Divine comedy

Plot Summary
Inferno opens on the evening of Good Friday in the year 1300. Traveling through a dark wood, Dante Alighieri has lost his path and now wanders fearfully through the forest. The sun shines down on a mountain above him, and he attempts to climb up to it but finds his way blocked by three beasts—a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf. Frightened and helpless, Dante returns to the dark wood. Here he encounters the ghost of Virgil, the great Roman poet, who has come to guide Dante back to his path, to the top of the mountain. Virgil says that their path will take them through Hell and that they will eventually reach Heaven, where Dante’s beloved Beatrice awaits. He adds that it was Beatrice, along with two other holy women, who, seeing Dante lost in the wood, sent Virgil to guide him. Dante and Vergil next arrive at the Mount of Purgatory, which is surrounded by an ocean. On ten terraces running up the side of the mountain are souls purging themselves of venial sins involving negligence, pride, envy, sloth, political intrigue and other transgressions. Dante exults in the light and hope that greet him after leaving the horrid realm of darkness and death. At the entrance to Purgatory, Dante and Vergil meet Cato, an ancient Roman who, as censor in 184 B.C., attempted to root out immorality and corruption in Roman life. In Dante's poem, Cato symbolizes the four cardinal virtues of Roman Catholicism: prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. On Cato's instructions, Vergil cleanses Dante's face of the grime of hell and girdles his waist with a reed, symbolizing humility. An angel writes seven P's across Dante's forehead, each representing one of the seven deadly sins. The angel then tells Dante he must wash away the P's–that is, purge himself of sin–while in Purgatory. Heaven, a place of perfect happiness, is a celestial region with planets, stars and other bodies. It resembles the earth-centered system of Ptolemy rather than the sun-centered system of Copernicus and Galileo. The placement of an individual depends on the level of goodness he or she achieved in life, although everyone experiences the fulness of God's love. Dante and Beatrice then rise into heaven, where the poet discovers that even some pagans–persons born before the time of Christ–abide in the heavenly realm because they accepted revelations from God. At the lowest level of Heaven is the Moon. Next come Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Stars and the Primum Mobile, the cause of time and of all movement in the universe. The highest level is the Empyrean, the abode of the Triune God, the Virgin Mary, other angels, and saints.

Characters
Dante-He is the main character, or protagonist, of the poem is the author himself.

Vergil-The Roman poet Publius Vergilius Maro, or Vergil, escorts Dante through Hell and Purgatory.

Beatrice-Dante’s lover, Dante is trying to bring her back from the dead.

Themes
1. The perfection of God’s justice

2. Evil as the contradiction of God’s will

3. Storytelling as a way to achieve immortality

4. Be good in life it will pay off later

Symbols
The book Divine Comedy itself could be considered a symbol of the spiritual quest of human life.

Geryon the man with the head of an innocent man and the body of a serpent represents dishonesty and fraud.

Virgil represents reason, and Beatrice represents spiritual love

Farinata represents qualities of leadership and politics

Significant Quotes
“Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself in dark woods, the right road lost.”

“Through me you enter into the city of woes through me you enter into eternal pain, through me you enter the population of loss. Abandon all hope, you who enter here.”

One day, for pleasure, We read of Lancelot, by love constrained: Alone, suspecting nothing, at our leisure. And so was he who wrote it; that day we read, No further

I did not open them—for to be rude To such a one as him was courtesy