Inferno Study Guide

Born around 1265 in the city of Florence, Dante Alighieri is now widely recognized as the greatest poet of Italian literature and, for his work in standardizing an Italian dialect, is often called the father of the Italian language. Dante grew up in Florence during a time of political unrest, with constant feuds between opposing political factions. It is unclear how wealthy his family was, but he was neither poor nor exceedingly noble. He had an arranged marriage with a woman of a noble background, Gemma di Manetto Donati, but he fell in love with a woman named Beatrice, who appears repeatedly in his poetry. Together with other educated men of Florence (including Brunetto Latini, who appears in The Inferno), Dante pioneered a literary movement based around the style known as dolce stil nuovo ("sweet new style"). As a result of backing a losing political faction, Dante was exiled from Florence for life and it is during this exile that he wrote The Divine Comedy. He is also known for writing La Vita Nuova, a work celebrating his love for Beatrice, and composed other minor works. Shortly after finishing The Divine Comedy, Dante died, still in exile from Florence, and was buried in the town of Ravenna.

In Dante's lifetime, Italy was not yet a unified nation, but rather an assortment of independent, feuding cities. Dante's native city, Florence, was the site of much social strife and political turmoil, especially between two groups: the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. The Ghibellines supported the primary secular power of the Holy Roman Empire, while the Guelphs did not. The Guelphs had defeated the Ghibellines and exiled the Ghibellines from Florence about a little over a decade before Dante wrote The Divine Comedy. After the Guelphs had taken power, though, they soon split into factions: the Black Guelphs, who wanted to work with Pope Boniface VIII (whom Dante despised) to maintain power, and the White Guelphs, who preferred Florentine independence from Papal influence. Dante was a prominent member of the White Guelphs, but they lost the struggle and were themselves exiled from Florence, including Dante. Dante, in fact, wrote The Divine Comedy while in exile. Many parts of The Divine Comedy serve as a way for Dante to comment on and criticize his Florentine and Italian contemporaries, by placing prominent citizens in hell as characters in his poem, for example.

Dante himself places his epic poem in a tradition of works by great classical authors like Homer, Virgil, and Ovid. His poem incorporates and rewrites characters and motifs from these earlier works. The Divine Comedy is also indebted to many theological ideas from the writings of the Christian philosopher and priest St. Thomas Aquinas.