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Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" is an epic poem written in the early 14th century, divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.

Inferno:

• Dante finds himself lost in a dark forest and guided by the Roman poet Virgil.
• The pair descends through the nine circles of Hell, each representing different sins and their corresponding punishments.
• Notable figures from history and mythology are encountered, and Dante learns about the consequences of sin.
• Satan resides at the centre of Hell, and Dante and Virgil eventually climb down Satan's body to reach the other side of the Earth.

Purgatorio:

• Dante and Virgil ascend Mount Purgatory, representing the climb towards redemption and purification.
• The mountain has seven terraces, each associated with one of the seven deadly sins, and penitent souls undergo trials to cleanse themselves.
• Dante meets various historical and biblical figures who share their stories of repentance.
• At the summit of Purgatory, Dante encounters his idealised vision of Beatrice, who becomes his guide for the journey through Paradise.

Paradiso:

• Dante and Beatrice ascend through the celestial spheres of Heaven, each associated with a particular virtue.
• Dante encounters various blessed souls, including saints, theologians, and other virtuous individuals.
• The poem culminates in Dante's mystical vision of the divine, where he beholds the ultimate reality of God and experiences the beatific vision.
• The "Divine Comedy" concludes with Dante's transcendent experience of the divine love and the ultimate unity of all creation.

Is it possible to appreciate Dante’s work without understanding the man himself and the society in which he lived? A recent book attempted to shed new light on what some have called the greatest of all European poems.

For the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death (September 14th 2021), Open Culture decided to feature a timely resource: Teodolinda Barolini, a professor at Columbia University, posted online a course for anyone who wishes to read Dante’s Commedia from beginning to end. It features 54 recorded lectures, covering Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso, with each cantica being read in its entirety. Barolini also oversees a related web site, Digital Dante, where you can find Dante’s text in the Petrocchi edition with English translations by Mandelbaum and Longfellow. 

Listening to Dante in Translation, I learned that:

• It is called a comedy as it goes from despair (dark wood and then Inferno) to heaven and happiness...it's therefore the opposite of the tragic journey.
• The low (getting to see the face of God and then coming back to Earth) can become high and vice versa
• Progression is from 1-100 (44 cantos in Inferno, 33 in the other two)
• The beginning is in the middle...the present is in the middle of the poet's life journey ("our life" - we all share the journey).

See also:

• In Dante 2021, the Divine Comedy revealed its 21st-century meanings to Katya Adler as she travelled through the regions of the afterlife with three expert guides, plus Michael Sheen as Dante.
• Earlier in 2015, to celebrate Dante's 750th birthday, the BBC's Landmark programme discussed The Divine Comedy.
• Astronaut Reads The Divine Comedy on the International Space Station on Dante’s 750th Birthday
• BBC 2014 radio adaptation of The Divine Comedy
• Dante in Translation
• Start the Week on The Divine Comedy
• Free Online Literature Courses: Dante
• A Free Course on Dante’s Divine Comedy from Yale University
• Botticelli’s 92 Illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy
• Danteworlds
• Divine Comedy in an illuminated medieval manuscript
• A Digital Archive of the Earliest Illustrated Editions of Dante’s Divine Comedy (1487-1568)
• Hear Inferno Read Aloud by Influential Poet & Translator John Ciardi (1954)
• William Blake’s Last Work: Illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy and on Blake's ongoing obsession with these drawings
• Visualising Dante’s Hell: See Maps & Drawings of Dante’s Inferno from the Renaissance Through Today
• A Free Course on Dante’s Divine Comedy from Yale University
• The curious history of Dante on screen
• The “Divine Comedy” is a salutary guide to hope amid adversity
• In the Divine Comedy, Dante goes down the circles of Hell meeting the world’s most illustrious sinners. 700 years after his death, a BBC series explored the contemporary meaning of the seven cardinal sins.