Hell
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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| - | # In various [[religion]]s, the [[place]] where some or all [[spirit]]s are believed to go after [[death]]. | ||
| - | # [[Christianity]]: The place where [[devil]]s live and where [[sinner]]s are [[punish]]ed after death. | ||
| - | #: ''May you [[rot]] in '''hell'''!'' | ||
| - | #* '''1667''', [[John Milton]], ''[[Paradise Lost]]'' | ||
| - | #*: Better to reign in '''Hell''' than serve in '''Heaven'''. | ||
| - | #* '''1916''', [[James Joyce]], ''[[Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man]]'' | ||
| - | #*: '''Hell''' is a strait and dark and [[foul-smelling]] prison, an [[abode]] of [[demon]]s and [[lost soul]]s, filled with [[fire]] and [[smoke]]. | ||
| '''Hell''', according to many [[religion|religious beliefs]], is an [[afterlife]] of suffering where the [[wicked]] or [[unrighteous]] [[dead]] are [[punished]]. Hells are almost always depicted as [[underground]]. In [[Christianity]] and [[Islam]], hell is [[fiery]]. Hells from other traditions, however, are sometimes [[cold]] and [[gloomy]]. Some hells are described in [[graphic]] and [[gruesome]] detail. | '''Hell''', according to many [[religion|religious beliefs]], is an [[afterlife]] of suffering where the [[wicked]] or [[unrighteous]] [[dead]] are [[punished]]. Hells are almost always depicted as [[underground]]. In [[Christianity]] and [[Islam]], hell is [[fiery]]. Hells from other traditions, however, are sometimes [[cold]] and [[gloomy]]. Some hells are described in [[graphic]] and [[gruesome]] detail. | ||
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Hell, according to many religious beliefs, is an afterlife of suffering where the wicked or unrighteous dead are punished. Hells are almost always depicted as underground. In Christianity and Islam, hell is fiery. Hells from other traditions, however, are sometimes cold and gloomy. Some hells are described in graphic and gruesome detail.
Hells are often populated with demons, who torment the damned. Many are ruled by a death god or some other dreadful supernatural figure (e.g. Satan).
Literature
In his Divina commedia ("Divine comedy"; set in the year 1300), Dante Alighieri employed the concept of taking Virgil as his guide through Inferno (and then, in the second canticle, up the mountain of Purgatorio). Virgil himself is not condemned to Hell in Dante's poem but is rather, as a virtuous pagan, confined to Limbo just at the edge of Hell. The geography of Hell is very elaborately laid out in this work, with nine concentric rings leading deeper into the Earth and deeper into the various punishments of Hell, until, at the center of the world, Dante finds Satan himself trapped in the frozen lake of Cocytus. A small tunnel leads past Satan and out to the other side of the world, at the base of the Mount of Purgatory.
John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) opens with the fallen angels, including their leader Satan, waking up in Hell after having been defeated in the war in heaven and the action returns there at several points throughout the poem. Milton portrays Hell as the abode of the demons, and the passive prison from which they plot their revenge upon Heaven through the corruption of the human race. 19th century French poet Arthur Rimbaud alluded to the concept as well in the title and themes of one of his major works, A Season In Hell. Rimbaud's poetry portrays his own suffering in a poetic form as well as other themes.
Many of the great epics of European literature include episodes that occur in Hell. In the Roman poet Virgil's Latin epic, the Aeneid, Aeneas descends into Dis (the underworld) to visit his father's spirit. The underworld is only vaguely described, with one unexplored path leading to the punishments of Tartarus, while the other leads through Erebus and the Elysian Fields.
The idea of Hell was highly influential to writers such as Jean-Paul Sartre who authored the 1944 play "No Exit" about the idea that "Hell is other people". Although not a religious man, Sartre was fascinated by his interpretation of a Hellish state of suffering. C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce (1945) borrows its title from William Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793) and its inspiration from the Divine Comedy as the narrator is likewise guided through Hell and Heaven. Hell is portrayed here as an endless, desolate twilight city upon which night is imperceptibly sinking. The night is actually the Apocalypse, and it heralds the arrival of the demons after their judgment. Before the night comes, anyone can escape Hell if they leave behind their former selves and accept Heaven's offer, and a journey to Heaven reveals that Hell is infinitely small; it is nothing more or less than what happens to a soul that turns away from God and into itself.
Piers Anthony in his series Incarnations of Immortality portrays examples of Heaven and Hell via Death, Fate, Nature, War, Time, Good-God, and Evil-Devil. Robert A. Heinlein offers a yin-yang version of Hell where there is still some good within; most evident in his book Job: A Comedy of Justice. Lois McMaster Bujold uses her five Gods 'Father, Mother, Son, Daughter and Bastard' in The Curse of Chalion with an example of Hell as formless chaos. Michael Moorcock is one of many who offer Chaos-Evil-(Hell) and Uniformity-Good-(Heaven) as equally unacceptable extremes which must be held in balance; in particular in the Elric and Eternal Champion series. Fredric Brown wrote a number of fantasy short stories about Satan’s activities in Hell. Cartoonist Jimmy Hatlo created a series of cartoons about life in Hell called The Hatlo Inferno, which ran from 1953 to 1958.
Namesakes
- Hell (1908) - Henri Barbusse
- "Hell is other people" by Sartre from No Exit.
See also
