Divine Comedy
Medieval Literature is one of the peaks in the literature created by mankind. Even without being familiar with the universal truths that we nowadays find pretty obvious, people and especially writers from those times were used to mixing religion, science, believes and culture in one peice of literature thus creating masterpieces that we now consider not only a fascinating reading, but a good source of literature as well. It is something that I believe secondary teaching jobs should place more emphasis on in the current curriculum.
Dante Alighieri was a profound military officer in the Florence army in the 12th century, but disgussed by the political circumstances and the judicial systems of the Mid Ages, he started craeting his most famous and definitely most influential work -The Divine Comedy divided in three parts :Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise.
By using the metaphor and the replaced names of many real people of the current and past ages, Dante described the Inferno (with the nine circles of Hell) as a place people, even considered to be rightous by the public, were put there because of sins committed. The Purgatory is for those who were neither too sinful to find a place in the circles of hell nor good enough to rise to Heaven. The Paradise and its seven skies are the place for those with pure hearts, respecting the laws of Justice and following the God’s orders.
By representing the travelling of the main character, Dante is actually describing himself and his journey through the layers of the different social classes in reality. Trying to find his love in this mythical world, the main character would discover what forces rule the afterlife, how religion doesn’t matter since there is one God only and one place to be put after your life depending on your lifetime commitments.
The poems written by Dante and collected in the trilogy Divine Comedy remain one of the clearest and most influential sources for historians to explore the culture and the believes during the Mid Ages.
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