User:Grapple X/Fourth

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A sepia illustration of Dante and Virgil watching the hoarders and wasters
The eternal clashing of the hoarders and the wasters, as illustrated by Stradanus

The fourth circle of hell is depicted in Dante Alighieri's 14th-century poem Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy. Inferno tells the story of Dante's journey through a vision of the Christian hell ordered into nine circles corresponding to classifications of sin; the fourth circle represent the sin of greed or avarice, where sinners are punished for their obsession with wealth.

Synopsis[edit]

Inferno is the first section of Dante Alighieri's three-part poem Commedia, often known as the Divine Comedy. Written in the early 14th century, the work's three sections depict Dante being guided through the Christian concepts of hell (Inferno), purgatory (Purgatorio), and heaven (Paradiso).[1] Inferno depicts a vision of hell divided into nine concentric circles, each home to souls guilty of a particular class of sin.[2]

Led by his guide, the Roman poet Virgil, Dante enters the fourth circle of hell in Inferno's Canto VII.

Background[edit]

An engraving by Doré of the avaricious rolling bags of coins
Gustav Doré's depiction of souls in the fourth circle of hell

Analysis[edit]

Dante's depiction of hell is one of order, unlike contemporary representations which, according to scholar Robin Kirkpatrick, were "pictured as chaos, violence and ugliness".[3] Kirkpatrick draws a contrast between Dante's poetry and the frescoes of Giotto in Padua's Scrovegni Chapel. Dante's orderly hell is a representation of the structured universe created by God, one which forces its sinners to use "intelligence and understanding" to contemplate their purpose.[4] The nine-fold subdivision of hell is influenced by the Ptolemaic model of cosmology, which similarly divided the universe into nine concentric spheres.[5]

The fourth circle of hell sees the use of contrapasso, a theme throughout the Divine Comedy. Derived from the Latin contra ("in return") and pati ("to suffer"), contrapasso is the concept of suffering in the afterlife being a reflection of the sins committed life. This notion derives both from biblical sources such as the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, as well the classical writers Virgil and Seneca the Younger; Seneca's Hercules Furens expresses the notion that "quod quisque fecit patitur", or "what each has done, he suffers".[6]

Footnotes[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to the third circle of hell.
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
  1. ^ Albertini 1998, p. xii.
  2. ^ Albertini 1998, pp. 1491–50.
  3. ^ Kirkpatrick 2013, p. 163.
  4. ^ Kirkpatrick 2013, pp. 162–163.
  5. ^ Albertini 1998, p. 149.
  6. ^ Lansing 2010, p. 220.

References[edit]

  • Alighieri, Dante (1998). Albertini, Stefano (ed.). Inferno. Wordsworth Editions. ISBN 978-1-853-26787-1.
  • Alighieri, Dante (2013). Kirkpatrick, Robin (ed.). Inferno. Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0-141-39354-4.
  • Fowlie, Wallace (1981). A Reading of Dante's Inferno. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-25888-1.
  • Lansing, Richard, ed. (2010). The Dante Encyclopaedia. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-136-84972-5.
  • Corbett, George; Webb, Heather Mariah, eds. (2015). Vertical Readings in Dante's Comedy. Open Book Publishers. ISBN 978-1-78374-172-4.
  • Musa, Mark, ed. (1995). Dante's Inferno: The Indiana Critical Edition. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-01240-1.
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