Reading and understanding the Divine Comedy has been a long difficult process for me! At first I was complaining about it and it was frustrating for me to have so many sources to help me understand a text that seemed so difficult from far away to read. Virgil and Dante’s journal through hell and through Purgatorio is filled with many characters that are easy to mix up, especially being that it was my first time reading it.

Dante and Virgil’s journey through Purgatorio is separated into terraces on this mountain. At the very top of the mountain, is the entrance to Heaven, at the bottom is where they just came from Hell. I found it very interesting of the shapes of each part of the Comedies. Inferno was shaped like a spiral, as they descent down through hell, they are understanding sinners and grief, whereas in Purgatorio, they are ascending upward towards the entrance to Heaven. There is a very helpful video on youtube that explains this and the entire Comedy in separate parts.

I like this symbolism throughout the Cantos, it is simple when looking at it like a mountain that you leave your sins behind at the bottom as you recapture innocence of humanity before the fall of man. At the very top of Purgatory, Dante and Virgil find Matilda, who also is near Beatrice whom is Dante’s (dead) girlfriend. Beatrice’s explanation is very confusing as well and I will need to work more to understand that.

The video I watched mentioned that the theme of threes comes up a lot in the trilogy, which is something I will likely mention and look more into in my final paper.

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