Dante's Inferno - Autobiographical Journey Inferno is much more than just a fictional story about someone traveling through the universe. In reality it is more of an autobiographical journey into life through the eyes of its author, Dante Alighieri. Written in the early 1300s by a disgruntled Dante living in exile, it literally describes a man who has become trapped and must find a way to escape. It speaks to us allegorically of the terrible moment of crisis that occurs in the life of each of us "when evil inside and outside of us seems to block any hope of further constructive development". Originally written as a long poem separated into chants or songs, he basically wrote with the personal purpose of recording where all the people he came into contact with in his life will go when they die. This could be one of three places; Hell, Purgatory or Paradise. He continued to design specific and appropriate punishments or rewards based on the life each person led. Dante then tied it all together and created a character that runs the entire length of the conceptualized...