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Divine Comedy Analysis

Decent Essays

The Divine Comedy is a lengthy narrative style poem which describes the journey of the poet Dante through hell, purgatory and heaven, with the help of his guide Virgil. The poem is split into three sections; for each of the significant settings. Due to the extensive length of each of these sections, this review will focus on the first book; Inferno. Inferno is a telling of Dante’s journey through the nine circles of Hell as he learns many valuable lessons and meets many historical figures. Aside from providing a summary of Middle Ages religion, philosophy and literature, this piece of work also brings to light many serious issues that mankind faces. Even though this poem was written centuries before today, modern society can still draw inspiration and meaning from the words of the famous author. The poem represents a journey that Dante himself as the author experienced and that people still to this day undergo. Infero is opened by the famous lines; “Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself/In dark woods, the right road lost.” This immediately sets the scene for the story as one of an allegorical nature. The use of the words “journey” and “right road” symbolise the religious tone of this poem and link in well to how Dante the author would have been feeling in those moments. This is because at the time of writing Inferno, Dante had just been exiled and thus would have felt particularly lost in his life both physically and spiritually. We see Dante’s journey being set

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