Harrowing of Hell - in Art, Music and Literature

In Art, Music and Literature

Drama

• The earliest surviving Christian drama probably intended to be performed is the Harrowing of Hell found in the eighth-century Book of Cerne.

Literature

• In Dante's Inferno the Harrowing of Hell is mentioned in Canto IV by the pilgrim's guide Virgil. Virgil was in Hell in the first place because he was not exposed to Christianity in his lifetime, and therefore he actually describes in generic terms Christ as a 'mighty one' who rescued the Hebrew forefathers of Christianity, but left him behind in the very same circle. It is clear that he does not fully understand the significance of the event like Dante.
• Although the Orfeo legend has its origin in pagan antiquity, the Medieval romance of Sir Orfeo has often been intrepreted as drawing parallels between the Greek hero and Jesus freeing souls from Hell, with the explication of Orpheus's descent and return from the underworld as an allegory for Christ's as early as the Ovide Moralisé (1340).
• In Stephen Lawhead's novel Byzantium (1997), a young Irish monk is asked to explain Jesus' life to a group of Vikings, who are particularly impressed with Jesus' "Helreið".

Parallels also exist in Jewish literature, but referencing legends of Enoch and Abraham's harrowings of the underworld, not related to Christian themes. These have been updated in Isaac Leib Peretz's short story Neilah in Gehenna, a Jewish hazzan descends to Hell and uses his unique voice to bring about the repentance and liberation of the souls imprisoned there.

Music The subject of the harrowing of hell was the subject of several baroque oratorios, most notably Salieri's Gesù al Limbo (1803) to a text by Luigi Prividali.