The Inferno: Circles Of Hell Notes

First Layer: “Faitful to themselves alone heaven cast them out for imperfection but hells deeps would not receive them” | “no hope of death”

First Circle: No screaming but instead sighing, not sinners but not baptized. Lived before Christianity and did not believe in God; not sinners but have no hope, but always with desire. [Homer, Horace, Ovid, Lucan] Dante becomes sixth in company of great poets, Electra, Cesar, Aristotle, Plato, Socratese, Democratis, Euclid, etc. The fact that the five great poets accept Dante into their group suggests both that Dante believes himself as a great poet and that he might not fully believe in the correct God.
Second Circle: less space, but more pain and grief, sinners of the flesh (lust). The word “pity” is repeated several times, to show Dante’s sorrow. The sinners here are blown around by a tornado like storm.
Third Circle: rain, hail, filthy sleet, and murky atmosphere “soak stinking earth on which they fall”, Cerberus: blood red eyes, talons on paws, black stomach. Drowning sinners “whine as dogs do in pouring rain.” Here are the gluttons who overindulged in life.
Fourth Circle: “All the universe’s ills are stored” here. Here are those that spent without thought of moderation and those that horded their money [popes clergy etc.]. The people are unrecognizable, enraged, angry, fighting naked, souls of those overcome by anger. Dante comments here about the Church’s greedy ways by hording and spending money and puts popes and clergymen in this circle.
Fifth Circle: Pride, consumed by anger. The angry fight each other on top of the water while the slothful drown on the bottom and their sighs come rising out of the water as bubbles. Dante also comments that the deepest circles of hell are the darkest and most “far from sky.” This suggests that the greatest sinners are put furthest away from the “light” (or God).
Sixth Circle: Heretics and those that did not believe in God or an afterlife.
Seventh Circle: Broken up into three smaller circles and zones of different kinds of violence. 1) Murderers, thieves, etc. Violent against others and others property. 2) People that are “violent against themselves” 3) People that committed violence against God.
I’m sorry that that list is a bit lengthy but I think it should help us guide through the rest of the poem. If we map out all of the layers, at the end we can simply read the summaries to refresh our memory. (Plus I already had the notes and I felt it would be a waste not to post them!) What I am wondering is how we have gone through seven of nine circles of Hell and are only on Canto 12… I assume that circle 8 and 9 are much larger. Should be interesting. As to the question which circle of hell I am in, from this list I’d say that I’m a combination of one, two and three… For the first circle: I don’t regularly attend church though I believe in God. Second and third: I enjoy life a little too much according to Dante I think. I sure hope Dante’s model isn’t true, the first circle seems boring and the other two seem painful.

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