The Divine Comedy, written by Dante Alighieri around 1308 and originally called The Comedy, is widely considered one of the most important works of Italian literature. It is an epic poem composed of three books: Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso, which tell (narrate) the adventures of Dante the Pilgrim (a fictitious character personified by Dante himself) in his travels through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. While frightening on a literal level, on a more significant level it allegorically represents a deeper topic: the trials of the human soul to achieve morality and find unity with God. As we travel with Dante the Pilgrim on his journey to leave behind the sin and achieve peace with God, we can see that from the beginning of Hell these themes of man's return to God, the perfection of God's justice and the superior importance of Grace over Reason are made evident and are the foundation on which Dante chooses to build the rest of his Divine Comedy. In Canto I, Dante the Poet immediately clarifies the allegorical nature of his poem by beginning with the following passage: (Muse 3) "Halfway through our life's journey, I awoke and found myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered away from the right path.How hard it was to say, this wild, wild and stubborn wood (the thought brings to mind all my old fears),A bitter place could hardly be more bitter good that comes from it, I should talk about things other than good". The first theme that emerges from the previous passage is the theme of man's return to God. By writing "our" journey of life, Dante places himself in the role of a character. known as… a paper medium……who for the first part of the journey, had chosen some venerated Christian figure or simply allowed Beatrice to guide him throughout the journey, this important point and theme would have been lost in the opening canto of the Dante's Divine Comedy immediately makes several powerful moves that help lay the foundation for the themes that consistently recur throughout the epic. poetry. We can see that for Dante the themes of man's return to God, the perfection of God's justice and the triumph of grace over reason, were essential elements that Dante sought to communicate to his readers and that constitute the allegorical nature of the epic. Selected bibliographyDante, Alighieri. The portable Dante. Trans. Marco Musa. New York, NY: Penguin, 2003. Print.Johnston, Ian. "Lesson on Dante's Inferno." Johnstonia. Network. December 15. 2010. .