Essays on The Divine Comedy

1320, by Dante Alighieri

Narrative poem

Divided into three major sections — Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso — the narrative traces the journey of Dante from darkness and error to the revelation of the divine light, culminating in the Beatific Vision of God.

The Divine Comedy can be described simply as an allegory: each canto, and the episodes therein, can contain many alternative meanings. Although the Divine Comedy is primarily a religious poem, discussing sin, virtue, and theology, Dante also discusses several elements of the science of his day (this mixture of science with poetry has received both praise and criticism over the centuries).

Dante, Virgil, Beatrice, Charon, Paolo and Francesca da Rimini, Lucifer, Minos, Pope Boniface VIII, etc.

The poem is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of world literature. The Comedy was "rediscovered" in the English-speaking world by William Blake – who illustrated several passages of the epic – and the Romantic writers of the 19th century. Later authors such as T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Samuel Beckett, C. S. Lewis and James Joyce have drawn on it for inspiration.

“All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”
“The more a thing is perfect, the more it feels pleasure and pain.”
“The devil is not as black as he is painted.”
“Consider your origin. You were not formed to live like brutes but to follow virtue and knowledge.”