Why and How to Read Dante’s Divine Comedy
5 Questions on Dante's Masterpiece
Who is Dante? What is the Divine Comedy?
Dante Alighieri was a poet who lived in Florence, Italy. He was renowned as a love poet. He was also an influental political figure at the time. Due to the tumultuous political situation in Italy, he was exiled out of Italy. It was in this exile that he wrote the Divine Comedy.
There is a difference between Dante the Poet and Dante the Pilgrim. The former is the author, the latter is the main character of the narrative. While parts of this might be autobiographical, it is important to maintain this distinction.
The book begins with Dante the Pilgrim discovering himself lost in the woods. He is taken by a guide, Virgil, to traverse the afterlife. He journeys through Hell in Inferno, Purgatory in Purgatorio, and Heaven in Paradiso. The book features characters from his own life as well as ancient mythology, offering portraits of different states of the soul.
The Divine Comedy has been called “an autopsy of the soul.” I find this to be a great description of it. The geography of these states is profound. The different levels in Hell and Purgatory reveal the nature of sins. Hell reveals the reality of those sins, stripped of their illusions. Purgatory reveals what it takes to be freed from the different vices. The Comedy serves to reveal to us what our sins do to us, how we can be freed from our sins and to live rightly, and how we can enter into deep union with God.
How do you read it?
The Divine Comedy should be read in a similar vein to Scripture. Like Scripture, the Comedy should be read on multiple levels. Just as the Bible is classically described as operating in 4 levels (Literal, Anagogical, Moral, and Allegorical). The Divine Comedy can benefit by reading in a similar way. Start with what is literally being presented by the text. But then, move into the deeper levels. What does this say about moral life? What does this reveal about the faith? Christ, the Church, Mary, etc. What does this reveal about the afterlife?
Though it may feel awkward, reading it aloud is beneficial. After all, it is a poem. By reading it aloud, you get in touch with the lyrical nature of Dante’s work. But this verbal reading should lend itself to meditating on the deeper meanings of the text, and to contemplate the God who the text reveals.
There are a couple pitfalls to beware of as well. First, it can be tempting to view this as a literal description of the landscape of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory. Or to take the characters as being literally saved or damned. This is not what Dante is doing. Dante is trying to reveal the states of the human soul to us. Second, there can be a temptation to minimize Dante’s work as merely an attempt to attack his enemies. While some of Dante’s enemies are in Hell, it's also true that some of his friends and relatives are there. And some of his enemies are in Heaven. The characters that Dante uses to show the different states of a human soul are pedagogical. They are educational tools to reveal our humanity to us.
With this, I think it can be helpful to give a brief sketch of each book.
General Sketch on Reading Inferno
Dante’s Inferno shows the journey of Dante the Pilgrim through Hell. He is led by Virgil, the ancient Roman poet. The souls here are in torment. They have rejected the grace that God gave them, and are punished by the very things by which they sinned. This is an important principle here. Sin is its own punishment. The gluttonous are tormented by their gluttony. The violent are tormented by their violence. And so on.
Hell is a pit. It gets deeper and deeper based on the gravity of sin. It is very unintuitive to us moderns what the most serious and least serious sins are. But drawing from the classical tradition of Aristotle through Saint Thomas Aquinas, the order makes a lot of sense. Hell is split into three sections. Each of which is divided into more sections with particular sins or vices. The three main sections though refer to the ways that human beings can fail.
The sins at the top of Hell (the “least serious”) are the sins of incontinence. This means that these sins are those that derive from weakness. They are sins that are not deliberated about, or thought deeply about, but fallen in to. The sins here include lust, gluttony, and anger. This may surprise us, but these sins are seen as the least grave, the least serious because they usually are driven by emotions. They aren’t done with full intentionality. They aren’t done with malice.
The sins in the middle of Hell are sins of violence. The change in the soul with these souls is that they sought to injure another person. They didn’t just lose their cool, or fall into a sin. Although these vices may have started like this, they progressed to a point where injury was intended.
What kinds of sins are considered the worst, then? Dante, drawing from the tradition, considers sins of treachery to be the worst. Sins where there is intentional deception are the worst, because they are the greatest corruption of our rational power. These are done coolly, calmly, and deliberately. They are intended thoughtfully. These are the worst of sins. At the very bottom of Hell you find three traitors. They include Judas and Brutas. They are being devoured by Satan.
Interestingly, Satan is not the cool, sexy deceiver that we are used to seeing today. This tradition comes largely from Milton in his work Paradise Lost. Rather, Satan here is described as large, ugly, and grotesque. He is flapping his wings constantly, yet slowly, as he devours the three traitors for all of eternity. He exists in a slow, lethargic, and almost static state. A nice juxtaposition to God who is Pure Act. Satan’s misplaced sense of freedom causes him to flap and flap and flap. Satan says, “my will be done” rather than “Thy will be done.” Many commentators have pointed to the famous song, “I did it my way.” The winds generated from his constant motion cause the freezing that exists at the bottom of Hell. The frozen lake that he is stuck in.
As a last note on Inferno, it’s important to remember that the major takeaway is: what do these souls do to us? The first thing to focus on is: what do the souls in this given state look like? What is the condition that that soul puts us in? Here on earth we dress up our sins with deceptions. In Dante’s Hell, we get a glimpse at what our sins actually do to us. And please God, move us to repent of them.
General Sketch on Reading Purgatorio
There are similarities between Inferno and Purgatorio. Both involve suffering. Both are on un-level ground. There is also a darkness that exists in both states. However, they are starkly different. While there is urgency in Purgatory, the mood is a lot lighter. The souls here are destined for Heaven. They need to be purified to be made able to go to Heaven, but they will get there eventually.
Purgatory consists of a mountain landscape. Much like the legendary tales, there is something of a hero’s journey in climbing Mount Purgatory. Hell was a pit that got worse and worse as you worked your way down. Purgatory is an inversion (maybe it’s better say that Hell is the inversion). In Purgatory the souls get lighter and lighter, and the journey gets easier and easier as the Mountain is ascended. This is because as you work your way up you are progresing spiritually to lose the attachments to sins that you have accrued throughout life.
In this way, Purgatory contrasts with Inferno as well. It is vital to understand that the suffering in Purgatory is redemptive. It is not punishment, per se, but medicinal. The punishment here has the purpose of cleansing the soul from the vices that it has attached to over a life time. That is why souls get lighter and lighter as they ascend. They are losing the plaque that has built on the soul.
The sins here follow the seven deadly sins. Contrasting with Hell, the most serious sins are at the bottom (the beginning), and the more bodily sins are at the top (the end). So, in purgatory, souls begin with sins of pride and envy and work their way up to sins of lust and gluttony. By the end of purgatory, the human person is back in the correct order that they were before the fall: the head rules the belly through the chest.
When looking at the development out of particular vices, Dante scholars use the language of the contrapasso (this idea does apply to the souls in Hell too). The idea is that to correct a vice, you need to counter it. In the same way that you can bend a green stick back to straight by overexaggerating it in the opposite direction, so you can straighten the vices back to the moderate position of virtue. Again, this assumes a Thomistic account of virtues as a mean between extremes. For example, courage sits between extremes of cowardness and brashness. The remedial punishments in purgatory, then, usually run as opposites to the vices. The slothful, for example, are made to run with haste and urgency! The Purgatorio is valuable for us in seeing how to correct the vices that we struggle with, in this life, so we don’t have to correct them in the next.
The last note I will make on Purgatory is that the souls that pushed off conversion until the end of their life are made to serve the longest sentence. Their presumption does not go unpunished. While they will be saved, it will be after a long purgation. Again, though, Dante is not giving literal depictions of the after life. Rather, he gives spiritual lessons on the different states of the soul. Purgatory may even be instantaneous as some like Pope Benedict XVI seems to propose.
General Sketch on Reading Paradiso
I don’t have much commentary to give on Paradiso. I have been through it twice. It made a lot more sense the second time than the first time. I found it difficult to read, which might say something about the state of my soul. Please God, on the third reading it will make more sense!
Part of this is natural. The Paradiso aims at describing the Beatific Vision. The perfection of the human animal. The human being that has direct knowledge and love of God. This is hard for us to comprehend in our current state.
I will say, it is beautiful. And it is a travesty that most people only read the Inferno. This work should be read in it’s entirety.
Why should I read it?
A lot could be said here, but I will stick to three things.
First, the text is beautiful. I mean this in the sense that it is so wonderfully well ordered. The different threads that Dante weaves together are nothing short of incredible. He weaves together the very best of the mathematical, scientific, philosophical, poetic, and theological knowledge of his day. It is remarkable. The imagery that he uses is so stark and memorable. The beauty of the work lends itself towards reflection on improving as a human being, and on contemplating God who so well orders creation and salvation.
Second, the text reveals deep truths about the human condition. Dante articulates our humanity in such a profound way. The souls at each level give a layered reflection of what that state is like for a soul in that state. The souls in Hell suffering from gluttony reveal what it is like to be trapped in that vice The souls in Purgatory struggling to break free from their sloth, reveal what it takes to break free from that vice. The souls in the different realms of Heaven reveal the glory of that realm of Heaven. This principle holds throughout the Comedy. Dante reveals how our sins are their own punishment. The souls in Hell get exactly what they want, without the illusions that we make to justify our vices. The souls in Purgatory need to battle very consciously to break free from their different vices. The souls in Heaven reveal the Faith, Hope and Charity that is had by the souls from all the different states of life.
Third, Dante’s Divine Comedy is a profound tale that God uses to awaken us to the reality of sin, teach us the way out of it, and show us the promise of glory. This work can change your life for the better. There is a profound challenge impeding conversion today. We don’t recognize sin, nor its effects on us. Without a recognition of sin, there is no use for a Savior. Christ becomes, at best, a sage, a teacher. Dante’s Comedy can awaken us to the reality and gravity of our sins. We are not unlike Dante the Pilgrim who wakes up in a dark wood, not knowing where he is or how he got there. And like Dante we can recognize ourselves in the souls of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, and so work with God’s grace to be freed of vice and open to union with God. Dante is a teacher who can show us the way back to the straight and narrow path.
What translations are there?
Anthony Esolen’s translation is usually the go-to for the Comedy. I really like Mark Musa’s translation (I don’t know Italian, so my taste is nothing more than a taste). You can get this translation in a Penguin Classics book for pretty cheap. There is also a new translation of the Inferno by Jason Baxter that sounds promising. I believe he is working on the rest of the Comedy now. Like with scripture, I think the best translation is the one you will read!
What resources are there to help me with it?
There are a lot of resources that you can find on the Comedy online. As a Great Book it is almost limitless in how deep you can go into it. While there are resources that can be helpful, I think it’s important to treat these as supplementary. Let Dante teach you. Read and reread slowly and contemplatively. It’s not a terribly long work. There are 100 short chapters (Canto’s). I think it’s best to treat it like scripture and read 1 or 2 Canto’s a day. Despite my caution about relying too much on secondary sources, here are some resources I have found helpful.
Ascend-The Great Books Podcast has 7 episodes on different parts of the Inferno. I imagine they will do series on the Purgatorio and Paradiso as well.
Sacred and Profane Love has an episode on each book of the Comedy.
There is also a course taught by Father Sebastian Mahfood available here. He gives brief commentaries on each Canto. It costs about $15, but is a great resource if you are lost in (a dark wood) Dante’s Comedy.
I highly encourage reading Dante’s Divine Comedy. It offers you a mirror to the soul that can be occasion for your conversion. Much like Dante relies on guides to lead his soul to deeper union with God, Dante can be that guide for you and for me.