Book Review

Devine Comedy Purgatorio

 Introduction

Purgatorio is the second of three poems that

make up The Divine Comedy by Florentine
statesman, poet, and philosopher Dante. In The
Divine Comedy, Dante travels first through Hell
(the poem Inferno), then through Purgatory (the
poem Purgatorio), and finally through Heaven (the
poem Paradiso). Purgatorio follows Dante on his
journey from the shores of Purgatory, through the
seven levels where penitents atone for the seven
deadly sins, and into the Garden of Eden. The
poem is divided into 33 cantos.
 Dante wrote the poem (in Italian, in the Tuscan
dialect) during the period, from approximately 1308
to 1320, when he lived in exile from his native
Florence. Purgatorio explores how human souls
purify themselves from sin through a journey to
recover their communal selves. According to
Dante, this process, which leads souls closer to
the divine, requires that they engage all their
human faculties: imaginative, intellectual, and
sensory. Dante also addresses how human history
reveals divine truth.
Summary
Cantos 1-9 find Dante and his guide, Roman
poet Virgil, arriving at Purgatory’s shores
and searching for the entrance. Penitents,
who sing hymns and comfort one another as
they await their opportunity to repent, assist
the two in their search. An angel marks
Dante’s brow with seven Ps, one to
represent each of the seven deadly sins:
pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, gluttony,
and lust.
 In Cantos 10-26, Virgil and Dante travel through
the seven levels of purgation, one for each of the
sins. They see examples of virtue and vice from
figures represented in classical Greco-Roman
myth, as well as in Hebrew and Christian
scriptures. Penitents continue to sing relevant
hymns together. Dante marvels at the sights and
sounds he experiences and engages in
conversations with historical figures from Middle
Ages Europe. These conversations include
discussions about the nature of sin, love, and
human development, with an emphasis on
humanity’s unique feature: a conscious self.
 After passing through the final
level, Dante’s brow is clear, and he
and Virgil arrive at the entrance to
the Garden of Eden, where Cantos
28-33 take place.
In Canto 28, Dante meets a woman, Matelda, who will lead
him to Beatrice, a woman he fell in love with as a child but
who married another man and died young. Beatrice will
take over as Dante’s guide in the Garden of Eden and on
his next journey, through Heaven. After a procession
representing divine truth as the course of history has
revealed it, Beatrice chastises Dante for having lost his way
after she died and takes his confession. Dante repents, and
Matelda bathes him, first in the Lethe, the river of
forgetfulness that erases the memory of sins, and then in
the Eunoe, a river that restores the memory of good deeds.
Beatrice warns Dante of retribution to come after their
procession faces seven fierce attacks by various creatures.
She enjoins Dante to write about what he has seen and
experienced as a warning for the living. Dante is now ready
to undertake the next step in his journey through Heaven.