The Divine Comedy
Author:
Dante Alighieri
Type of Work:
Poem
Time and Place Written:
Italy; Dante wrote the Divine Comedy from 1308 to 1320, completing the work the year before he died.
Setting:
Place
Inferno – Hell; The Valley of Evil
Purgatorio – Pugratory; The Mountain with Seven Cornices
Paradiso – Paradise; Dante’s imaginative conception of Heaven
Time:
The evening of Good Friday through the morning of Easter Sunday in the year 1300
Characters:
Dante - The author and protagonist of The Divine Comedy
Virgil – Dante’s guide through the depths of Hell
Beatrice – The woman he admired when she was still living
St. Bernard – The saint who lead Dante to the Beatific Vision of God
Summary: So begins the Inferno. Dante realizes he has wandered from the "True Way" in mid-life, and finds himself in the Valley of Evil. He is rescued by the spirit of Virgil (author of the Aeneid), who tells him he has been sent to guide him out of Hell because of prayers by Beatrice, the woman whom Dante admired all his life. To leave Hell, they must go through all nine circles of Hell, the deeper the circle, the more grave the sin and its appropriate punishment. Perhaps the worst punishment is that no one helps or cares for another in Hell. By going through Hell, Dante - and the reader - learn to recognize and detest man's sinful nature and the power of evil, and the need to guard against it. Dante learns those in Hell choose to go there by their unrepentance. Dante enters Hell on Good Friday and reads the following posted above the gates of Hell as he is about to enter (Canto III, line 9):
"Abandon all hope ye who enter here."
Dante and Virgil emerge from Hell just before the dawn of Easter Sunday, and in Purgatorio Dante begins the difficult climb up Mount Purgatory. Souls that are repentant of their sins against God and man go to Purgatory and become free of temptation, and know that they will eventually be with God. The renunciation of sin occurs in Purgatory, as