Divine Comedy

"The Divine Comedy" is a grand monument of poetic culture and a real encyclopedia of the medieval worldview. In it, the poet makes a journey through three kingdoms of the afterlife and with amazing clarity and vividness of depiction gives a vivid, memorable picture of what is happening there. The common people took Dante's poem literally. Boccaccio told about two women from Verona who, noticing Dante passing by, exchanged meaningful remarks. "Look," said one, "here is the one who descends into Hell and, returning from there whenever he wishes, brings news of the sinners there." The other answered: "You must be right: look how his beard is curly, and his face is black from the smoke and soot of the hellish fire." In our days, historians and critics still do not stop arguing about what this great work is: a "guide" to the afterlife or an attempt to know the unknowable, to find the rational in the irrational, to show people the way from darkness and sorrow to light and joy.