“All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”
― Dante, The Divine Comedy: Inferno – Purgatorio – Paradiso

The plot of the Divine Comedy is the tale of Dante’s journey towards redemption at the middle of his life. This great poem of Italian literature tells of Dante’s journey through the three realms of the dead, with guides Virgil taking him through Hell and Purgatory: Beatrice, an idealised woman, guiding him through Heaven and the abbot Bernard of Clairvaux guiding him through the final three cantos. The poem is representative of the medieval worldview and explores the condition of the soul, portraying a vision of divine justice in which humans receive punishment or reward dependent on their actions. Begun in 1308, and completed in 1327, shortly before the author’s death, the poems vernacular language, humanist sentiment and its synthesis of classical modes of literature with Christian ideology while highly symbolic of Renaissance ideals, are surprisingly relevant to life today.