The Divine Comedy: brief summary, structure, explanation, description of the main characters, language of the work written by Dante Alighieri.
The Divine Comedy is a poem written by Dante Alighieri between 1304 and 1321, years in which he was forced to live far from the city of Florence , from which he had been exiled for political reasons.
The Divine Comedy is one of the most important masterpieces of all Italian literature , in which Dante – who is therefore simultaneously the author and protagonist of the narration – describes the imaginary and symbolic journey through the three worlds of the afterlife: Hell , Purgatory and Paradise .
Structure
What is the structure of the Divine Comedy ? Dante imagines his poem as an architect would design a splendid cathedral. Each element of the narrative has a precise place and, with a typically medieval taste , numbers play a fundamental role in the construction of the work. Above all, the number three returns repeatedly, a symbol of perfection and a reference to the Trinitarian nature of God according to Christian doctrine.
The text is in fact organized into three canticles, Inferno , Purgatory and Paradise , corresponding to the three worlds crossed by Dante. In turn, each canticle is divided into thirty-three cantos (something similar to the chapters of a modern novel ), plus one that serves as a general introduction to the beginning of the Inferno: in this way the cantos in total are one hundred.
The number three also returns in the choice to divide the verses into stanzas of three. The poem is in fact written in Dantean tercets , or stanzas formed by three hendecasyllables with linked rhymes, according to the ABA, BCB, CDC scheme: in practice, the second verse of each tercet introduces the rhyme that will be repeated in the first and third verse of the following tercet, generating that “chaining” effect whereby each stanza is linked by rhymes to both the previous and the following one.
Language
The language of the Comedy is the Florentine vernacular of the fourteenth century : it is therefore the language that was spoken in the city of Florence at the time of Dante, but revisited and ennobled (for example with the use of terms that recall Latin) to adapt it to literary and poetic purposes.
Furthermore, as one continues reading, the language becomes increasingly complex, because Dante must confront the difficulty of illustrating the complex philosophical and theological concepts necessary to explain the nature and functioning of Purgatory and, above all, of Paradise.
In this work we can therefore identify different linguistic registers, ranging from the most “low” and comical to the most courtly and sublime.
In Hell we find harsher rhymes and simpler language, in Purgatory an elegiac tone that draws inspiration from the Dolce Stil Novo , while in Paradise a more elevated language, deriving from classical and philosophical culture.
His style is characterized by caesuras, neologisms, popular words, dialects, Latinisms and so on, which is why we speak of Dante’s plurilingualism .
Personages
So, what does the Divine Comedy tell? Summarizing a poem of enormous complexity in a few lines is obviously impossible. However, there are three key characters who guide Dante in the various stages of his journey and who must be kept in mind if one wants to have an overall idea of the poem.
The story begins with Dante’s loss in the “dark forest”, a symbol of the sinful condition that keeps the poet away from the vision of God. The Latin poet Virgil , the author of the Aeneid , comes to Dante’s aid: he will be Dante’s first guide in the descent through the places of Hell and in the subsequent ascent to the top of the mountain of Purgatory.
Here, however, Virgil must stop: being a pagan, that is, a man who has not known the message of Christ, he, however wise, cannot reach Paradise and another guide is needed to accompany Dante in the final part of his journey.
The second guide is therefore Beatrice : the woman loved by the poet, symbol of perfection and, as her name says, capable of leading Dante to bliss, or rather of bringing him closer to God.
In the final part of the story, however, to illustrate the complex theological concepts linked to the vision of divinity which is the culmination of the journey, a third guide is needed: it is up to Saint Bernard to replace Beatrice and lead Dante to the centre of Paradise, where the poet is admitted to the contemplation of God.
Hell
Hell appears as a huge chasm in the shape of an inverted cone, whose apex is located at the center of the Earth. This chasm was created by the fall of Lucifer, the leader of the rebel angels who was expelled from Paradise by God .
At the entrance to Hell is the river Acheron. On its banks are the souls of the dead waiting to be transported by the ferryman of souls, Charon, to the opposite side of the river.
Souls suffer punishment based on the sins they committed in life. Sins are divided into three major categories: incontinence (giving in to primal impulses without using reason); violence (against God, others, or oneself); fraud (using reason to do harm).
These three categories are in turn divided into nine circles, or circles, each of which corresponds to a specific sin. In the first circle are those who have not received baptism; in the second the lustful; in the third the gluttonous; in the fourth the avaricious and the prodigal; in the fifth the wrathful and the slothful; in the sixth the heretics; in the seventh the violent; in the eighth the thieves, the hypocrites, the sowers of discord, the forgers, the counselors of fraud; in the ninth the traitors.
In the deepest part, which corresponds to the center of the Earth, is Lucifer, who eternally crushes the three traitors Judas, Brutus and Cassius.
Purgatory
Purgatory is a mountain where all those souls who have committed minor sins are present and who are waiting to be purified in order to access Heaven.
Purgatory is composed of seven ledges, in each of which the souls are distributed according to the sins committed. They will reside in the respective ledge for a time proportional to the gravity of the sin. Each ledge corresponds to a capital sin. If in Hell the sins become more serious as one descends in depth (so the sins of the fifth circle, for example, are more serious than those of the first), in Purgatory it is the opposite: here Dante’s path proceeds from the most serious sin to the least serious (so the sins of the fifth ledge are less serious than those of the first ledge).
Purgatory also has a tripartite structure: at the entrance there is the Antepurgatory, then the Purgatory itself and finally the Earthly Paradise, where the souls complete their purification in the waters of the river Lethe.
Paradise
Heaven consists of nine concentric heavens, at the center of which is the Earth. The first seven heavens are named after the planets of the Ptolemaic system ( Moon , Mercury, Venus , Sun , Mars, Jupiter, Saturn ), while the last two are represented by the Fixed Stars and the Primum Mobile.
All the souls of Paradise are in the Empyrean together with God, but they appear to Dante in the various heavens to explain the theological mysteries to him and make his journey more understandable.
Each soul appears in a specific heaven based on the spiritual characteristics that distinguished it in life. Thus: in the heaven of the Moon appear the defaulters, in the heaven of Mercury the active spirits, in that of Venus the loving spirits and so on. Each soul desires nothing more than what it already has and wants only what God wants.
Here too there is a tripartite division of souls: there are those who have merited Paradise through the virtues of worldly life, active life and contemplative life. Above all the heavens is the Empyrean, which has the shape of a very large flower in whose center sit the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, surrounded by angels.
