Social Criticism in Dante's Inferno

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Whatever hatred Dante felt for these figures, however, pales and dissipates to nothingness in comparison to the far greater grudge he had against Pope Boniface VIII, the man who played the biggest role in exiling Dante and, as Dante believes, the act of corrupting the Church. Much to the deep disappointment of Dante, he felt that he could not include his greatest enemy, Pope Boniface VIII, because at the time of the novel’s conception, writing, and publishing, Boniface was still alive, hence Dante felt it would not make much sense to place a man who was still alive in Hell. Regardless, Dante made sure that the corrupt Pope would not be spared from his infinite wrath. While Boniface himself never appears in Hell, the author essentially tells his readers that despite being a man of religious claims, Pope Boniface VIII is predestined to the scorching depths of Hell, not to mention that he is near the bottom of the fiery pit. In his novel, Dante first subtly mentions his foe when he sees Pope Celestine V, the pope before Boniface who was rumored to have left his papacy under threats from Boniface. “And some I knew among them; last of all, I recognized the shadow of that soul, who, in his cowardice, made the Great Denial.” (3.55-57) Pope Boniface VIII’s rumored simony is then commented on again later, when Dante meets another former member of the papacy who was also rumored to have committed simony, Pope Nicholas III. In the novel, Nicholas (who possesses the ability to see the future) is upside down in a hole, and mistakes Dante for Boniface at one point, thinking that Pope Boniface’s death had come earlier than he expected, “Are you there already, Boniface? Are you there already?” (19.49-50). Nicholas is so anxious to know who is there because, as he informs Dante, he is waiting for Pope Boniface III to take his place in Hell. By cleverly interjecting mentions of Boniface, with varying subtleness, Dante means to reserve an unescapable place in Hell for his corrupt arch-nemesis. And, knowing that the Pope was nearly as powerful as the emperor at the time, this speaks immense volumes of Dante’s courage, or perhaps his stubborn resiliency and value of grudges.

To conclude, The Inferno is much, much more than just a simple story of a man who travels through Hell. It is, in a way, the epitome of what social criticism should be; clever and witty, able to captivate the reader with a gripping yet almost humorous story, a story that is a defiance of societal-based customs. Dante Alighieri as the author, was able to use his artistic abilities to construct a masterfully built story while also allowing that story to bear a more-subtle message that possessed its own political agenda, a story that confronts the social and political taboos of the time period. Much like the propaganda used during the Cold War, Dante implies that Pope Boniface III, along with his allies, are destined for the fires of Hell, and in doing so dirties up the previously irrefutable holiness of the Church. In specifically mentioning the Pope’s crime of simony, Dante brings a heinous deed to the public eye, exposing the corruption that the Catholic Church at the time was drowning in. It should be no wonder that The Inferno is commonly regarded among the greatest literature of the Renaissance and all time, and moreover, among the greatest examples of social criticism of all time as well.

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