The Divine Comedy is a personalized history of Dante’s time and city. The citizens of Florence, the heroes of classical antiquity, popes, kings, emperors, villains, and saints—the whole gamut of humanity lives in the poetry. These characters are real, not fourteenth-century inventions of science fiction, but actual personalities who played major or minor roles in Italian history. In placing them in the Inferno, Purgatorio, or Paradiso, Dante simply follows the logical development of the pattern of their lives on earth into their lives in eternity. Neither God nor the devil brought them to their destination. Because of their deliberate, conscious choices, they brought themselves to these ends. In the Inferno, without exception, they lost the “good of the intellect” because they preferred evil.
Students explore medieval concepts and the use of double point of view—Dante as master poet and Dante as pilgrim; view artwork and diagrams depicting the journey; and examine literary terms, including allegory and symbols. They study the complete Inferno and selected cantos of the Purgatorio and Paradiso.
Supplementary materials feature topics for research and two objective tests with answer keys.
