The Hero's Journey In Divine Comedy By Dante Alighieri

Melanie Bolton

FDWLD 101 Section 8

March 25, 2016 Many souls have been lost following a path that they fear is taking them nowhere and they leave the path. Enlightened souls are made from those, who when they are lost, make the choice to find a correct path and continue upward. In Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (approximately 1303-1321), Dante casts himself as an ordinary, sinful, distracted wanderer, who becomes lost and afraid, and begins to search for his way out of the dark place his has found himself in. Making his story relatable to the common person, Dante grabs his fellow travelers by the hand and takes them with him on his journey through three regions of afterlife: Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. His journey follows Joseph Campbell’s

This is the Initiation stage of the Hero’s Journey and also part of the long journey in the Temple Pattern. In The Divine Comedy II: Purgatory, Dante finds souls who are purging themselves from sin and perfecting themselves for Heaven. He learns this place is, “Where human spirits purge themselves, and train / To leap up into joy celestial” (Purgatory, p. 73). The souls in Purgatory are different than the souls in Hell, because they have hope of redemption and know they will go to Heaven. Virgil, much like a father figure in the monomyth, leads Dante up Mount Purgatory, through the seven layers of misery and purging. The trials that Dante faces as he journeys from one level to another, is part of the hero’s initiation, and symbolizes the long journey back to God. Purgation ends when the soul is cleansed from within. With each layer of Purgatory, Dante’s desires to overcome sin and reject the things of the world become stronger and he learns to have compassion for those who sin. Still part of his hero’s challenge, as he gets ready to leave Purgatory, he is told that all sinners who leave Purgatory have to go through a wall of fire, as a cleansing process, much like baptism which cleanses the soul, “Holy souls, there’s no way on or round / But through the bite of fire” (p. 281). Again, he has to make a choice to follow the path or to turn back. Dante hesitates, but Virgil encourages him, telling Dante that they are rising to the

Beatrice’s brilliance and her example of divine enlightenment are shown in such a loving way in The Divine Comedy III: Paradise. She further assists Dante in his journey to redemption. In order to lead Dante correctly, Beatrice constantly looks to Heaven for guidance. She takes Dante through nine levels of heaven, defined as nine celestial spheres. Each planet is a progression toward the final destination, the Empyrean, the highest Heaven, where Christ resides. In the heaven of Saturn, the seventh and final planet, Dante is led to a golden ladder, a way to rise above the other worlds into God’s eternal realm. While on this ladder, he hesitates one last time and questions the path he is following. Lovingly, through her divine counsel, Beatrice continues to lead Dante upward, toward a greater light, where the souls who have accepted redemption reside. When they finally reach their destination, a place that Dante describes as a “…rose / Of snow-white purity,” (p.327), he also sees the souls who have been redeemed by Christ’s blood. Here in the most celestial sphere, Dante journey has come to a perfect