The Inferno Book Review
Hello guys, welcome back, yep I’m actually writing and posting another thing. I’m going to talk about The Inferno by Dante Alighieri. I read this book for my school's AP Lit class, so hopefully this will be better analyzed than my other book reviews.
This book is told in the format of an epic poem and it was super powerful.This poem takes place in the nine circle of Hell. The setting is important because it helps characterize Dante, and how he is terrified of everything. I cried multiple times during this book because of all of the gruesome punishment and how people act toward each other. The book travels through different types of sins: limbo,lust,gluttony,greed,anger,heresy,violence,fraud,and treachery. As Dante and his guide, Virgil, go through these different sins which represent the different circles. The punishments in each circle get worse and worse depending on what sins they committed. This connects to the theme of Justice and how the punishments should match the crime or in this case their sin.
TIME FOR SPOILERS!!! If you haven’t read this book, please stop here or be prepared for spoilers.
At the beginning of the book, his fiancee, Beatrice, saved his life by sending Virgil to him as
she was in heaven and that was her wish. Virgil lived in limbo because he was not a Christian but he lived a good and proper life, it's just that his time period did not allow him to be Christian. Both of these characters are completely opposite from each other, because Dante represents being normal while Virgil represents being strong and super intelligent. Throughout this book Dante is either a nice person or someone who is evil to others depending on if he liked that person in life. An example of this is, “Michael Scott,who mastered every trick of magic fraud, a prince of mountebank”(178) and compare those thoughts with how Dante treats people that he didn’t like in life: “ I had a good grip on his hair;already I had yanked out more than one fistful of it, while the wretch yelped,but kept his face turned from me”(270). Dante is awed by Michael Scott, but absolutely despises the person with his head sticking out in ice because that person will not tell him what his name is. Dante shows his violence in this scene even though the rest of the poem he was portrayed as a sweet caring person. That was shown before this scene as he wanted to hear the sinners stories so he could share them when he gets to earth.
That is basically the spoilers for the plot, I wanted to share some of my favorite quotes! If you have any favorite quotes from this book leave it in the comments!
“Who came to Rome after the burning of Troy” (30).
“How, then, may I presume this high quest and not fear of my own business”(35).
“But those unmanned and naked spirits there turned pale with fear” (45).
“Wherever I turn away from grief I turn to grief again”(65).
“May you weep and wail to all eternity for I know you, hell dog, filthy as you are” (81).
These are just the quotes that really stuck out to me while I read this. I really recommend this book if you like being grossed out or if you like poetry. This book describes the punishments in a lot of detail so make sure you are in the right mind space for this book and only read it if you can handle blood and violence. Hope everyone is having a good day and they are staying safe.
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