Dante’s “Journey into Joy,” expressed in artwork and music was created to make Dante’s experience come alive, to share the profound feelings and insights found in the Comedy with all who view the project, who respond to its reverberations.
The Divine Comedy presents the journey of life through the vision of the thirteenth-century poet, Durante, or Dante Alighieri. Dante came from a respectable family and was well educated formally, having chosen additional studies in philosophy and theology. Although artistically gifted, he eventually enrolled in the wealthy Guild of Physicians and Apothecaries in order to seek political office and engage seriously in public life (Mazzotta 4). He became an ambassador for the city of Florence as a member of the White Guelph party. When he was sent to meet with the pope, the Black Guelphs took over Florence and exiled Dante from the city for life, under pain of death.
After joining an attempt to reinstate his party, Dante finally broke off all political connections. The rest of his life was spent in exile, but resulted in the creation of the unparalleled Divine Comedy. Like his pilgrim in the Comedy, Dante found himself in “the dark wood” of exile in middle-age, separated from his family and active public life and forced by circumstances to turn inward, to take a different direction, to explore his own soul through his writing.
Dante wrote the Comedy in the vernacular, rather than in the Latin used in scholarly works of his day. By writing in the language of ordinary people, he expressed his intent to show that the pilgrim’s journey is one that is common to all people of any rank. In this way he insured that the Comedy could be read widely and enjoyed by all literate people, being written in a humble style by an “ordinary” person.
Dante’s universe reflects the Ptolemaic structure; the literal depictions of hell, purgatory and heaven mirror the scriptural and theological beliefs of the Middle Ages. However, the pilgrim’s path in each of these places resonates with three states of experience familiar to human beings of any time or culture. In hell, the souls experience “the frightening feeling of being stuck in a depressingly downward spiral of hopelessness” (Jones 1). Purgatory turns despair into a hope for change, the possibility of repentance and a movement forward into new life. In paradise, souls experience being truly themselves, an expansive freedom and the reality of being united with God and all others.
Lost in the dark forest, Dante looks around for some means of escape and sees a nearby hilltop bathed in sunlight. Instinctively, he moves toward it, hoping to climb straight up its slope into the light. However, three animals––a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf block his way, forcing him back deeper into the darkness. Unlike the pattern of the first half of life, the second half is not an experience of reaching high goals by one’s own efforts and achievements. Dante, as an everyman figure, must at this point face his own weaknesses, compulsions and underdeveloped parts, known in Jungian terms as “the shadow” (Luke 5).
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