Inferno (Dante)

Inferno

Canto I from the Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
Author	Dante Alighieri
Language	Italian
Series	Divine Comedy
Genre	narrative poem
Publication date	c. 1321
Publication place	Italy
Text	Inferno at Wikisource

Inferno (Italian: [iɱˈfɛrno]; Italian for "Hell") is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri's 14th-century narrative poem The Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. The Inferno describes the journey of a fictionalised version of Dante himself through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth; it is the "realm ... of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen".^[1] As an allegory, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul toward God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin.^[2]