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 …
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…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**