Dantes Inferno influenced by The Aeneid and Confessions As an epic journey to Hell and back, The Inferno clearly traces its ancestry, in part, to The Aeneid.
As an “autobiographical” record of a spiritual
struggle, it also has equally obvious roots in Augustine’s Confessions. We come to this book, then, uniquely well-versed in its literary antecedents. Where do you see the influence of The Aeneid in Dante’s poem? Of Confessions by Augustine? As pointed out in class, and abundantly clear to anyone comparing the two authors, St. Augustine and Dante Alighieri are like oil and water when it comes to their opinion of pagan works such as Virgil’s Aeneid or Homer’s Iliad.
