Dante's Work

Dante's work, in all its complexity and its value, was a contemporary landmark even only if we consider the admiration which Boccaccio sent to him; over the centuries, from Chaucer and Chateaubriand, to Miguel de Unamuno, all the great minds have turned to the model represented by Dante. Although Vita Nuova it is widely known as the most noble manifesto of Italian poetry (Hede, p.34), and the most perfect expression of the sweet new style, a mostly candid and ingénue story of Dante's love for the Florentine Beatrice Portinari, Dante’s name became synonymous with The Divine Comedy.

The writer began to write his masterpiece since 1307, before his exile years, and it was the capital work that Dante has developed until the last moment of his life (Raffa, 12). Based on the principles of the medieval poetic art, according to which tragedy has a happy beginning and a tragic denouement, and comedy, after a sad exhibition, evolves into a happy ending, Dante entitled his work Commedia, but Boccaccio attached the attribute "divine” which was then promoted and consecrated by posterity (Taaffe, 21).

This status is not random, but generated by the fact that this paper is a moral autobiography, a drama of the age, a work of synthesis in politics, an epic and, of course, an allegorical poem.

Even from the start there should be mentioned the existence of three distinct layers, merged by Dante in the building of his fictional universe. Usually when we talk about Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise, we know that they are imaginary spaces, detached from faith. Religion is one that states the existence of these areas after death, where souls will go. It's where we are rewarded or punished for the way in which we lived our life.

But it's about a wo...

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...tinct. You make plans; you think about how to follow your steps. Or the gold counterfeiters of the Middle Ages were not operating because they could not restrain themselves. No, they calculated every one of their gestures. Not to mention treason, when you not only harm yourself, but you bring damnation to your entire country. It's the most outrageous wickedness that can be imagined.

Why? Reason - and this is where we recognize Dante as the rational artist! - is offered to us to seek good, not evil. And the highest good is represented by God.

Works Cited

Hede, J. Reading Dante: The Pursuit of Meaning. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, (2007), Print

Taaffe, J., A Comment on the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Oxford University, (1822), Print

Raffa, Guy P., The Complete Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the Divine Comedy. University of Chicago Press, (2009), Print