The Frozen Sinners

In Dante’s Inferno, the poet devised tortures for his collection of sinners that in some way fit the crimes they committed in life. But Dante’s tortures also reflect a vision of Hell that is very different from that which we imagine through popular culture. His hell is not a lake of fire, but rather a series of concentric rings winding into the earth; and the very deepest part is not burning hot, but …

…when we read it. We, who have grown up in a humanistic society unlike Dante's world of medieval Catholicism, see these figures as pathetic. Most cannot help feeling that any God who would condemn his fallen creatures to such a fate cannot have any sense of justice or mercy. Dante, intending to summon our revulsion, conversely succeeds in invoking our pity.  Works Cited: Alighieri, Dante. The Inferno of Dante. New York : Robert Pinsky, 1994. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**