The Divine Comedy

The Divine Comedy is Dante Alighieri’s narrative poem of a journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Dante appears as the traveller, guided for much of the journey by Virgil and later by Beatrice. Encounters with figures from history, scripture, and classical literature place particular human choices within the poem’s Christian vision of justice and grace. Its linked three-line stanzas give movement to conversations, remembered lives, and changing landscapes. The journey develops from disorientation towards spiritual understanding, while retaining the distinctive voices and attachments of those encountered. Theology, civic history, and poetic imagination are closely joined throughout its design.