Inferno
(Dante)

There are only two major characters in Dante’s Inferno, Dante himself being one of those characters.

Dante

Dante is both the writer and the main character of Inferno. As a character, Dante has a very specific personality. He spends a lot of time, especially in the first half of the poem, crying and feeling compassion for the suffering sinners. His empathy is so strong that he rarely gets indignant with anyone, no matter how bad their sins were.

Throughout the story, though, Dante does learn to have righteous indignation for these sinners, especially as the heroes descend further and further into the depths of Hells, seeing sinners that have committed worse and worse crimes. Virgil congratulates Dante when he stops feeling sorry for the sinners all the time.

Dante the character blends with Dante that writer all throughout the poem. Dante can’t help but use metaphors and similes in every canto. His obsession with poetic description becomes stronger through the book, until each scene can’t be described plainly until Dante has compared it to two or three things. For the sake of simplicity, and the reader’s sanity, many of these colorful similes have been removed from the guide. In other words, we try and describe to you what it is, not all the things it is like.

Virgil

Virgil was a famous Roman poet, and a personal hero to Dante. His ghost was assigned by the Virgin Mary and God Himself to guide Dante through hell. He does this, taking special care of the often fearful Italian poet.

Virgil spends much time protecting Dante from potential dangers, explaining to vengeful souls and demon that Dante is on a mission from God and cannot be assaulted. He also spends a good deal of time explaining to Dante about each circle, sin, and punishment.

Because Virgil was also a poet in life, we’re not surprised to hear fancy language from him. Many of his answers are very round-about and ambiguous. Sometimes it’s nearly impossible to know what exactly he means to say, since he’s always padding his meaning with extra words.