Virgil's Purpose in the Divine Comedy

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It is difficult to determine the true nature of Virgil in Dante's Commedia. At times, he grants incredible advice that parallels the wisdom of some early church fathers, and other times he shows no expertise in any situation, to the point of conferring entirely misinformed counsel. This disparity is confusing mainly because Virgil looked like he would be an infallible guide at the beginning of the Divine Comedy. Yet there are plenty of occurrences confirming Virgil's shortcomings beyond doubt. So what is Dante trying to convey in Virgil's personage? Virgil is not shown to be completely wicked or just in his appearances in the poem, but there is no moral middle ground, as shown by the structure of Dante's afterlife. So, all the reader is left with is Paradise's estimation of Virgil, which is the only ensured truth the Poet gives the reader. Since Heaven chose Virgil to guide escort Dante the Pilgrim to Heaven, but Virgil can continue no further than the entrance to earthly paradise, Virgil must represent a transitional phase that Dante must shed in order to achieve full salvation.
In his Divine Comedy, Dante portrays two main types of characters along his journey. There are characters that provide false or misleading information, who are found mainly in the Inferno and the Purgatorio, and those who provide honest and beneficial information, found in the Purgatorio and Paradiso. Almost every personage Dante encounters can be easily assigned to one of these two categories. For instance, Francesca da Rimini clearly provides bad council to Dante when she attempts to gain his sympathy for her predicament. Similarly, Beatrice is a paragon of righteousness who aims to bring Dante back from his sojourn of the upright path when Dante had l...

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...Commedia"" Dante Studies With the Annual Report of the Dante Society.90 (1972): 1-11. JSTOR. Web. 08 May 2014. .

Guyler, Sam. "Virgil the Hypocrite: Almost: A Re-Interpretation of Inferno XXIII."Dante Studies With the Annual Report of the Dante Society.90 (1972): 25-42. JSTOR. Web. 09 May 2014. .

Howard, Lloyd. Virgil, the Blind Guide: Marking the Way through the Divine Comedy. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2010. Print.

Priest, Paul. "Allegory and Reality in the "Commedia"" Dante Studies With the Annual Report of the Dante Society.96 (1978): 127-44. JSTOR. Web. 09 May 2014. .

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