History Literature / TheDivineComedy

* KickTheSonOfABitch: At one point while in Cocytus, Dante pulls a traitor's hair in order to force him to tell his story, going so far as to actually tear out handfuls of hair when the shade stubbornly refuses to say anything.

* BrokenPedestal:
** As a poet, the protagonist worshipped the great author of ''Literature/TheAeneid'', Virgil. The idolization mellows into light respect come Canto 9, where Virgil walks straight into a dead end, implies their situation is hopeless, and "reassures" the protagonist by explaining how he once helped an evil sorceress raise a ghost from the darkest pit of the Inferno.
** Dante considered the man who taught him poetry, Brunetto Latini, a second father. Once he sees Latini burning in Hell and grieves that great poet, Dante's prepared to find truer fathers throughout his quest.

** In ''Purgatorio'' Canto 27, Virgil mentions the time he and Dante flew the beast Geryon in ''Inferno'' to convince him that he can be guided through the fire-wall protecting Eden.
** In ''Paradiso'' Canto 17, Dante references the many, many times he's heard people in Hell and Purgatory vaguely predict doom in his future when he asks the soul of his great-great grandfather what that doom is.

** ''Purgatorio'' finishes the traditional count with the Lethe, which springs from the top of Purgatory before flowing down to add its waters to the ice of Cocytus, and allows the memories of penitents to be purged of sin. Dante adds another river, named the Eunoe, which performs the opposite function by strengthening the memory of one's good deeds.

* AudienceSurrogate: The poem indicates that Dante's AuthorAvatar stands in for the audience in the very first line and thus any reder can see him/herself in the personal journey.

* ''[[PurgatoryAndLimbo Purgatorio]]'': Having escaped Hell, Dante and Virgil scale the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory to meet [[Literature/VitaNuova Beatrice]], the most beautiful of the saints. The two pilgrims see how every sin can be turned to true love by the restless efforts of the remorseful.

* MythologyGag: A line from the ''Literature/VitaNuova'' gets dropped in Purgatory. Turns out one of the repentant gluttons is a big fan of Dante.

Each part ("cantica") of the poem is dedicated to one of the three realms, and is in turn subdivided into 33 chapters ("cantos")[[note]]Technically, ''Inferno'' actually has 34 cantos so that the poem's total comes out as [[LawOfOneHundred 100]], but Canto I takes place in the world of the living and technically acts as the prologue of the story[[/note]]:

Dante called his masterpiece merely ''Comedy'' as a perhaps-ironic nod to its good ending and how it was written in the vernacular ("comedy" here meaning any work with a HappyEnding, as opposed to a tragedy). The adjective "Divine" does not refer to the work's religious setting. In fact, it was added later by people -- specifically Creator/GiovanniBoccaccio[[note]]who greatly admired Dante and wrote an early biography of him[[/note]] and Creator/GustaveDore, who famously illustrated the story in the 19th century.

** Virgil represents Human Wisdom, the best that man can do with his own efforts without the need for God's grace. He is the best of human philosophy, morality, the arts, and human feeling and imagination. That said, even his best simply cannot be enough, represented by Virgil being unable to enter Heaven by virtue of him being a pre-Christian pagan.

** Two elders appear in together, one being a doctor to represent Luke's Literature/ActsOfTheApostles and the other a swordbearer to represent Saint Paul's letters.

%%And That's Terrible is a heavy-handed description of a villain's evil that is presented as if their on-screen actions weren't enough to earn the condemnation of the audience. It is not merely the presence of a villain that the characters hate.

%%** At the very entrance of Hell, there is a special place of punishment for people who never took a stand for anything during their lives and were neither good enough to deserve Heaven (or Purgatory) nor bad enough to end up in the rest of Hell. This also includes the angels who didn't take a side during Lucifer's rebellion against The Lord. These particular sinners are regarded as the {{Butt Monkey}}s of the afterlife. Dante was very passionate about politics, and had a deep contempt for people who just wanted to mind their own business [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder and were ready to change their allegiance whenever it was more convenient]].

** As Beatrice ascends closer to God throughout ''Paradiso'', she becomes increasingly beautiful until her smile would crack a human's brain and her face defies all description.

* BeingEvilSucks: The tortures in Hell represent how each of the damned exists internally, implying their evil itself is a torture. So the lustful are tortured by a hurricane because their lust throws them around without rhyme or reason and traitors are tortured with ice because they had already turned frozen their heart to those it should be warm for. Lampshaded by Virgil when a blasphemer blames God for his torment.

* BodyHorror: Several levels of Hell involve grisly torments and Purgatory involves a few equally brutal penances:

** Fortune tellers have their heads turned around backwards, which causes them immense pain to the point where they cry until they are completely blind.

*** The narrator breaks the fourth wall to justify why he wept upon seeing the damned of Canto Twenty, since their "bodies" were such mutilations of the human image.

*** The narrator explicitly forgives any reader who doesn't believe his account in Canto Twenty-Five is truthful, since he can't believe it.

** A canto after Dante talks to Ugolino, he finds Lucifer reduced to a monster who's only solace is in shredding Judas, Brutus, and Cassius apart with his three mouths. Unlike Ugolino, the Devil can't even talk and consumes the entirety of his victims instead of just their heads, showing that he is the "perfection" of the evil that was seen in the cannibal count.

** There's an idiot in Purgatory punishing for reveling the suffering of her neighbors, and she points out that, "Although my name is Sapia, I was anything but Sapient."

* LikeBrotherAndSister: The woman Dante is closest to in a platonic sense is Piccarda Donati, sister of Dante's good friend Forese. She calls Dante brother and he in return goes so far as to question his great love, Beatrice, about God's justice in putting Piccarda in the least part of Heavan.

** In Italy, many quotes from Hell have become proverbial. It's also worth nothing that about 15% of the most-used words in the modern Italian language were first used in literature by Dante in the Comedy. This is because the Comedy is one of the first works to be written in Italian, rather than Latin.

** Creator/LarryNiven and Jerry Pournelle's novel ''Literature/InfernoLarryNivenAndJerryPournelle'', in which the protagonist is a DeadToBeginWith, GenreSavvy sci-fi author who tries (unsuccessfully) to explain Hell as LostTechnology or an "Infernoland" created by aliens. His guide is UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini. Additions to the original include a Hellish version of a CelestialBureaucracy in which damned souls as well as demons work, new torments for [[StrawmanPolitical both extreme environmentalists and wanton environment-destroyers]], and the theologically questionable revelation that anyone can escape Hell through redemption and sincere effort.

** The number 3 appears a lot, corresponding with the belief that God is the Love created by three relationships within a single being. The poem is divided into three sections where Dante is lead through the three realm of the afterlife by three guides espousing the three holy virtues with 33 cantos dedicated per realm (if you exclude the first canto as a prologue).

* SafetyInIndifference: The virtuous pagans live in the First Circle of Hell, where their only punishment is that they live without hope (of Heaven) or fear (of Hell). Even though they sigh and despair for missing Paradise, their fate is infinitely preferable to the eight torture-chambers below them.

* ScyllaAndCharybdis: The narrator begins ''Paradiso'' Canto 4 with four hypothetical situations where two equal desires force inaction. The relevance is that Dante isn't sure whether to ask his Heavenly guide about how Piccarda could justly be put lower in Heaven for actions done against her will or to ask the guide about if the souls he met on the Moon really reside their after death. Thankfully, his guide is astute enough to read his face and satisfies both desires with her answer.

** In the first Canto, the protagonist is lost into a forest and tries to climb a mountain to get out of it, during which he meets three beasts that are commonly interpreted as sins: a lion for the sin of pride, a leopard for the sin of lust and a she-wolf for the sin of greed. The protagonist passes through the first two but cannot pass the she-wolf.

*** Envy: The second terrace the eyes of the envious sewn shut so they may not look upon others and their possessions. The envious sit leaning against the mountain and each other, thereby learning to practice the mutual support and community which they denied in life, listening to tales of generosity while wearing humble, penitential cloaks.

** Saint Bernard takes over as Dante's guides for the last two cantos so that Bernard, on the advice of the Blessed Mother, can help Dante better perceive and experience the true presence of God.

* StrongAsTheyNeedToBe: The shadow-bodies that form around deceased souls have {{Intangibility}} and can't interact with physical objects, unless the plot requires it.
** Virgil clasps his hands around Dante's eyes in ''Inferno'' Canto Nine, keeping the mortal from dying at Medusa's gaze, when his hands really should have phased through his head.
** When a horde of demons threaten to end the protagonist's journey in Hell, Virgil is able to use his illusion of a body to pick up our hero and leap into a ditch with him.

* StupidNeutral: Early on, the poets meets the Uncommitted, who refused to choose good or evil in life, and as a punishment are forced to eternally chase after a banner while being stung by wasps.

** ExaggeratedTrope; God provides every power that exists to everything that has every had those powers, most fundamentally in providing the power to exist at all to beings. A more standard version of this trope applies when penitents climb Purgatory and ascend into the Empyrean, where they gain {{Flight}}, SuperIntelligence, HealingHands, SuperSpeed, BrownNote smiles, and much more.

* SympathyForTheDevil: Although Dante has nothing but contempt for Satan and his minions, he often shows feelings of empathy, pity, and even respect for several sinners he meets in Hell. Virgil sometimes tells Dante off for this. After all, if an omniscient and all-loving God has decided they're unworthy of pity, why should anyone go against divine will and feel sorry for them?

* TeamMom: Among Dante's three guides, Beatrice is the one who Dante is most dependent on emotionally and intellectually. He occasionally compares this dependence to a child who looks back at his mother either for affirmation or for a sense of security.

%%* WishFulfillment: Seeing as he gets to beat up people he doesn't like in Hell, confronts Satan, meets the woman he fell in love with during her life and be saved by her, and sees ''Nicolas Cage Himself''.

* WreathedInFlames: The saints from Mars on are wreathed in holy spirit-flame that makes them resemble shooting stars as they burn with Christ's Love.

* BrotherSisterIncest: She may try to downplay it, but by having an affair with her husband's brother, Francesca not only damned herself for adultery but also for incest. Sure, they're in-laws, but if there's anything to take from the poem dismissively describing them as "the two relations", it's that Hell wouldn't see the distinction.

-->''"Here vigour failed the lofty fantasy:\\
But now was turning my desire and will,\\
Even as a wheel that equally is moved,\\
The Love which moves the sun and the other stars."''

** At one point Dante and Virgil find Nimrod deep in Hell for the crime of creating the Tower Of Babel. He's described as a 30 foot tall [[OurGiantsAreBigger giant]]. In the original story of the Bible, there's nothing to indicate he's anything other than a normal-size human.
* AdaptationalVillainy: In a deviation from ''Literature/TheOdyssey'' (which, at Dante' s time, was only known via Roman second-hand testimonies; the real ending in particular wasn't known), Odysseus/Ulysses testifies that his voyages ended when he arrogantly tricked his men into going on a suicide mission. For that crime not found in his poem of origin (and one found in ''The Achilleid''), as well as for the Trojan Horse, Odysseus is burned forever in a tongue of fire.

* AfterlifeAntechamber: The second part of the poem details Dante's journey through Purgatory. As in the Catholic tradition, Purgatory is the state of purification souls must go through to become their greatest selves in Paradise. This pre-Heavenly state is represented with a mountain, which is hardest to climb at the bottom and easiest to climb at the top.

* AgonyOfTheFeet: The simonists are punished by being trapped upside-down in pits while their feet are on fire.
* AlasPoorVillain: Despite being a traitor while he was alive, Ugolino's death is rendered as a tragedy. Hearing Ugolino describe his sons' dying in front of him is one of the saddest parts of the whole 14 thousand line poem.

* AllegoricalCharacter: The Garden of Eden atop Purgatory is littered with people who represent moral and religious concepts, some falling under AnthropomorphicPersonification and some being too weird to fall under a specific sub-trope:
** The twenty-four elders with wreaths on their head represent the books of the Old Testament of Literature/TheBible.

* {{Allegory}}: Dante's trip through {{Hell}}, Purgatory, and {{Heaven}} is also a trip through a Christian life of sin, repentance, and joy.

** Satan's arm is larger than the giants and reigns as emperor of Hell, but he is too consumed by his hatred for God to notice that he is the one creating the bitter cold trapping him in the bottom of the Ninth Circle. Even worse, he seems to have lost all ability to communicate and reduced his mouths to killing machines used to rip apart fellow traitors in a vain attempt to express his misery.

* SuspiciouslySpecificTense: The protagonist recognizes a damned heretic and in his excitement, he mentions that perhaps the son of the heretic "did disdain" God (or possibly "did disdain" Virgil; it's a little ambiguous, but at least two translators think the latter). The heretic catches on to the "did" and asks if his son is alive. The protagonist hesitates, giving the heretic enough information to fall on his back and never speak again. The protagonist later makes it clear the son's still alive and the heretic just read too much into a moment's silence.

* TakenForGranite: The Furies on the walls of Dis threaten to call forth Medusa to turn Dante to stone, but Virgil shields him with his cloak.

* TearsFromAStone: The statue of the old man of Crete cries blood, which runs down his ever decaying body into Hell to form its many rivers.

* ThresholdGuardians: Before Dante can ascend above the universe and see God, he has to prove the truth of his virtues to three of Christ's apostles. Faith and hope are easy enough, but Saint John's test of love blinds Dante and puts terror in him until he confesses that the goodness of every leaf in creation gives him reason to love their Eternal Gardener.

** The other is Pia de' Tolomei, whom Dante meets in Ante-Purgatory among those who died violent deaths. She speaks of her death very gently and even avoids directly saying that she was murdered by her husband. The motive for her murder remains unknown.

** Canto 16 ends with the narrator swearing by "my Comedy" that he tells the truth when he says that he saw the monster Geryon emerge from a waterfall.

** One of the Malebranche "makes a trumpet of his ass" as a salute to his fellow demons.

** Mohammed's torso is split in half and his stomach drops out. Its [[SarcasmMode lovely]] description translates to "the foul sack that makes shit of what is eaten".

*** The [[GreenEyedMonster envious]] have their [[EyeScream eyes sown shut,]] as in live they viewed people who were more fortunate with malice.

* {{Anaphora}}: Featured on threee cantos:

** In Canto 3 Of Inferno (the Vestibule of Hell) Dante recognizes one soul as "the coward who made the great refusal", but says nothing more about him. As such, historians aren't sure who he meant, although the most likely possibilities are thought to be Pontius Pilate or Pope Celestine V.