Eliot's references to Dante are both indirect and important. The three books of the DIVINA COMMEDIA compose an allegorical dream-vision in which Dante himself is conducted through the Hell of punishment and of lost souls (in the INFERNO), the Purgatory of suffering towards redemption
(PURGATORIO), and Paradise, a higher, perfect world of beauty, light, and music (PARADISO).
One might assert that the condition of the hollow men is that of the lost souls in Hell. They are the inhabitants of "death's dream kingdom"
gathered at their last meeting place beside a
(see ). In Dante, this corresponds to the scene beside the River Acheron (in the ) where the spirits of the damned wait to be ferried across to Hell. There is also another group which seems to correspond more precisely to Eliot's hollow men. These are the which have never been spiritually alive, never experienced good or evil, having lived narrowly for themselves. They are rejected by both Heaven and Hell, and are condemned to stay eternally by the river. Eliot seems to be referring to their condition in lines 11-12.