Theme Of Allegory In Dante's Inferno

“Dante was an Italian poet and moral philosopher best known for the epic poem The Divine Comedy...This poem, a great work of medieval literature and considered the greatest work of literature composed in Italian...”(Biography.com Editors). Dante is considered one of the greatest poets in the history of literature. His text, The Divine Comedy, was written at around 1300, yet is still being read by modern college students. This is a clear way to see that Dante’s work rivals that of Virgil and Homer. One literary device that Dante utilizes in his famous poem is an allegory. “an allegory is ‘the use of symbols in a story, picture, etc., to convey a hidden or ulterior meaning, typically a moral or political one; symbolic representation’”(Baker). Throughout his poem, Inferno, Dante uses an allegory in each one of his Cantos. Examples of such allegories present in Dante’s, Inferno can be found in Canto 1, …show more content…
In Canto 20, Dante arrives at Bolgia 4 of the 8th Circle of Hell. “The Fourth Bolgia. Their heads are rotated backwards, and can only see what 's behind them. Their tears fall onto their behinds as a sign of shame, and some are blinded by the tears themselves”(Jones). Dante’s allegorical significance from the 4th Bolgia of the 8th Circle of Hell deals with the punishment of these fortune tellers. As explained by Matt Jones, Dante pictures the fortune tellers as having their heads turned around backwards. In this way, those who tried to see the future can only see what is behind them. “...for the face was reversed on the neck, and they came on backwards, staring backwards at their loins, for to look before them was forbidden”(pg 175 lines 13-15). In these lines, Dante begins his explanation of the punishment. This clearly acts as an example of Dante’s allegorical punishments in