The Divine Comedy is a long narrative poem in three parts, Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. It follows a traveller named Dante, who finds himself lost in a dark wood and is led through the realms of the afterlife. The Roman poet Virgil guides him first, and later other figures take over. Along the way he meets sinners, penitents and saints, many of them real people from history and from his own Florence. The poem is a story of moral and spiritual growth, and also a portrait of medieval ideas about justice, love and God. Its vivid scenes, tight structure and human feeling make it one of the foundations of European literature.
Quotes
If I have well thy language understood,” Replied that shade of the Magnanimous, “Thy soul attainted is with cowardice, Which many times a man encumbers so, It turns him back from honoured enterprise, As false sight doth a beast, when he is shy.
And as he is, who unwills what he willed,And by new thoughts doth his intention change,So that from his design he quite withdraws,Such I became, upon that dark hillside,Because, in thinking, I consumed the emprise,Which was so very prompt in the beginning.