Dante's Poetry

Dante Alighieri's poetry joins personal experience with moral judgment and Christian spiritual vision. The Divine Comedy follows the poet's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, giving individual actions a place within an ordered account of justice and salvation. Its interlocking three-line stanzas carry encounters with figures from history, scripture, and classical tradition. In The New Life, poems and prose trace the meaning of love and memory associated with Beatrice. Dante's use of Italian gives these subjects an expressive range that became central to the history of the language.