Dante and the illiad

The Iliad in Dante’s Inferno Dante makes many references to Homer and the Iliad throughout the Inferno. The fates of favorite characters are described during the course of Dante’s travels. Beginning with his vision of Homer in Limbo, continuing through increasingly gory levels of Hell until Dante reaches the eighth bolgia where he meets Ulysses who is engulfed in fire. Dante’s infatuation with the Iliad is clearly illustrated in his Divine Comedy. …

…for Ulysses banishment deep in Hell is his theft of the statue of Pallas from the Palladium. Dante’s Inferno encompasses a broad range of literary and political subjects. The references to the Iliad are a small fraction of the composition, but they give the reader a solid base of well known characters so they can better understand the how and why behind Dante’s placement of the personalities in the various levels of Hell.