FEATURED POST

Dante's Inferno is the first part of his magnum opus, The Divine Comedy. This poetic work is an insightful, symbolic elaboration of the spiritual life, particularly the necessity of going deep down into the darkness of one's own soul and setting it in order before being able to make spiritual progress.

The Inferno begins with Dante trying to climb up the mountain to heaven but being physically prevented by three beasts from making the climb at all. Instead, his guide, the Roman poet Virgil, takes Dante down into hell, through which he must pass in order to begin the assent through purgatory and into heaven. 

The theme in The Divine Comedy, but especially in the Inferno, is that in the spiritual life, the only way up is down. One must address the darkness in his soul before beginning to become holy.