Landscape Analysis of the First Thirteen Cantos of Inferno. Aleksandra Novozhilova 12th Grade

From the very start of Inferno, Dante is thrust into a world of endless pain and suffering, watching the souls forever trapped in the consequences of their sins. Specifically, Dante uses landscape and weather phenomena of each circle as his tools in visualizing the sins of the souls trapped in the Nine Circles. In his description of the landscape of the First, Seventh, and Thirteenth Cantos depicting the Third and Seventh Circles, Dante uses imagery and contrast to create a physical manifestation of the nature of the sinners’ crimes.

While the visual symbolization of the sinners’ crimes begins at the very start of Dante’s journey through Hell, it becomes most vivid during the Third Canto, in the description of the punishment of the gluttonous. The sinners’ conditions are set against the backdrop of the unending hail, a climatic phenomenon carrying over from the previous Circle. As Dante and Virgil enter the Circle, the rain’s composition is immediately distinguished, containing “gross hailstones, water grey with filth, and snow”, the earth upon which the poets stand described as “stinking,” according to Dante. The poet’s use of imagery evokes a picture of a gross disgusting environment, meant to directly parallel the sinners’...