Reading Dante in an age of moral upheaval

When talking to my wife about great works of literature that become lifelong companions, I decided to finally read the Divine Comedy, something I've wanted to do for many years. As I searched for the translations I wanted to read (one modern and one traditional), I'd discuss this new goal with a few other people, and a constant theme of discussion was essentially: why on earth would I want to read Dante when the world already seems so terrible. I gave this due consideration, as I do try to cultivate the sorts of things I feed my mind, and diving into the Inferno did seem like something I should consider carefully. The following post is a short essay I wrote just for myself as I worked through whether I should or shouldn't read Inferno in this period of moral upheaval, and I thought it might be on interest to others.

In the end, I did read Inferno, and it has been a wonderful experience. There was something soothing about joining Dante and Virgil's descent even as every news story pushed by my phone seemed to bring some new dehumanizing horror. Agents of the government murdered law-abiding citizens with impunity in Minneapolis, bombs fell endlessly in Gaza, and an Iranian school was reduced to rubble by American forces, and still the descent through the Inferno brought me some comfort and some moral clarity. I'm sure this journey isn't for everyone, but it was the right thing for me in this moment. Perhaps it will be the right thing for you too.

In an age when public virtue is nothing more than a conman's sham and power serves deceit rather than truth, the Inferno is famously one of the most piercing moral mirrors ever written. At first glance, it’s a medieval poem about the afterlife; in truth, it is a map of the human soul’s encounter with personal, political, and cosmic evil. Reading Inferno today offers a language for confronting and making sense of a world that feels engulfed by corruption, anxiety, and moral inversion.

Naming Evil in an Age of Confusion. Dante lived in a time of deep political turmoil. His beloved Florence was torn by factional violence, deceit, and greed. In exiling himself from that chaos, he turned his anguish into a vision. Inferno catalogues not only sinners, but the spiritual corruptions that destroy societies: hypocrisy disguised as holiness, treachery clothed in patriotism, cowardice masquerading as prudence. In reading Dante, one learns that evil rarely presents itself as monstrous; it often wears the familiar face of power and self-justification. Naming these forms of corruption, seeing them clearly, is itself an act of moral resistance.

Reclaiming the Moral Imagination. The constant flood of media and outrage today unavoidably dulls moral discernment. Inferno (and similar lenses from outside this time and place) can rekindle that discernment. To leap to another metaphor, it becomes a sharpening stone of moral discernment and has been one for centuries. Its symbolic architecture—descending circles of sin, each shaped by the inner logic of its vice—reawakens the reader’s sense that moral order exists, that choices have weight, and that there are real differences between error, frailty, and malice. This clarity does not come cheaply; Dante must walk through the darkness to recover sight. In a sense, we participate in this journey with Dante as we read.

The Journey Through Despair Toward Understanding. Dante’s descent is not an act of condemnation, it is instead an act of healing. Guided by reason (Virgil), he faces the consequences of moral failure in order to rise toward wisdom and faith. In a world where injustice seems triumphant and moral chaos paralyzes hope, Inferno models a way of walking through despair without surrendering to it. It insists that meaning still exists beneath the world’s ruins.

The Gift of Perspective. Reading Inferno in two translations—a more modern rendering for clarity and Longfellow’s stately and challenging verse for beauty—lets me experience both immediacy and grandeur as I read. The modern translation brings the poem’s moral questions into my own language; Longfellow’s gives them resonance across centuries. Together, they remind me that humanity has wrestled with evil and anxiety before and found words equal to the struggle.

Conclusion. To read Dante’s Inferno now is not to escape the modern world, but to face it with new eyes. It teaches that evil’s power lies not in its grandeur but in its banality and deceit. It teaches also that courage, reason, and love can guide a person through the darkest circles of confusion. In a time when anxiety and moral fatigue threaten the soul, Dante’s journey offers not comfort but something more enduring: orientation.