The Divine Comedy

[La Divina Commedia]
Year: 
1320
Type: 
Public: 
Publisher: 
Barnes & Noble
Year of publication: 
2010
Pages: 
693
Moral assessment: 
Type: Literature
Nothing inappropriate.
Some morally inappropriate content.
Contains significant sections contrary to faith or morals.
Contains some lurid passages, or presents a general ideological framework that could confuse those without much Christian formation.
Contains several lurid passages, or presents an ideological framework that is contrary or foreign to Christian values.
Explicitly contradicts Catholic faith or morals, or is directed against the Church and its institutions.
Literary quality: 
Recommendable: 
Transmits values: 
Sexual content: 
Violent content: 
Vulgar or obscene language: 
Ideas that contradict Church teaching: 
The rating of the different categories comes from the opinion of Delibris' collaborators

A poem about life after death. The inferno (hell) is a conical funnel, purgatory a mountain with circular ledges for repentant sinners, and at the top is earthly paradise. Dante's guide in both hell and purgatory is Virgilis as he speaks to lost friends and foes. But in paradise his guide is the love of his life, Beatrice.

Dante Alighieri was born in 1265 in Florence, Italy, within the Guelf family. He died in 1321. As a boy he fell in love with a local girl called Beatrice but each of them ended up marrying separately. He was sent to work in the embassy in Rome after a family feud. This masterpiece of literature is a poem of symbolism and allusion, encampassing Dante's thoughts on theology, philosophy, astronomy, natural science and history. The visual imagery has the power to make the spiritual visible.

Author: Cliff Cobb, United Kingdom
Update on: Feb 2024