Most of these posts would not be very helpful to those planning on using the information for a class project. There is no analysis of imagery, no character sketches and hardly any mentions of the plot. But I'm going to depart from my usual modus operandi and try and explain the geography of Dante's Heaven, Purgatory and Heaven in as efficient a way as possible.
Heaven is topped by the Empyrean, which is where He resides as three concentric circles. Following that is the Primium Mobile, home of angels. Then the Fixed Stars, containing the Church Triumphant (any popes and saints that were just all that). The next 7 parts of Paradise are divided by the 4 cardinal virtues (math isn't the Holy One's strong suit) - Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude. Circles 4-7 are for those who exemplified all four of the virtues, but excelled particularly in one of them. From highest to lowest, the virtues are Temperance, Justice, Fortitude and Prudence. The remaining three circles are for those who were good enough, but were lacking in one. The 3rd was for those lacking in Temperance (Lovers), the 2nd for those lacking Justice (Ambitious), and the first for those lacking Fortitude (Inconstant). Why Prudence isn't another circle I can't seem to figure out, but I digress, there's much more to get to. These circles are all planets and stars and pretty things, they ascend to each "as if shot by an arrow", accompanied by much fanfare.
Purgatory is for those who are still above damnation, but have to work off their sins. There are 10 rings making up a mountain, descending from the summit, the Garden of Eden. The next 7 are for the 7 Deadly Sins (in descending order) - Lustful, Gluttonous, Covetous, Slothful, Wrathful, Envious, and Proud. Dante further divides these, claiming that all of these 7 (as opposed to their counterparts in Hell) stem from love. The highest three are from an excessive love of things, Sloth is for a deficiency of love, and the lowest three are for perverted love. Below those there are two circles of Ante-Purgatory for the excommunicated and late repentant. Once their "sentence" has been served by things such as the slothful running incessantly, they can then ascend.
Hell is a descent into a pit, still in a spiraling pattern going down into the center of the Earth, consisting of 9 Circles. The first is Limbo, which is for those who simply weren't Christian. Then we go through the same sorts of sins - Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger. Then there is the city walls of Dis, which divides upper and lower Hell. The 6th circle for Heretics is the last of the simple circles. At this point, the circles begin splitting and subdividing like Harry Potter movies. The 7th is the Violent, divided into 3 - against People and Property, against Self, and against God and nature. The 8th is then chopped up into 10 "pockets", all for different types of fraud and treachery - Seducers, Flatterers, Simonists, Sorcerers/Astrologers, Lawyers/Politicians, Hypocrites, Theives, False Advisers, Gossips (Sowers of Discord), and Falsifiers. Finally, we reach the final circle - Treachery. This is divided into 4 - the traitors of family, community, guests, and lords. After this final circle, we reach the centre of Hell, which is made specially for Satan. Here he is encased in ice from the chest down, with three faces chewing on the still-living bodies of Brutus, Cassius and Judas Iscariot.
Now that that has all been explained, the speedy plot summary is: When Dante was 35, he got lost, had the spirit of Virgil (an ancient poet) come to him and say "I have a shortcut!" and then lead him down through Hell, then up Purgatory, and then give him to Beatrice, who leads him through Paradise. Then he returns to Earth and the living to tell all of what he has seen. Besides this core plot, the only other interesting thing in the Divine Comedy is the roll call of friends, enemies and famous faces that Dante calls to account for their sins - some of them before they've even died. The book follows a formula that, while not concise, allows for the sometimes complex theological messages to be transmitted quite clearly. The terza rima format was nice, although my translation (Mandelbaum) didn't retain nearly enough of the rhyming. I did enjoy the book, but I can't help but thinking that epic poems are, in general, just an unnecessarily grandiose format for any literature.
6/10
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