Literary Terms Relating to The Inferno

Setting— The Divine Comedy is the journey of one man, Dante through Hell, Purgatory, and then ultimately to Heaven. The sharp contrast between Hell and Heaven (I’m guessing because I have not finished reading this book nor have I read the second two booksJ) is important to the whole of the Divine Comedy. This first book is about Dante’s journey as he travels through the circles of The Inferno (literally meaning Hell). After Dante has seen these gruesome scenes in Hell, he will be so much more grateful to be in the glorious presence of his Creator.

Allegory— It seems as though The Divine Comedy is an Allegory for the life of humans. Desperate depravity. God’s grace and repentance of our sins. Living in glory with Him. The Inferno focuses specifically on explaining the depravity of hell, but this can also be applied to the depravity of the human race.

Terza rima – I have John Ciardi’s translation and I quite enjoy the Rhyme Scheme with the pattern of aba, bcb…etc. It flows easier for me in this Rhyming way. I don’t know exactly how it would be different if I didn’t have this rhyme scheme. I imagine it would probably be harder for me to read, in the fact that the lightness of the rhyming would be gone. It would be more depressing.