For instance, the circle containing the thieves has many different things happen to their bodies. For some, limbs are torn from them. Others are condemned to constantly go through a painful metamorphosis so that they are physically changed into horrid animals. The significance is that in life they took the substance of life from others, so in death they are robbed of their own substance.
The creativity of Dante in thinking up torments is impressively Edgar Allen Poe-ish, perhaps even beyond. You can't help but think that the old Twilight Zone could have used him as a screen writer. And as one descends further and further into the abyss of hell, the agonies become more and more alarming.
Yet, despite Dante's vivid portrayal of the miseries of the damned, he doesn't come close to its reality. Today I read Ralph Venning's classic work Sin: The Plague of Plagues, otherwise known as The Sinfulness of Sin. Toward the end Venning goes into a discussion of the torments of hell as the Bible describes it. Though it is much shorter than Dante's work, it is much more haunting in its depiction of hell.
The vividness no doubt comes from the fact that the miseries are developed, not from his imagination, but from the Scripture's actual depiction of hell. No matter how lurid we might imagine hell, we will always give it a milder, more comfortable atmosphere. Just as we do not want to think that our sin is that bad, we will not think that its punishment will overly harsh.
I might add that Venning's goal in the matter is much more noble than Dante's too. Dante wrote for one's entertainment. Venning wrote to...Well, he states it best:
I [say] this so that you may be more afraid of sin than of hell; for had it not been for sin, hell should not have been, and you will never be in hell if you repent and believe the gospel.
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