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Dantes `Inferno.`

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Commentary on Canto I of Dante 's Inferno

With concision and swiftness , Dante introduces us to the world of his Christian epic . That it is to be an allegory is apparent from the first stanza , with its mention of a dark wood (p . 368 , l . 3 . The poet finds himself in this menacing wood midway in our life 's journey (p . 368 , l . 1 . He does not say it is in the middle of his personal life history that he discovers himself isolated in a wasteland We

are to understand that he is one of mankind - a representative seemingly , of whatever is universal in the human experience . As he describes his terror at being lost in so rank , so arduous a wilderness (p .368 , l . 5 , he does not personalize the experience very much . Details that would identify him as the individual he is are withheld in favor of more archetypal expressions of fear and the pain of knowing that , however he got to this place , it is a valley of evil (p .368 , l . 13 . The effect of this handling is to create both a distance from the sense of lived reality and a sort of opening into which it is not very difficult to place oneself . Dante is indicating that , as he is the protagonist of his own tale , so we are all protagonists of separate but classically similar tales wherein such feelings and apprehensions as the poet describes are as familiar as a certain type of recurrent dream . In other words , it is as if one had already dreamed what Dante is recounting as an actual ' undreamed experience

Since this is a poem based on a Christian reading of human experience , there is a shaping that seems rather obviously based on scriptural images and basic theology : the straight road (p .368 , l 2 , God 's grace (p .368 , l . 9 , the True Way (p .368 , l . 12 This adherence to a formalized theological scheme and diction is mirrored in the formalized verse scheme , with its regular , intertwining rhymes . As the narrative unfolds there is a sense of inevitability in each episode . Just as each rhyme seems pre-determined by its predecessors and its place in its stanza , the appearance of the little hill (p . 368 , l . 15 , the Leopard , the Lion , the She-Wolf , the figure of Virgil seem mysteriously to emerge from within a psychically deep fabric of foreknowledge . As portentous as the images and episodes all are , they are of them truly startling . There is little Inferno 4

sense of surprise in what occurs . There is a generalized curiosity about the fabulous details - to what bizarre and perverse revelations about hell and its denizens the whole narrative will tend later on . But there is also some sense of dread that the dreariness and morbidity of the situation , and the density of the verse at the opening of the poem will prove to be its dominant traits throughout . Nevertheless , there is a narrative pull ' to...

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