Lane JohnsonProf. HaleyInto to Literature4-2-14 “Interpretive Argument” In what ways does Dante use The Aeneid to write about the underworld he creates? When Dante wrote Inferno, his main source of reference was Virgil's Aeneid. Almost all of the hell that Dante creates belongs to him, but the parts that didn't belong to him he took from The Aeneid and made special. While wanting to keep his hell on the same structure as the Christian hell, he also incorporated Virgil's underworld with a similar theme to that of the Christian hell, so as to make it unique. In doing so, he was able to describe an underworld of Christian belief, but with the same properties as that of a paganist hell. Most people will agree that the two books seem very similar, but the two books are very different from each other. another. While Dante's hell sinks deeper and deeper into the earth as you move through the different levels, or as they are called in his book "Circles", Virgil's hell is more of a simple plan of flat existence. To be honest, the books seem very similar, even though they are completely different, Dante took inspiration from Virgil when he created his hell, and when you add that factor in, the books start to look more and more similar . Another thing that Dante used is all the same characters that Virgil used in his stories, and he meets them all in hell because of the time difference in the creation of the two books, because the books were written at fourteen hundred years apart from each other. Another similarity of these books is that Dante and Aeneas seek help from "otherworldly beings", as in Dante's journey he sought help from the Muses (who were ancient goddesses of art and poetry)..... .middle of paper ...... live in God, repent of what you have done and show that you love God and try to live a good life. This is the only way to receive forgiveness and live in heaven for eternity once you die. In conclusion, for these books, they are both extremely similar, and if you were made to read these two books without knowing who wrote them, you might think that both were written by the same person, but with religious beliefs different. Many people who have read these books and even studied them will say that they are not the same and that they are completely different, but just look at everything that has been explained, they both have identical underworlds, they both have the same characters, they both have identical underworlds. use gods in the books, and both focused on a person's journey through hell, so overall these books are the same in almost every way..