Winston Churchill once said, "If you're going through hell, keep going." If you were to describe Dante's Divine Comedy in the simplest way possible you would use this quote. However, Dante's Divine Comedy has never been so simple. Of course, it's about religion, hell and heaven. But it is also about political ideas. The way spirituality and politics merge in Dante's world has interested literary devils and political theorists alike. So what exactly is Dante's Divine Comedy? How did Dante's daily life influence this piece of literature? And, more importantly, what were the political ideas that Dante managed to weave into his religiously fueled story? Dante's Divine Comedy is a narrative about how Dante goes through hell and finally makes it to heaven. Dante recognizes his sins and goes from misery to happiness in three stages, "Hell, Purgatory and Paradise". The poem is designed “to remove those who live in this life from a state of misery and bring them to a state of happiness” by showing the metaphorical turmoil a soul must go through to reach inner content (Gilbert 82). famous for many reasons. It is considered the best epic poem in Italian history (Bigongiari 12). People were fascinated by it because it was the first piece of literature in that time period to address political and spiritual morality. Dante's Divine Comedy is an allegory. This means that the theme of the story is not immediately obvious, the reader must decipher its meaning. (Gilbert 31). This has caused controversy among readers, and is one of the reasons it has survived the test of time. Although the Divine Comedy is his most famous work, Dante wrote many passages before it in which he discusses the beginnings of the end.... .. middle of paper ......t are strongly in conflict with each other in society today (i.e., the separation of Church and State), the world is still deciphering its meaning and how we can let Dante's Divine Comedy influence the world so that we can gain our own order. Works Cited. Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy (Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.) New York: American Classics Publishing, 2001. Bergin, Thomas. Perspectives on the Divine Comedy. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1967. Bigongiari, Dino. Readings of the Divine Comedy. Dover: Griffon House Publications for The Bagehot Council, 2006. Clements, Robert. American critical essays on the Divine Comedy. London: 1997. Farnell, Stewart. The political ideas of the Divine Comedy. Lanham: University Press of America, 1985. Gilbert, Allan. Dante's conception of justice. Durham: Duke University Press, 1925.