Hell. However, he was not particularly frightening in the service of Hades but is described as a “devil … with eyes of glowing coals” in the Inferno (1063). Another mythological Greek figure that falls under the reigns of Dante’s Hell is King Minos who, like Charon, keeps the same position he had in Hades as judge of the dead but, also like Charon, is corrupted in appearance. He is described as standing “grotesquely, and he snarls” with his “tail in coils” (1067). Plutus, too, is condemned to serve in Hell and took the most tremendous fall from grace since he was …show more content…
A number of the most revered heroes of ancient Greece find themselves damned by the Poet. This can first be seen in the Second Circle of Hell where three central figures of the Trojan War reside: Achilles, Helen, and Paris. In the Iliad, Achilles is the greatest of the Greek heroes and something soldiers aspired to be in Greece but is confined to Hell for his lustfulness by Dante as he judges him by the, at the time of writing, contemporary morality of Catholicism. Similarly, Paris was a renowned hero in Troy and Helen was worth a catastrophic war to both sides, but both are also confined to Hell for their lust. One of the most brazen criticisms of the Greeks made by Dante is done through his treatment of Ulysses. Known as Odysseus by his people, this once highly regarded hero of the Trojan is relegated to the eighth bolgia of the Eighth Circle of Hell. The ancient hero is tormented alongside Diomed where the two “are suffering in anger with each other…and they lament inside one flame the ambush of the horse” (1141). He is condemned to the land of the fraudulent deceivers because of his part in the defeat of Troy with the creation of the Trojan horse. This is a clear criticism of Greek ideals by Dante since the creation and utilization of the horse served as proof of Odysseus’s perfection as a leader and man to the ancients. It was this event that made him a hero and someone to strive
One of the methods he employs to do this is usurping features from Greek mythology. He takes these features and places them wherever he whims in his written account of Hell, in effect, undermining them. For example, Dante seizes four of the five rivers from the Greek underworld: Acheron, Styx, Phlegethon, and Cocytus. He places them under the domain of his Hell, and, as such, he turns them in property of the Christian faith showing the dominance of said religion over the faith of the ancient Greeks. Dante further demonstrates his God’s supremacy above Greek religion by taking specific religious figures from Greece and forcing them to serve that God in Hell. Charon, for instance, was in charge of ferrying the deceased into the underworld in Greek mythology and takes a similar position in Hell. However, he was not particularly frightening in the service of Hades but is described as a “devil … with eyes of glowing coals” in the Inferno (1063). Another mythological Greek figure that falls under the reigns of Dante’s Hell is King Minos who, like Charon, keeps the same position he had in Hades as judge of the dead but, also like Charon, is corrupted in appearance. He is described as standing “grotesquely, and he snarls” with his “tail in coils” (1067). Plutus, too, is condemned to serve in Hell and took the most tremendous fall from grace since he was …show more content…
A number of the most revered heroes of ancient Greece find themselves damned by the Poet. This can first be seen in the Second Circle of Hell where three central figures of the Trojan War reside: Achilles, Helen, and Paris. In the Iliad, Achilles is the greatest of the Greek heroes and something soldiers aspired to be in Greece but is confined to Hell for his lustfulness by Dante as he judges him by the, at the time of writing, contemporary morality of Catholicism. Similarly, Paris was a renowned hero in Troy and Helen was worth a catastrophic war to both sides, but both are also confined to Hell for their lust. One of the most brazen criticisms of the Greeks made by Dante is done through his treatment of Ulysses. Known as Odysseus by his people, this once highly regarded hero of the Trojan is relegated to the eighth bolgia of the Eighth Circle of Hell. The ancient hero is tormented alongside Diomed where the two “are suffering in anger with each other…and they lament inside one flame the ambush of the horse” (1141). He is condemned to the land of the fraudulent deceivers because of his part in the defeat of Troy with the creation of the Trojan horse. This is a clear criticism of Greek ideals by Dante since the creation and utilization of the horse served as proof of Odysseus’s perfection as a leader and man to the ancients. It was this event that made him a hero and someone to strive