Dante’s Un-Divine UnDivine Comedy Dante died 700 years ago, but his poetic visions of hell and heaven live on. How do they compare with what the Bible teaches about life after death? 16
DISCERN
“A
ll hope abandon, ye who enter here.” The 14th-century Florentine poet Dante Alighieri greeted visitors to hell with this infamous phrase in his seminal work The Divine Comedy. For a medieval poet, Dante Alighieri’s lingering influence is remarkable. Dante’s inventive view of the afterlife has shaped and shaded the imagination of countless readers, artists, writers and theologians ever since. Dante’s political interests and activism, which centered on a dispute regarding the role of the papacy in civil government, resulted in his banishment from Florence. In exile, Dante composed his now famous poem The Divine Comedy. It recounts the author’s mythical trek through three canticles: Inferno (hell), Purgatory and Paradise (heaven).
September/October 2021
