The Historical Significance of Dante's Divine Comedy

Outline the historical significance of Dante's `Divine Comedy'

Dante's `Divine Comedy', the account of his journey through hell, purgatory and heaven is one of the worlds great poems, and a prime example of a most splendidly realized integration of life with art. More than being merely great poetry, or a chronicle of contemporary events, which it also is, the `Comedy' is a study of human nature by a man quite experienced with it. The main argument I will make in this essay is that Dante's `Comedy' is chiefly a work of historical significance because in it lies the essence of human life across all boundaries of time and place. I feel that such a reading is justified, nay invited, by Dante himself when he says;

"Oh you who have sane intellects

Take note of the teaching which is hidden

Under the veil of these strange verses"

Indeed so many are the concepts, moral issues and people "hidden under the veil of these strange verses", and due to word count restraints, I must limit myself to just one of its three chapters. The sinners of literature being far more memorable than the saints I will choose `Inferno'.

On first entering the folds of Dante's poetic fiction, `Inferno', one finds oneself, like the pilgrim therein, quite lost. To get beyond the enjoyment of it as sheer poetry, to understand its meaning and its historical significance, it presents a multitude of problems. Not least of these is the uncertainty we face when trying to interpret Dante's use of allegory, a practice common to medieval poets but somewhat alien seven centuries on, and beneath which the meaning of the `Comedy' lies. This uncertainty does not go away if we seek guidance from some modern approaches to Dante's use of allegory such as tho...

... middle of paper ...

...e world in which he lived the `Comedy' is also a profound exploration of questions that transcend his time and place such as morality, in general as well as in politics and religion, concerns as apparent today as they were seven centuries ago.

Bibliography:

Dante, The Inferno, Oxford University Press, 2005

Grayson, Cecil, The World of Dante; Essays on Dante and his Times, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1980

Hamilton Green, Richard, `Dante's Allegory of Poets and the Mediaeval Theory of Poetic Fiction', in Comparative Literature, Vol.9, No.2 (1957), pp. 118-128

Holmes, George, Dante, Oxford University Press, 2006

Kleinhenz, Christopher, `Dante and the bible: Intertextual Approaches to the Divine Comedy', in Italica, Vol.63, No.3 (1986), pp.225-236

Singleton, Charles S., Dante's commedia; Elements of Structure, John Hopkins University Pres, London, 1977.