Dante Alighieri’s Inferno has a wide variety of violence which is displayed throughout his journey in many forms. The journey appears to be a never-ending learning experience for Dante as he progresses onward to darker depths. As Dante and his master Virgil travel through inferno, the harshness and level of pain that sinners endure also increases. Here I plan to discuss the theme of the 9 circles and how it relates to scenes from inferno and multiple scenes from the Harry potter versions. The main theme that I will be discussing is the theme of justice throughout the divine comedy.

In order to discuss a comparison between the two works, I’ll briefly summarize the canto in which Cerberus was first introduced. We are now in Canto 6 of Inferno and in this canto Dante and Virgil are surrounded by sinners who are there for gluttony. The scene of this canto is described to always be raining. The first description of Cerberus is also introduced in this canto “Cerberus, cruel, monstrous beast, with three throats barks doglike…his eyes are red, his beard greasy and black, his belly large”(Inferno, canto 6) however, one thing to take note is that Cerberus himself is considered a glutton. It is safe to assume that Cerberus is a glutton because Virgil picked up earth and threw it at Cerberus. One depiction of violence in this canto is that Cerberus mauls and chews upon the souls in this part of hell. This creature helps fulfill and deliver the punishment upon the sinners.

In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, there is also a Cerberus-like creature that has an uncanny resemblance to the image in Dante’s Inferno. In her book, Cerberus is also known as “Fluffy” who guards a chamber that protects a stone. As soon as I read Dante’s description of Cerberus, I immediately thought about Fluffy. Canto 6 is very closely depicted in this book; Firstly because the gluttons are the Dursleys (those who adopted harry potter). An example of them being a glutton is when Dudley(Mr.Dursley’s son) eats Harry’s birthday cake without any permission. I believe that Albus Dumbledore is similar to that of Virgil because he is always guiding Harry throughout his life.

To help you better understand what I mean to explain, here is an example:

Click here for an image of fluffy from harry potter

The way that Cerberus or “Fluffy” is depicted in the film of Harry Potter and the Philosophers stone is almost exactly the same as the description from Inferno. The only difference is that the eyes aren’t red, however the gnarling teeth is a dead giveaway. Also in this example, we can interpret Harry, Hermione, and Ron to be the sinners because Hogwarts follows a house points rule:

“Points are given or taken away to reward or punish the behavior of students. Points are accumulated over the course of the school year, at the end of which a House Cup is awarded to the house with the most. Giant hourglasses set in niches along one wall in a corner of the entrance hall record the points for all to see; Gryffindor’s is filled with rubies, Ravenclaw’s with sapphires, Hufflepuff’s with diamonds, and Slytherin’s with emeralds. As a teacher or other authorized party speaks the words awarding or deducting points, the appropriate hourglass or hourglasses are automatically updated (Harry Potter Lexicon, 1”

With that being said, the house point rule is another reason why I believe that J.K Rowling took inspiration from Dante in order to create the harry potter series. The way I interpreted this is that the teachers and faculty at Hogwarts are given the same role that Dante and Virgil have, which is judging those sinners and punishing them based on what they’ve done. The sinners being the students and the punishment being the amount of points that have been deducted.

Here I will discuss a few brief similarities between Inferno and Harry Potter. The first is that the character Argus Filch seems to be stuck in limbo. I believe this is true because he is seen as a character that is neither good nor bad, he simply exists. Argus in some ways is similar to Virgil because he has the role of caretaker in Hogwarts which in relation to the Divine comedy, Virgil is like a caretaker to Dante. The theme of justice can be seen in the movies because Argus is seen trying to ensure that everything that happens in the school is running smoothly. He is the authority that justifies whether or not people deserve to be punished.

One doesn’t have to wonder very much to realize that the divine comedy is filled with metaphors. Something that has come to my attention while studying the divine comedy is the realism that is within Dante’s works such as inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Dante’s imagination is self-evident where he expresses themes of corrections and punishments towards individuals who he has encountered sometime throughout his life. Some people that he has mentioned as part of the “sinners” group as I like to call include; Pope Boniface VIII, Farinata.

To compare, the character’s from the Divine comedy and Harry potter in my opinion is something that was obvious in the sense that they are the same. I’ll start by firstly discussing how Harry himself is the same as Dante. All of the comparisons that I’ll talk about are from the Harry potter films rather than the books because I believe that they have a higher interpretation than the print version. As I read inferno throughout the semester, I couldn’t help but notice that Dante is always in some kind of journey just like harry. The subject of mortality also came to my mind when Dante mentions in canto 1 lines 58-59 “I did not endure it long, yet not so little that I did not see it emitting sparks all around”, here he is telling us (the reader) that he is a mortal however he does claim that he knows more than the average mortal. Dante reveals his desire to transcend his own mortality and this is similar to Harry’s character because he also seeks to become a greater wizard and is also on a journey with his friends. Despite this similarity, there is also another thing that is significantly different about Harry’s journey that separates it from the journey of Dante. Dante was initially prevented from crossing a river by his distinguishable attribute, only to be rescued by divine will. Contrarily, Harry’s attribute is exactly what allowed him to cross the river in the film.

Another main character that I’d like to compare to Dante’s Divine comedy is professor Snape. If I were to place him in Dante’s comedy, I would place him in the second circle along with a couple of notable characters from history such as Tristan, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra. In this second circle of inferno, Dante and his master Virgil find some people who were overcome by the sin of lust as Dante thinks:

“Here Dante explores the relationship–as notoriously challenging in his time and place as in ours–between love and lust, between the ennobling power of attraction toward the beauty of a whole person and the destructive force of possessive sexual desire. The lustful in hell, whose actions often led them and their lovers to death, are “carnal sinners who subordinate reason to desire” (Inf. 5.38-9). From the examples presented, it appears that for Dante the line separating lust from love is crossed when one acts on this misguided desire.”(Danteworlds).

In one of the harry potter films, it is revealed to the audience that Snape loved Lilly who was harry potters mother. Although harry, Hermione, and Ron all looked at professor Snape as something of a villain, he actually had a bit of love towards harry but for the wrong reason. It is because he had both love and lust for his mother that he felt the need to somewhat care for him since he lost the relationship between himself and Lilly when he called her a “mudblood”. To conclude this character, he belongs in Dante’s inferno because his actions led Lilly to die back when Harry was a baby and led to his own death in the end of the Deathly Hallows.

Click here for image of Snape holding Lilly

Here in this image we can see Snape’s self-proclaimed love for Lilly which made him somewhat of a secret guardian to harry.

Another character that I’d like to place in Dante’s inferno is Lucius Malfoy. I wouldn’t simply place him because he was obviously evil and followed the “dark lord” as most would refer him to. But more specifically, I would place him in the 4^th circle which pertains to avarice and greed. In this circle, you can picture the souls of people who jousted over their earthly possessions. In this circle, Dante says to see many clergymen which include the popes and cardinals such as Lucius Malfoy who is a cardinal for lord Voldemort. I think that Lucius belongs in this specific circle of hell because his hunger for desire, wealth and power turn him to the dark side. This backfires back to him because when he saw that the dark lord was being defeated and saw that his son may have perished, you can see the fear in his face which is strange since he always seemed like a strong and confident character.

In the next circle of hell which would be the 5^th, I would place the character Bartemius Crouch JR. the following is a brief definition from the danteworlds website:

“Like the fourth circle of hell, the fifth circle–presented in Inferno 7 and 8–contains two related groups of sinners. But whereas avarice and prodigality are two distinct sins based on the same principle (an immoderate attitude toward material wealth), wrath and sullenness are basically two forms of a single sin: anger that is expressed (wrath) and anger that is repressed (sullenness).”

Bartemius was sent to Azkaban by his own father Barty SR. He was sent to Azkaban would could be the contrapasso for him in this scenario for torturing the Longbottoms. Barty jr’s hatred for his father and the world is what drove him to release his anger with evil with the help of the dark lord. The repressed hate that he has for his father is the reason why he becomes wrathful and eventually place him in the 5^th circle in my opinion.

Finally, the last character that I’d like to discuss is Belatrix Lestrange. This character is probably by far the most cruel and violent character throughout the whole series of harry potter. She is the cousin of Sirius Black who ironically is Harry’s godfather. I would easily place her in the 7^th circle of hell.  I say that she belongs there because the 7^th circle is indeed where the violent sinners go. She is the kind of character who enjoys, loves, and craves to torture her poor victims and pain is her pastime. Another way we can view her is by being the dark lords most loyal, evil, violent, and destructive supporter.

I think it’s amazing that I was the first one in the class that noticed the relationship between the harry potter movies and Dante’s divine comedy. There were plenty more relationships that I could’ve paired up such as linking peter Pettigrew with betrayal and ending with lord Voldemort himself with treachery. To conclude, knowing Harry potter films and to have read the books is in my opinion very helpful for understanding Dante and his inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso because I now can link some of the images to a few scenes.

sources

Dante’s Inferno – Circle 2 – Canto 5, danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/circle2.html.

Gibbons, David. “Alimentary Metaphors in Dante’s ‘Paradiso.’” The Modern Language Review,

vol. 96, no. 3, 2001, pp. 693–706. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3736739.

Z., Amy, et al. “House Points – The Harry Potter Lexicon.” The Harry Potter Lexicon, www.hp-lexicon.org/thing/house-points/.

So here goes nothing! we’re all getting close to the end of Dante’s journey. I will be honest, in the beginning of inferno i was completely confused with all the names and characters, the term of contrapasso and all the metaphors included with inferno. But after progressing to purgatorio, it all began to make sense as i began to understand why Dante chose specific people to be punished with the sins.

now when i read canto 32, i was shocked that Beatrice was sitting at the bottom of the tree waiting for Dante because she could’ve easily waited for him in heaven since he was eventually going to meet up with him there anyways. i really did laugh at the irony of how the chariot was attacked by an eagle, then the earth split thus releasing a Dragon from the split which also attacked the chariot. What kind of bad luck does Dante have, i mean seriously. now thats how i would personally interpret this but then i began to think about it from a literary standpoint. i asked myself what could all these symbols, creatures, and animals stand for, and why were these random people mentioned? as it turns out, the chariot is actually a representation of the Church. the eagle which i have yet to piece together, and the dragon which i think represents the islamic religion.

P.S. i was going to post on the 29th but i then saw that it says May 1st on the top.

I haven’t read any of Dante’s inferno prior to taking this course. However, I have some general idea as to Dante’s style of writing since I did read La Vita Nuova which translates to “the new life”. Inferno in my opinion is Dante’s historical fiction which is based off his personal experiences where he can express his admiration with Virgil.

I have blogged a few posts on my interpretation of some cantos. In the first post, I summarized the first canto which I have realized that I should’ve elaborated more. I interpreted this canto as Dante having lost his way and he needs the guidance of his mentor (Virgil) to guide him through the dark forest. I think that this is Dante telling the reader where he gets his inspiration from for all his works although he isn’t actually dead. In this post, I put an image of the beasts that are in this canto. I think this image was useful in a sense that it helps us visualize what is actually happening.

Although I had trouble understanding what was actually happening in the cantos, I decided to create my own images to help myself understand Dante’s journey through the circles of hell. My favorite canto that I have drawn out was canto 19. This canto begins with Simon Magus who is being punished for selling spiritual and divine favors. This of course is considered a sin to Dante which is called Simoney. I drew the souls having their bodies in a hole with their legs sticking out completely on fire which is their punishment. One of the souls especially stood out who turned out to be a former pope sold God’s grace to his followers named Pope Nicholas the 3^rd. this canto showed me that Dante doesn’t feel any pity or compassion for those who sin against God.

Lastly, I mentioned canto 25, the 7^th pouch of the 8^th circle. Again, Dante is glad that Vanni Fucci was being tortured by snakes because he also had sinned against god. In this canto, the thieves are the ones who are being punished. This is why a centaur by the name of cacus was being tortured for stealing from Hercules. This introduces the reader to the theme of transformation where spirits/people are transformed into serpents. We can see that in this canto Dante has a greater acceptance of God’s punishment towards these souls.

In canto 10, Dante and his master (Virgil) find themselves still in the 6^th circle of hell. They both wander around the tombs of the Heretics. Amongst these heretics were the Epicureans. The Epicureans believed that the soul died with the body. A soul comes to Dante calling him a Tuscan which is later on discovered to be Farinata.

“O Tuscan who through the city of fire, alive, walk along speaking so modestly, let it please you to stop in this place. Your speech makes you manifest as a native of that noble fatherland to which perhaps I was too harmful.”(Inferno, Canto 10, 22-27)

These lines caught my attention because we can see that Virgil encourages Dante to have a conversation with Farinata. One of my questions to this is: how are Farinata and Dante connected? And why does he call Farinata his “leader”. Also, is Dante afraid of Farinata? I’m asking this because lines 34-36 mention “I had already fixed my eyes in his; and he was rising up with his breast and forehead as if he had hell in great disdain”. To me, that sounds a bit extreme to have all of Hell in disdain, how much power does Farinata have?.

I can tell that Farinata and Dante are discussing some sort of politics and it leads me to assume that they were of opposite parties since Farinata says “fiercely were they opposed to me and to my ancestors and to my party, so that twice I scattered them.”(Canto 10, 46-47).

Another soul interrupts the conversation that barely begun between Farinata and Dante which is later on known to be the father of Guido(Dante’s friend). The father asks Dante why his son did not accompany him, so I can imply that Guido is already dead.

this image is from the Gutenberg website

“http://www.gutenberg.org/files/8789/8789-h/images/06-067.jpg”

I’ve decided to reflect upon Canto 6 because one of the well-known beasts of mythology (Cerberus) is introduced. Dante finds himself in the third circle known as the gluttons.in this circle, Dante feels tormented by the souls that are present and fills him with sadness. The gluttons is filled with impurity, heavy rain, snow and dark air. Cerberus is detailed to be “a cruel, monstrous beast, with three throats barks doglike over the people submerged there”(Canto6, line13-15). The climate and environment are what causes Cerberus to act more like a beast and eventually aggressive towards the souls that are casted out to that circle. A glutton is defined to be an excessive greedy eater and that is proven in canto 6 when Virgil throws some “earth” after Cerberus opened his mouth and displayed its fangs. “And my leader opened his hands, took up earth, and with both fists full threw it into those ravenous pipes”(lines 25-27). Ciacco is introduced in this canto and he is the first Florentine person that Dante encounters. Ciacco is also filled with the sin of gullet which is enhanced by the dreadful rain. Towards the end of the Canto, Dante asks Virgil in respect to the severity of the pain and torments that the souls will experience; Virgil replies to Dante by telling him that he should stick with his Aristotelianistic philosophy. Personally, I think that Virgil could’ve been more clear to Dante instead of ignoring his question.