The Divine Comedy
Dante Alighieri (1320)
“A poet walks through Hell, climbs Purgatory, and ascends to the face of God — writing the greatest poem in any language along the way, settling every political score he ever had.”
EraMedieval
Pages798
Difficulty★★★★★ Expert
AP Appearances9
Character Analysis
Both character and author, the Pilgrim is simultaneously Dante's self-portrait and his idealized self. In the Inferno, he is emotional, frequently terrified, and prone to sympathy that his author judges as weakness. In the Purgatorio, he grows more discerning. In the Paradiso, he becomes a vessel for understanding. The gap between Pilgrim and Poet — between the character experiencing and the author who has already experienced — is the poem's most productive tension.