Everyone, Meet Dante

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away…. OK, so maybe not that far away depending on where you live, but that’s not the point. Anyway, once upon a time, there lived a Florentine (as in, someone from the city of Florence) named Dante Alighieri (but all his friends just called him Dante). Dante was a solemn young man who took his city seriously and his religion seriouslier. Born in 1265, Dante had a gift for combining very serious subject matter (the salvation or damnation of the eternal soul) with dark humor and irony. While his most famous work The Divine Comedy (I’ll be blogging about the first canticle, Inferno) is not a “haha” kind of comedy, it definitely has its moments of hilarious absurdity (please see Canto XXII’s butt trumpets).

There are a few things you need to know about Dante and the Divine Comedy before you read/read about the Inferno (all will be expanded upon in late posts):

1. Dante has a hard-on for all things Roman. Specifically Vergil. God, does he love Vergil. His obsession stems directly from his belief that the establishment of the Roman empire by Augustus and the Pax Romana ("Roman Peace") that followed created the proper conditions for the birth of Jesus Christ. Dante thought that for Christ to return (the second coming) the circumstances of the Roman empire must be reestablished. He also believed that Vergil's inspiration for the Aeneid came not from Jupiter but from the Christian God.
2. Dante’s Hell is his personal “Burn Book” (Yes, that was a Mean Girls reference - more on this later) for his political enemies and people he just straight up doesn't like. Petty? You decide if his claims are legitimate or not. The location of certain residents of Hell is a direct reflection of the political climate of Florence at the time - Dante’s issues with the Pope, civil war between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.
3. All the threes. Literally, all the threes. If there is a number in the Inferno, it is probably a three or multiple of three. 
4. Dante is big on the idea of exile and returning home from exile. This directly reflects Dante’s experience being exiled from Florence (though he never returns). [FUN FACT: Ravenna and Florence are still fighting over his remains]
5. Everything in the Divine Comedy can be read on a literal level and an allegorical level. If you don’t know, an allegory is a symbolic representation of ideas, human life, or historical experiences. 
6. Dante helped popularize writing literature in the vernacular. This is a biggie. Before Dante very few authors wrote in their native languages. Most legitimate scholarly texts or otherwise were written in Latin (or occasionally Greek, but usually Latin). Dante’s Divine Comedy, along with Giovanni Bocaccio’s Decameron (Italian, like Dante) and Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (Middle English), were some of the first famous pieces of literature written in the local dialect. Think about how different it would be today if everyone had to learn Latin just to be able to read a book. You can thank Dante for that (and the other guys).
7. Dante has some serious skill. He invented a new form of verse and wrote ONE HUNDRED CANTOS OF INTERLOCKING RHYME SCHEME. DUDE HAS SKILL.

These are the basic facts you need to know before you begin your journey on the Highway to Hell. Relax, turn on your radio, and start driving.