Translated by H. F. Cary and Illustrated by Gustave Doré
The Divine Comedy is the collective title given to Dante’s three-part epic poem that describes the poet’s journey through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory and Paradise, guided first by the Roman poet Virgil and then by Beatrice, the poet’s beloved heroine of La Vita Nuova. Written between 1308 and 1321; the year the poet died, the poem was originally called Comedìa, but the epithet ‘Divina’ was later applied by Giovanni Boccaccio. The Divine Comedy is widely regarded as the greatest poetic achievement of Italian literature, portraying an allegorical vision of the Afterlife that offers a treasured insight of the medieval world’s view of life and religion.
The epic poem is composed of 14,233 lines, which are divided into the three canticas Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso, with each consisting of 33 cantos. An initial canto serves as an introduction to the work and is generally considered to be part of the first cantica, bringing the total number of cantos to 100. The first two cantos serve as a prologue to the epic poem. Throughout the work, the number three is prominent in the work, symbolising God, Christ and the Holy Spirit, represented here by the length of each cantica and the number of parts.
Written in the first person, the poem recounts Dante’s journey through the three realms of the dead from the night before Good Friday to the Wednesday after Easter in the spring of 1300. The Roman poet Virgil, a figure believed to have an almost supernatural importance in medieval times, guides Dante through Hell and Purgatory, instructing him of the sins committed by the tormented souls and the punishments that are given to them. However, it is Beatrice, Dante’s idealised woman, that guides him through Heaven and the realm of the blessed. Beatrice was a Florentine woman whom the poet had met in childhood and loved with an obsession-like passion, as recounted in La Vita Nuova. Tragically Beatrice had died young and divinely pure, serving as the perfect guide to conduct the poet through Paradise.
The Divine Comedy is a work of world literature, inspiring Western Civilisation’s views of religion and the artistic portrayal of the Afterlife for centuries. Countless poets and artists from across the world have been influenced by Dante’s great epic, illustrating the immense fame and unparalled grace of this Italian masterpiece.