Dante and the Lenitive Punishment

Abstract

This text addresses The Divine Comedy from the perspective of its creative origin and focuses on an essential trait of its conception of The Inferno: vengeance. Dante was a public-life protagonist of his times. He bet and made audacious political pacts, which made him suffer a painful exile as a result. In his Hell, Dante does not punish only the universal evil, but he saves his many enemies in a special place and tortures them with the cruelest and inventive punishments. Therefore, it is suggested that in one of the masterpieces of Western literature underlies a feeling of spite that was exalted into the most vigorous and spiritual expression.