The Divine Comedy
Dante, with Virgil for a guide, visits hell and Purgatory. Hell or Inferno is a funnel-shaped
hollow forming gradually-contracting circles of which the lowest and the smallest is the burning earth''s center. Here
sinners suffer the fires of hell night and day.
Purgatory is a mountain rising from the ocean, and it has the circular ledge where repentant sinners are found. It is divided into terraces, the top is the terrestrial
paradise.
Dante goes to the next paradise, a world of beauty, light and song. Here he encounters Beatrice, the personification of divine grace. She takes him around and shows Dante the baueties of Paradise for the souls that are pure and hallowed by virtuous living when they were on earth.
In the poetic narration, Dante explains what he sees in the different regions. He employs all the learning, science, literary devices and mythological figures and poetic imagery makiing every place he describes seemingly real.