In his roles both as an author and a character, Dante Alighieri is a visionary and a prophet—and a very human one. The Divine Comedy is the literary record of Dante’s intense religious epiphany in the year 1300, a cosmic narrative seen through a personal lens. The Dante of the poem begins his adventure lost in a dark wood, paralyzed by fear. Poetry—in the form of his great literary hero Virgil—rescues him, and it is by poetry that he means to rescue others.

Dante the pilgrim is a complex and psychologically subtle figure: proud enough to know his own genius, humble enough to recognize his own sins one by one as he finds them mirrored in the denizens of Hell. His humor is as earthy as his vision is sublime.

Ultimately, love motivates Dante: love that he figures in his divine lady, Beatrice, but that he ultimately recognizes emanates from, and is, God Himself.

The wise, kind, brave, virtuous, and altogether lovable Virgil is Dante’s idol, his inspiration, and his guide. Virgil often takes on a parental role: Dante calls him both “father” and “mother,” and Virgil more than once scoops Dante up like a baby to carry him out of trouble.