Line #15 YMMV/TheDivineComedy


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5	!![[Literature/TheDivineComedy The epic poem]]
6	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Given that several of the writer's favorite historical figures appear in the epic, some people have jokingly suggested that this is an early example of the SelfInsertFic. While the protagonist is an AuthorAvatar, the entire work is a huge allegory and it's written so that anyone can see him/herself in the traveler.
7	* AwesomeEgo: When Dante meets the great poets (a group composed of Homer, Horace, Ovid, Lucan, and Virgil) in ''Inferno'' Canto 4, he is welcomed into their group as its sixth member. This could come across as extremely egotistical, as Dante is essentially equating himself with the greatest poets in human history. Except his work ''is'' just as well-known and widely-read today as any of their works, if not even more so. Thus, he comes across less egotistical and more prescient.
8	* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: While plot and symbolism are often integrated in the progression of the ''Comedy'', ''Purgatorio'' Canto 29 and 32 both stop Dante's travels in their place to have him witness a series of strange events with no bearing on the rest of his journey. The only significances of this events are as symbolic tellings of the history of the Church, but this is the only place in which symbolism occurs with no parallel plot advancement.
9	* CompleteMonster: [[FallenAngel Dis]]/[[{{Satan}} Lucifer]] was once "the highest of all creatures", above every angel and man gifted by [[{{God}} the Highest Joy]] with immortality, invincibility, super intelligence, and perfect happiness. However, Dis came to love his superiority to the lower angels and only that superiority, making the supremacy of his Father unbearable. In acting on this {{pride}}, he convinced his fellow angels and the first humans to rebel against the Love known as God. With his rebellion, the Devil introduced all the evil, suffering, and death that would ever be into the world while condemning any who followed him to [[{{Hell}} Inferno]], a realm of eternal torment where souls are forced to endure tortures such as being transformed into twisted, broken trees; feasted upon by harpies; and being submerged in a river of boiling tar. With his angelic intelligence, Dis knew all of this would happen if he carried out his "arrogant rape", yet brought all of the tortures and crimes described in ''Inferno'' into existence without any remorse.
10	* CommonKnowledge:
11	** Applying equally to this work and to ''Literature/LaVitaNuova'', Beatrice is universally assumed to be Beatrice "Bice" Portinari, the daughter of local banker and philantropist Folco Portinari, who lived close to Dante's house. Thing is, Dante ''never'' explicitly identifies Beatrice with Bice Portinari in either work, rather it was his son Pietro and Creator/GiovanniBoccaccio who first said she was one and the same. Coupled with the almost complete lack of historical documents on Bice Portinari's life -- most of her "biography" having been inferred from Dante's works -- there remains a large enough margin of uncertainty about her identification with Beatrice. And no, Beatrice/Bice Portinari wasn't Dante's wife either: they were both married to different people.
12	** The big one: the idea that [[EvilIsBurningHot Dante's vision of Hell is a place of overwhelming fire and heat]] is so common that the word "inferno" is literally embedded in the English language as a synonym for "overwhelming fire and heat." There are certainly parts of Dante's Hell that fit that bill, but overall the Inferno takes on many forms, some of them [[EvilisVisceral visceral]] and [[BloodyBowelsOfHell horribly organic]], some of them [[EvilIsNotWellLit dark and gloomy]], and some, including the deepest and most awful Circle, [[EvilIsDeathlyCold blisteringly cold]]. Part of the reason the ''Inferno'' has lasted as long as it has is because it is an incredible work of the imagination, digging into all sorts of symbolic representations of the sins that separate human beings from God, rather than repetitive descriptions of ever more intense heat.
13	** That Dante's Circles of Hell correspond to the SevenDeadlySins. While the number of "deadly sins" had already been codified as seven by Pope Gregory I in AD 590 (from a previous list of ''eight''), not only are they extra-Biblical and not part of Roman Catholic doctrine, they don't perfectly correspond to the current widely-accepted seven. Dante doesn't even use them as a framework for his version of Hell except in very BroadStrokes. He ''does'' have eight Circles of Hell plus Limbo, where the virtuous pagans live in eternal spiritual mediocrity without being tortured, but they better correspond to Dante's own esoteric ordering of sins: sins of incontinence (failures of self-control like Lust, Gluttony, and Greed), sins of violence (Wrath being the closest to the sins of incontinence, Heresy being violence against God's word and church, and Violence being cold-blooded, premeditated killing and therefore the worst of the three), and sins of deceit (Fraud and Treachery), which he considered the worst and, by virtue of being the closest to Lucifer, the sins that bring one furthest from the divine truth that is God. The seven Terraces of Purgatory ''do'' correspond to Gregory's seven sins, but with several caveats: 1. They are preceded by the Ante-Purgatory, where excommunicated and late-repentant souls wait; 2. As in Hell, the Greedy share a Terrace with the Prodigal; 3. Since Purgatory functions as a sort of "spiritual boot camp", souls will spend more time on the Terraces matching their biggest sins in life, but they are supposed to stop on ''all'' Terraces on their way to Heaven.
14	** On a related note, the idea that Pride is the greatest of all sins. While some idea that Pride was the cardinal sin from which all other sins emanate is pretty old, older than Christianity even (just ask the Greeks about "hubris"), Dante doesn't even devote a Circle of Hell to pride, since it doesn't properly fit into his esoteric ordering of the sins. That said, there is an argument to be made that he ''does'' depict many of the damned's sins and crimes as the results of their overwhelming arrogance causing them to defy God, with those in the deepest levels destroying themselves because they were self-deluded enough to proclaim themselves AboveGoodAndEvil, so he isn't entirely discarding pride as a causal factor either.
15	* DesignatedHero: After spending so long being extolled for her virtue, Beatrice spends her long-awaited introduction in ''Purgatorio'' coldly insulting Dante for missing his old mentor and openly admits that she wants to make him cry in sorrow for his mistakes after her death. The dissonance between expectation and reality is so strong that it is almost certainly an IntendedAudienceReaction meant to show how unpleasant repentance can be. With more context from ''Paradiso'', most readers come around to Beatrice.
16	* EnsembleDarkhorse: Francesca, an adulterer damned for lust in the Second Circle of Hell, became the subject of a huge amount of FanArt and other FanWorks in the 1800s for the unique GenreShift to romantic-drama presented by her brief appearance.
17	* EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory: Italian literary critics have dissected the poem word for word over the centuries finding new meanings for each verse. And knowing Dante's love for allegories, they might be partially right.
18	* FandomSpecificPlot: Fan works about the ''Comedy'' generally involve creating a new canto where Dante and Virgil enter a new circle to meet modern figures guilty of sins Dante overlooked. Examples include "[[https://www.dantesociety.org/sites/default/files/Andrew%20Hojel%20-%20Canto%2016.5.pdf Canto 16.5]]"'s take on indifference, the condemnation of pretentiousness found in "[[https://www.dantesociety.org/sites/default/files/Sydney%20Gelman%202%20-%20New%20Bolgia.pdf A New Bolgia]]," and the shocking contents of "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1596866/1/Divine-Comedy-The-Missing-Canto The Missing Canto]]."
19	* FanficFuel: The concept that there are CirclesOfHell for each sin humanity commits against God has lead to a host of additions, modernizations, and homages of the ''Inferno'' in order to make a case against a particular sin that bugs the author. These types of fics go back to at least [[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1902/08/16/101280136.pdf 1902]].
20	* FirstInstallmentWins: The ''Inferno'' is the best known and most adapted of the poem's three canticles, probably for its NightmareFuel and its most earthly subject matter. ''Purgatorio'' and ''Paradiso'', while no less lengthy and full of symbolic imagery of sin and punishment, are largely not known by the public at large.
21	* GenreTurningPoint: In addition to codifying the Italian language, ''The Divine Comedy'' introduced a new kind of epic poem, one anchored in the poet's life, emotions and experiences rather than some great epic story with endless battles. By writing it in terza rima and vernacular Italian, Dante allowed poetry to have a popular audience and invented the idea of a national literary tradition since every European writer and artist sought to be like Dante and write the great work of ''their'' culture.
22	* HarsherInHindsight: The first seven "levels" of heaven are the planets of the solar system out to Saturn, plus the moon and sun. Venus (the third level) is mainly about love. Considering that in modern times we've sent probes to ''UsefulNotes/{{Venus}}'' and know that it's anything but heavenly or lovely, this is kind of disturbing.
23	* HilariousInHindsight:
24	** The punishment of {{corrupt politician}}s -- being trapped in boiling pitch -- is especially [[IronicHell ironic]] considering the politics behind oil today.
25	** One of those who are mentioned to reside in Ptolomea, where are souls of those who killed their guests even though they aren't yet dead, is Branca D'Oria. Historically Branca died in 1325. while Dante died in 1321.
26	* JerkassWoobie:
27	** Ugolino committed treason, but you can't help but feel sorry for him after he's imprisoned in a tower to starve to death with his sons.
28	** Francesca counts as well, particularly considering her sin (adultery) is far less heinous than Ugolino's. (Indeed, by [[ValuesDissonance modern standards]] she barely even qualifies for the "Jerkass" part.)
29	* MagnificentBastard: [[CompositeCharacter Ulysses]], the famed hero of ''Literature/TheTrojanCycle'', is encountered by Dante and Virgil within the realm of Bolgia. Ulysses helped to annihilate the city of Troy with his brilliant scheme of the TrojanHorse that brought the Greeks into the city. Having been lost at sea after, Ulysses won the hearts of his men with his [[TheCharmer subtle charm and manipulative wit]], leading to his death in a bold attempt to explore further than any mortal man ever had before and accepting his resulting damnation with dignity and grace.
30	* MemeticMutation:
31	** "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" is one of the most famous literary quotes in the English world, popular as a short-hand for Hell.
32	** Given that this is ''the'' poem which created the Italian language, many lines have entered into common parlance. A popular one is "Non ragioniam di loro, ma guarda e passa" ("Let us not discuss about them, but look and proceed"), originally said by Virgil about the Indecisive, often with BeamMeUpScotty applying (e.g., "Non ti curar di loro...", "Do not care about them").
33	** Referring to the series as history's most notable SelfInsertFic. It's also often brought up, either ironically or unironically, on how {{fanfiction}} can be acclaimed works of art.
34	** Canto XXI, line 139: "And he made a trumpet out of his ass", for the unexpected swerve into ToiletHumor.
35	** In Italy, the line "Ah! Pisa, thou opprobium of the people" is well known thanks to the fact the rest of Tuscany ''despises'' the city (and the rest of Italy isn't too fond of them either).
36	** Telling someone they will burn (or rather, freeze) in the 9th circle of Hell is an insult reserved for people others truly hate, or a joking response to a [[DisproportionateRetribution minor thing someone does.]] [[note]]In practice, this fits best if it's in reaction to [[TreacheryIsASpecialKindOfEvil a betrayal of some kind]].[[/note]]
37	* MisaimedFandom: Some readers mistake what Francesca had with Paolo for love, when it was just mindless lust. It doesn't help that they are the only damned in Hell Dante feels empathy for.
38	* SignatureScene:
39	** ''Inferno'': Dante climbing through the dark woods, before meeting Virgil and walking through the Gates of Hell, adorned with "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." The most well-known quotes from the ''Comedy'' are generally found here.
40	** ''Paradiso'': Quite fittingly, Dante's final approach to God, where he first sees all the saints gathered together before entering into incommunicable awe, is one of the most iconic parts of the entire epic. Special props to Creator/GustaveDore for his famous illustration of the Rose of the Saints which is often used to represent the ''Comedy'' as a whole.
41	* [[SpiritualAdaptation Spiritual Licensee]]: Creator/CartoonNetwork's ''WesternAnimation/OverTheGardenWall'' is the best-animated adaptation of the poem complete with similar characters (including a woman named Beatrice), story, and themes. Even the number of episodes and locations correspond with the Ten Circles of Hell. The similarities haven't gone unnoticed as multiple observers have pointed out how much ''Divine Comedy'' and ''Over The Garden Wall'' have in common.
42	* TearJerker:
43	** The sons of Count Ugolino, for their father's crimes, were trapped in a tower with him and starved together over the course of weeks. Despite their pleadings, their father failed to speak to them for the entire duration of their deaths, even when they desperately pleaded for him to eat them to survive. Ugolino himself says that if this story fails to bring tears to your eyes, nothing will.
44	** Dante learning of his guardian and mentor Brunetto Latini's fate: [[ValuesDissonance condemned to the third ring of Hell's seventh circle for sodomy]]. Driven home in that Dante does describe him as a "radiance among men" and other praises.
45	** Among the heretics, Dante meets Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti, father of Guido Cavalcanti, who was Dante's friend-turned-political rival in real life. Upon meeting him, Cavalcante asks where is his son and, when Dante answers that Guido is not with him, believing his child is dead he cries out in despair and falls back into his fiery tomb.
46	** The story of the suicides, particularly Pier Delle Vigne (the one who committed suicide after being imprisoned for a false charge), are especially tragic because of their deformed state in Hell.
47	** Virgil disappearing and having to go back to Limbo at the end of ''Purgatorio''. He and Dante do not even get to properly say goodbye.
48	** Dante gets the chance to meet his great-great-grandfather in Heaven and learn of what Florence was like before the politics and greed corrupted it into what it was in his day. The whole chapter is painfully bittersweet in its description of a community lost to hatred, a pain only made stronger when Dante's ancestor confirms that soon Dante will be forced out of Florence and never return home.
49	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: ''Paradiso'' Canto 30 has the honor of holding Beatrice's final piece of dialogue, yet it ignores the complexities and wonders of her character by instead having the lady of Heaven's final speech dedicated to telling us corrupt priests are bad. This is hardly a unique exit considering {{Sinister Minister}}s had been condemned at length by Virgil, Pope Nicholas III, Brother Catalano, Pope Adrian V, the chariot-dragon, Thomas Aquinas, Saint Bonaventure, Emperor Constantine, and Saint Peter before Beatrice tackled the topic--in Canto 29, right before she tackles the topic again in Canto 30 before never speaking again.
50	* UnintentionallySympathetic: While Piccarda Donata went to Heaven, she is stuck on the lowest "level" (The Moon) for breaking her vows as a nun, even though she was forced into an ArrangedMarriage and had no choice in the matter. While the poem says she's [[DiedHappilyEverAfter content with her fate,]] it seems rather unfair (particularly to [[ValuesDissonance modern readers]]) that she got put in the lowest level of Heaven for something that wasn't her fault.
51	* ValuesDissonance:
52	** For those who don't share a medieval Catholic vision of the afterlife, or medieval Catholic ideas of right and wrong, the punishments can come across as DisproportionateRetribution in the extreme. And it is very controversial in some of the acts Dante considered as sins, but viewed by most modern-day people as matters of biology (like homosexuality) or mental illness (like hoarding and suicide); things that deserve compassion rather than condemnation. If Dante wrote today how these people should be tortured forever, he would be condemned to the Tenth Circle himself, and bring endless accusations of GodIsEvil (like in [[Literature/InfernoLarryNivenAndJerryPournelle Larry Niven's Inferno]]). But it is important to note (as alluded to below) that the ''Comedy'' is an allegorical poem, not a theological work, and is therefore more an expression of Dante's thoughts and [[ArtisticLicense creativity]] than of the beliefs and teachings of Catholicism in the Middle Ages. Also, Modern Catholic dogma now subscribes to the doctrine of "Eternal Separation" (the suffering of Hell is [[SelfInflictedHell mental]], there is no torture but the despair and isolation of being deprived of God's love, which is closer to what Dante actually believed) and even says people who commit sins out of mental illness [[InsanityDefense usually aren't culpable]], as they aren't acting under their true free will.The doctrine of Purgatory has similarly been changed in modern times: rather than a place of physical torture, the only punishment is having to wait to go to Heaven and meet God.
53	** Dante's whole hierarchy of sins with regards to the CirclesOfHell seems rather odd at some places to the modern reader. Most of all, he considers fraud to be ''worse than genocide'', as mass murderers are in Circle 7 and frauds are in Circle 8. However, once you understand the era where Dante lived in (the Feudal Era, the so called "Age Of Chivalry"), it becomes FridgeBrilliance. Every aspect of feudal society was based on oaths of fealty, of swearing UndyingLoyalty to one's lord/benefactor/friend, and all oaths or contracts are sworn in the name of God. Thus, fraud, and especially [[TreacheryIsASpecialKindOfEvil treason]], would probably be considered the worst kind of sins, as it is literally [[AnarchyIsChaos the destruction of societal order]] and sending a fuck you to God Himself. This leads to an unusual case of Values Dissonance '''within''' a case of Values Resonance. The Ninth Circle punishes [[TreacheryIsASpecialKindOfEvil treachery]] against [[MurderInTheFamily kindred]], [[TheQuisling country]], [[SacredHospitality guests]], [[TheUsurper lords]], and [[TheHeretic God]]. While non-religious readers and cultures may not care about the last one, the other four are almost universally reviled. The Dissonance comes from the order they're placed in. For instance, not many modern readers would consider betraying a guest worse than betraying your family, but then as now, violations of SacredHospitality were SeriousBusiness.
54	** The entire concept of Limbo. If someone hasn't committed any grievous sins and lived before Christ was born, or was an unbaptized child, they cannot access Heaven. These souls aren't punished or tortured there, but they'll spend eternity languishing in spiritual mediocrity and separation from God. Limbo was notably a controversial theological concept even in Dante's day and was largely undefined, giving Dante a significant amount of creative freedom in the way he depicted it. Certain decisions (making it a Circle of Hell, for example) are bound to read poorly to a modern audience.
55	** [[Literature/TheOdyssey Ulysses]] is in the Eight Circle for his trickery with the Wooden Horse and for false counsel during the Trojan War; while the Greeks admired his cunning, the Romans despised him for his deceitful nature during the War, since they believed themselves to be descended from the Trojans. Heck, that final suicidal voyage that drove Ulysses and his men to their deaths? Dante's own invention. Though it should be noted that Dante would not have access to Homer's [[Literature/TheIliad epic]] [[Literature/TheOdyssey poems]] when he wrote ''Inferno'', only Virgil's ''Literature/TheAeneid'', where he is dubbed "Cruel Ulysses".
56	** Brutus and Cassius are second only to Judas and Satan himself in their punishment, each being gnawed in one of Satan's mouths, while Julius Caesar himself is in Limbo. Obviously historical appraisal of Caesar and his murderers varies ''tremendously'' with a person's political sympathies and how one views the political situation in Rome at the time. Positive portrayals of Caesar were especially common in Medieval Europe at the time (likely due to NostalgiaGoggles for the Roman Empire), waning significantly as republicanism started to catch on and the conspirators were viewed in a more positive light.
57	** Satan's black face is unfavorably compared to that of an Ethiopian. If Dante lived in the modern first-world or in Ethiopia ever, he might have thought twice about writing that.
58	** ''Paradiso'' places two nuns who were forced into marriage[[note]]one of the nuns calls herself a virgin, leaving rape out of the picture.[[/note]] in the lowest sphere of Heaven, since the marriages broke their vows of chastity. This is abhorrent to modern readers, who naturally question how non-consenting victims could be put in a lesser place for having evil done to them. Dante's guide answers these concerns in two ways: one, the nuns normally sit with every other saint and angel in God's Empyrean and two, the guide claims that the nun Piccarda failed to "absolutely" will to avoid the marriage. This second answer brings us back to Values Dissonance, since the modern thinking about sexual assault makes it quite clear that the victim is never, ever at fault. There is the additional fact that Piccarda's fate contradicts the actual teachings of the Fathers of the Church ''pre-dating'' Dante by almost a thousand years. St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Neocaesarea take care to explicitly state it in their rules that a rape does ''not'' make a woman less chaste.
59	* ValuesResonance:
60	** Even after seven centuries that saw Christian society change radically, ''The Divine Comedy'' continues to be admired throughout the Church for its genius portrayal of a life that begins in sin and misery, strives to do better, and ultimately finds rest in Love. It is difficult to find a better endorsement for an author than to have the Pope call you a "[[http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/05/05/pope-francis-suggests-divine-comedy-as-vital-reading-for-year-of-mercy/ prophet of hope]]" when your poem sets a few Popes on fire.
61	** Although he reaffirms his respect for the Papacy and the Church's authority, Dante spares no venom when cutting down the corruption in the priesthood and religious orders, and has no problem using the Saints as mouthpieces for the sake of this condemnation. Hearing this from the greatest Catholic poet of all time earned the work special appreciation from the Protestants who sought to reform the Church and those struggling with faith in the wake of the clergy sex abuse scandal.
62	** Dante also places clear limits on the spiritual powers of the Papacy: excommunication cannot damn a person who sincerely repents (though they will be in Purgatory for a very long time), the Pope cannot preemptively absolve someone of a sin he tells them to commit, and only sincere prayers of good people (not purchased indulgences) can speed up a soul’s progress through purgatory. The latter issue in particular would be a major element in UsefulNotes/{{the Protestant Reformation}} two centuries later.
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64	!![[Music/TheDivineComedy The band]]
65	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Pretty much the entirety of ''Promenade''. It's been compared to ''Literature/{{Ulysses}}'' for a reason.
66	* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments: On the B-side "Births, Deaths & Marriages", a kid breaks his leg on purpose so that he receives 'get well soon' messages on his cast. He ends up with "YOU SUCK" written on it instead.
67	* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: The Divine Comedy was initially more successful in France than in Britain.
68	* TearJerker: Hannon has written several sad songs: "Your Daddy's Car", "Timewatching", "Sunrise", "Leaving Today", "A Lady of a Certain Age", "When a Man Cries".

Context YMMV / TheDivineComedy