As we scale the first few decades of the 21st century, the percentage of the world identifying with any religious belief is steadily declining. In the Western world, Christianity is in decline due to a convergence of factors. Primarily, advances in scientific understanding have shed light on some subjects previously explained by the will of an all-powerful deity. Secular ideologies are nothing new; since the 19th century, doubt cast over religion has led to dramatic changes in Western culture and, notably, the literature and art we create.
When Johannes Gutenberg invented the first printing press in 1440, the new technology was first used to produce indulgences for the Church. At this point in our history, the fear of God and the prospect of Hell guided human morality and proved handy in maintaining the status quo, wherein monarchies presided over harshly unequal societies. Naturally, almost all literary output and visual art pieces were inspired by the Christian belief system in the West.
From a modern perspective, it is easy to disregard the Bible as an obsolete text fraught with damaging ideologies and inaccuracies. However, such religious texts are still important in understanding the development of theology and philosophy over time. For instance, Darwinism put a bit of a dampener on the Book of Genesis, but there is still plenty we can learn from the didactic story of Adam and Eve.
With this in mind, secular readers shouldn’t necessarily banish all religious texts from their regimen. What a shame it would be for an aspiring young poet to miss out on The Divine Comedy, arguably one of the finest poetic works in history, simply because of its religious connexions. Dante Alighieri’s epic narrative poem is a cornerstone of Italian literature and remains entirely relevant in the 21st century thanks to its artistically compelling examination of moral and philosophical issues.
The Divine Comedy, begun in 1308 and finished circa 1321, is divided into three main parts: Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. Of the three, Inferno is by far the most popular, reflecting humankind’s curious intrigue with all things morbid and shocking. Dante began with Inferno (Italian for Hell), giving his readers an unsettlingly vivid depiction of eternal damnation.
Across 34 cantos, Dante embarks on his journey through Hell, imagining it with nine concentric circles, each attached to a different degree of sin. At the very beginning, Dante awakens to discover that he has fallen into Limbo, the first circle of Hell, where those unbaptised yet without sin might find themselves. Here, he finds the ancient Roman poet Virgil, who guides him through the deeper levels of the abyss.
Here are the nine circles of Hell as Dante envisaged in Inferno.